The present invention relates to a device and a method for extracting information from detected characteristic signals. A data stream (26; 124a, 124b, 124c) derivable from electromagnetic radiation (14) emitted or reflected by an object (12) is received. The data stream (26) comprises a continuous or discrete characteristic signal (76; 32a, 132b, 132c) including physiological information (100) and a disturbing signal portion 5 (94). The physiological information (100) is representative of at least one at least partially periodic vital signal (20; 156). The disturbing signal portion (94) is representative of at least one of an object motion portion and/or a non-indicative reflection portion. The characteristic signal (76; 132a, 132b, 132c) is transferred by converting at least three absolute components (92a, 92b, 92c) of the characteristic signal (76; 132a, 132b, 132c) related to respective 10 additive channels (74a, 74b, 74c) to at least two difference components (102; 142a, 142b) of the characteristic signal (76; 132a, 132b, 132c), wherein each of the at least two difference components (102; 142a, 142b) can be derived through a respective arithmetic transformation considering at least two of the at least three absolute components (92a, 92b, 92c), wherein the arithmetic transformation comprises additive and subtractive coefficients. Consequently, the 1 disturbing signal portion (94) can beat least partially suppressed in the transferred signal (32; 50).