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Impact of Stimulus Features on the Performance of a Gaze-Independent Brain-Computer Interface Based on Covert Spatial Attention Shifts

Regaining communication abilities in patients who are unable to speak or move is one of the main goals in decoding brain waves for brain-computer interface (BCI) control. Many BCI approaches designed for communication rely on attention to visual stimuli, commonly applying an oddball paradigm, and re...

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Autores principales: Reichert, Christoph, Tellez Ceja, Igor Fabian, Sweeney-Reed, Catherine M., Heinze, Hans-Jochen, Hinrichs, Hermann, Dürschmid, Stefan
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7736242/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33335470
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2020.591777
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author Reichert, Christoph
Tellez Ceja, Igor Fabian
Sweeney-Reed, Catherine M.
Heinze, Hans-Jochen
Hinrichs, Hermann
Dürschmid, Stefan
author_facet Reichert, Christoph
Tellez Ceja, Igor Fabian
Sweeney-Reed, Catherine M.
Heinze, Hans-Jochen
Hinrichs, Hermann
Dürschmid, Stefan
author_sort Reichert, Christoph
collection PubMed
description Regaining communication abilities in patients who are unable to speak or move is one of the main goals in decoding brain waves for brain-computer interface (BCI) control. Many BCI approaches designed for communication rely on attention to visual stimuli, commonly applying an oddball paradigm, and require both eye movements and adequate visual acuity. These abilities may, however, be absent in patients who depend on BCI communication. We have therefore developed a response-based communication BCI, which is independent of gaze shifts but utilizes covert shifts of attention to the left or right visual field. We recorded the electroencephalogram (EEG) from 29 channels and coregistered the vertical and horizontal electrooculogram. Data-driven decoding of small attention-based differences between the hemispheres, also known as N2pc, was performed using 14 posterior channels, which are expected to reflect correlates of visual spatial attention. Eighteen healthy participants responded to 120 statements by covertly directing attention to one of two colored symbols (green and red crosses for “yes” and “no,” respectively), presented in the user’s left and right visual field, respectively, while maintaining central gaze fixation. On average across participants, 88.5% (std: 7.8%) of responses were correctly decoded online. In order to investigate the potential influence of stimulus features on accuracy, we presented the symbols with different visual angles, by altering symbol size and eccentricity. The offline analysis revealed that stimulus features have a minimal impact on the controllability of the BCI. Hence, we show with our novel approach that spatial attention to a colored symbol is a robust method with which to control a BCI, which has the potential to support severely paralyzed people with impaired eye movements and low visual acuity in communicating with their environment.
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spelling pubmed-77362422020-12-16 Impact of Stimulus Features on the Performance of a Gaze-Independent Brain-Computer Interface Based on Covert Spatial Attention Shifts Reichert, Christoph Tellez Ceja, Igor Fabian Sweeney-Reed, Catherine M. Heinze, Hans-Jochen Hinrichs, Hermann Dürschmid, Stefan Front Neurosci Neuroscience Regaining communication abilities in patients who are unable to speak or move is one of the main goals in decoding brain waves for brain-computer interface (BCI) control. Many BCI approaches designed for communication rely on attention to visual stimuli, commonly applying an oddball paradigm, and require both eye movements and adequate visual acuity. These abilities may, however, be absent in patients who depend on BCI communication. We have therefore developed a response-based communication BCI, which is independent of gaze shifts but utilizes covert shifts of attention to the left or right visual field. We recorded the electroencephalogram (EEG) from 29 channels and coregistered the vertical and horizontal electrooculogram. Data-driven decoding of small attention-based differences between the hemispheres, also known as N2pc, was performed using 14 posterior channels, which are expected to reflect correlates of visual spatial attention. Eighteen healthy participants responded to 120 statements by covertly directing attention to one of two colored symbols (green and red crosses for “yes” and “no,” respectively), presented in the user’s left and right visual field, respectively, while maintaining central gaze fixation. On average across participants, 88.5% (std: 7.8%) of responses were correctly decoded online. In order to investigate the potential influence of stimulus features on accuracy, we presented the symbols with different visual angles, by altering symbol size and eccentricity. The offline analysis revealed that stimulus features have a minimal impact on the controllability of the BCI. Hence, we show with our novel approach that spatial attention to a colored symbol is a robust method with which to control a BCI, which has the potential to support severely paralyzed people with impaired eye movements and low visual acuity in communicating with their environment. Frontiers Media S.A. 2020-12-01 /pmc/articles/PMC7736242/ /pubmed/33335470 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2020.591777 Text en Copyright © 2020 Reichert, Tellez Ceja, Sweeney-Reed, Heinze, Hinrichs and Dürschmid. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Neuroscience
Reichert, Christoph
Tellez Ceja, Igor Fabian
Sweeney-Reed, Catherine M.
Heinze, Hans-Jochen
Hinrichs, Hermann
Dürschmid, Stefan
Impact of Stimulus Features on the Performance of a Gaze-Independent Brain-Computer Interface Based on Covert Spatial Attention Shifts
title Impact of Stimulus Features on the Performance of a Gaze-Independent Brain-Computer Interface Based on Covert Spatial Attention Shifts
title_full Impact of Stimulus Features on the Performance of a Gaze-Independent Brain-Computer Interface Based on Covert Spatial Attention Shifts
title_fullStr Impact of Stimulus Features on the Performance of a Gaze-Independent Brain-Computer Interface Based on Covert Spatial Attention Shifts
title_full_unstemmed Impact of Stimulus Features on the Performance of a Gaze-Independent Brain-Computer Interface Based on Covert Spatial Attention Shifts
title_short Impact of Stimulus Features on the Performance of a Gaze-Independent Brain-Computer Interface Based on Covert Spatial Attention Shifts
title_sort impact of stimulus features on the performance of a gaze-independent brain-computer interface based on covert spatial attention shifts
topic Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7736242/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33335470
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2020.591777
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