Cognition is the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses. Confusion is the state of being uncertain or not being able to focus properly. It hinders a person’s cognitive capabilities and interferes with the learning process or pretty much any day to day task that requires thinking. Detection and prevention of confusion are very important. When a driver is confused, his/her cognition is reduced. This is very dangerous and can cause serious repercussions. Confusion detection finds one such application in MOOCs.

Electroencephalography (EEG) is an electrophysiological monitoring method to record the electrical activity of the brain. It is noninvasive in nature and is used to measure voltage fluctuations resulting from ionic currents within the neurons of the brain. It is most often used to diagnose epilepsy, sleep disorders, depth of anesthesia, coma, encephalopathies, and brain death.

Our motive behind doing this study was to detect if some specific patterns were formed by brain waves during a state of confusion. And EEG giving time series data made it an appropriate choice for conducting this study.