Dataset Information

Addition of visual noise boosts evoked potential-based brain-computer interface.

ABSTRACT: Although noise has a proven beneficial role in brain functions, there have not been any attempts on the dedication of stochastic resonance effect in neural engineering applications, especially in researches of brain-computer interfaces (BCIs). In our study, a steady-state motion visual evoked potential (SSMVEP)-based BCI with periodic visual stimulation plus moderate spatiotemporal noise can achieve better offline and online performance due to enhancement of periodic components in brain responses, which was accompanied by suppression of high harmonics. Offline results behaved with a bell-shaped resonance-like functionality and 7-36% online performance improvements can be achieved when identical visual noise was adopted for different stimulation frequencies. Using neural encoding modeling, these phenomena can be explained as noise-induced input-output synchronization in human sensory systems which commonly possess a low-pass property. Our work demonstrated that noise could boost BCIs in addressing human needs.

SUBMITTER: Xie J

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4021798 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Addition of visual noise boosts evoked potential-based brain-computer interface.

Xie Jun J Xu Guanghua G Wang Jing J Zhang Sicong S Zhang Feng F Li Yeping Y Han Chengcheng C Li Lili L

Scientific reports 20140514

Although noise has a proven beneficial role in brain functions, there have not been any attempts on the dedication of stochastic resonance effect in neural engineering applications, especially in researches of brain-computer interfaces (BCIs). In our study, a steady-state motion visual evoked potential (SSMVEP)-based BCI with periodic visual stimulation plus moderate spatiotemporal noise can achieve better offline and online performance due to enhancement of periodic components in brain response ...[more]

PMID: 24828128

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Project description:Brain-computer interface (BCI) paradigms are usually tested when environmental and biological artifacts are intentionally avoided. In this study, we deliberately introduced different perturbations in order to test the robustness of a steady state visual evoked potential (SSVEP) based BCI. Specifically we investigated to what extent a drop in performance is related to the degraded quality of EEG signals or rather due to increased cognitive load. In the online tasks, subjects focused on one of the four circles and gave feedback on the correctness of the classification under four conditions randomized across subjects: Control (no perturbation), Speaking (counting loudly and repeatedly from one to ten), Thinking (mentally counting repeatedly from one to ten), and Listening (listening to verbal counting from one to ten). Decision tree, Naïve Bayes and K-Nearest Neighbor classifiers were used to evaluate the classification performance using features generated by canonical correlation analysis. During the online condition, Speaking and Thinking decreased moderately the mean classification accuracy compared to Control condition whereas there was no significant difference between Listening and Control conditions across subjects. The performances were sensitive to the classification method and to the perturbation conditions. We have not observed significant artifacts in EEG during perturbations in the frequency range of interest except in theta band. Therefore we concluded that the drop in the performance is likely to have a cognitive origin. During the Listening condition relative alpha power in a broad area including central and temporal regions primarily over the left hemisphere correlated negatively with the performance thus most likely indicating active suppression of the distracting presentation of the playback. This is the first study that systematically evaluates the effects of natural artifacts (i.e. mental, verbal and audio perturbations) on SSVEP-based BCIs. The results can be used to improve individual classification performance taking into account effects of perturbations.

Project description:In this study, we proposed a new type of hybrid visual stimuli for steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP)-based brain-computer interfaces (BCIs), which incorporate various periodic motions into conventional flickering stimuli (FS) or pattern reversal stimuli (PRS). Furthermore, we investigated optimal periodic motions for each FS and PRS to enhance the performance of SSVEP-based BCIs. Periodic motions were implemented by changing the size of the stimulus according to four different temporal functions denoted by none, square, triangular, and sine, yielding a total of eight hybrid visual stimuli. Additionally, we developed the extended version of filter bank canonical correlation analysis (FBCCA), which is a state-of-the-art training-free classification algorithm for SSVEP-based BCIs, to enhance the classification accuracy for PRS-based hybrid visual stimuli. Twenty healthy individuals participated in the SSVEP-based BCI experiment to discriminate four visual stimuli with different frequencies. An average classification accuracy and information transfer rate (ITR) were evaluated to compare the performances of SSVEP-based BCIs for different hybrid visual stimuli. Additionally, the user's visual fatigue for each of the hybrid visual stimuli was also evaluated. As the result, for FS, the highest performances were reported when the periodic motion of the sine waveform was incorporated for all window sizes except for 3 s. For PRS, the periodic motion of the square waveform showed the highest classification accuracies for all tested window sizes. A significant statistical difference in the performance between the two best stimuli was not observed. The averaged fatigue scores were reported to be 5.3 ± 2.05 and 4.05 ± 1.28 for FS with sine-wave periodic motion and PRS with square-wave periodic motion, respectively. Consequently, our results demonstrated that FS with sine-wave periodic motion and PRS with square-wave periodic motion could effectively improve the BCI performances compared to conventional FS and PRS. In addition, thanks to its low visual fatigue, PRS with square-wave periodic motion can be regarded as the most appropriate visual stimulus for the long-term use of SSVEP-based BCIs, particularly for window sizes equal to or larger than 2 s.

Dataset Information

Addition of visual noise boosts evoked potential-based brain-computer interface.

Publications

Addition of visual noise boosts evoked potential-based brain-computer interface.

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