disclosed are methods and systems for adaptive processing of ambulatory electrocardiogram signals . in one embodiment , the method comprises acquiring a plurality of electrocardiogram signals and transforming the ecg signals to a component space , thereby producing a set of components representing the ecg signals in the component space . the method further includes evaluating the set of components , adaptively selecting from the set of components a subset of components , and processing the subset of components to identify at least one property of the ecg signals . in some embodiments , the method further includes acquiring non - ecg signals , and adaptively selecting the subset of components comprises adaptively selecting the subset of components based on at least the non - ecg signals .