A technique is provided for processing a physiological signal to compensate for artifacts. The technique includes identifying artifacts within the physiological signal. The technique also includes performing one or more multi-resolution decompositions, such as wavelet transformations, on the physiological signal and compensating for the identified artifacts in some or all of the respective decomposition components. The modified decomposition components may be reconstructed to generate an artifact-compensated signal which may be provided to a monitor or other device which is otherwise not configured to compensate for signal artifacts.