Beyond Ground Truth in K-Complex Detection: A Waveform-Based SVM Classifier and the Limits of Expert Agreement

ObjectiveK-complexes (KCs) are large-amplitude EEG events that represent N2 sleep stage and have been linked to sensory gating, sleep protection, and memory consolidation. Their detection remains limited by inter-rater variability in visual scoring and by the reliance of detectors on features that discard temporal information. We propose a two-stage detector that combines a rule-based candidate localization algorithm with a Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifier operating directly on the raw 2-seconds waveform, and we evaluate it against an adjudicated expert consensus of two different datasets. MethodsPolysomnographic recordings from 10 healthy adults (Dataset 1) were independently annotated by two human scorers; discordant events were adjudicated by a senior expert, yielding 240 consensus KCs. The automatic classifier was evaluated using subject-level 10-fold Group K-Fold cross-validation and compared directly against the two human scorers under identical conditions. Cross-dataset generalization was further assessed on the public DREAMS database (Dataset 2) under both external and internal training criteria. ResultsThe SVM classifier achieved the highest F1-score (79.4%) and accuracy (78.8%) among all scorers, with balanced recall (81.7%) and specificity (75.8%). Of the 58 false positives, 42 originated from events both experts had rejected yet displayed canonical KC morphology and received high classifier confidence (P(KC)>0.7 in 45.2% of cases). This pattern was replicated on Dataset 2. ConclusionA waveform-based classifier matches expert performance and systematically flags morphologically valid KCs that fall outside conventional visual-scoring criteria. SignificanceThese findings question the existence of an unambiguous ground truth for KC detection and support a data-driven redefinition of the event boundary, with implications for sleep staging and memory-consolidation research.