A criticism of the parametric EEG spike detector

The role of the parametric stage is studied under various conditions and the following points have been demonstrated: -With high sampling rate (200 Hz) but otherwise favourable conditions, as the filter order, p, is increased from zero to nineteen the signal-to-noise ratio at the output of the parametric stage remains the same as at the input. Under less favourable conditions, it can fall as p is increased. -We find that comparable performance (in terms of spikes detected) is obtained when the parametric stage is omitted entirely, and detection is based only on the very simple non-parametric stage.