Selective attention in an overcrowded auditory scene: implications for auditory-based brain-computer interface design.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Maddox RK
PROVIDER: S-EPMC3482251 | biostudies-other | 2012 Nov
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other
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Project description:BACKGROUND: In a visual oddball paradigm, attention to an event usually modulates the event-related potential (ERP). An ERP-based brain-computer interface (BCI) exploits this neural mechanism for communication. Hitherto, it was unclear to what extent the accuracy of such a BCI requires eye movements (overt attention) or whether it is also feasible for targets in the visual periphery (covert attention). Also unclear was how the visual design of the BCI can be improved to meet peculiarities of peripheral vision such as low spatial acuity and crowding. METHOD: Healthy participants (N = 13) performed a copy-spelling task wherein they had to count target intensifications. EEG and eye movements were recorded concurrently. First, (c)overt attention was investigated by way of a target fixation condition and a central fixation condition. In the latter, participants had to fixate a dot in the center of the screen and allocate their attention to a target in the visual periphery. Second, the effect of visual speller layout was investigated by comparing the symbol Matrix to an ERP-based Hex-o-Spell, a two-levels speller consisting of six discs arranged on an invisible hexagon. RESULTS: We assessed counting errors, ERP amplitudes, and offline classification performance. There is an advantage (i.e., less errors, larger ERP amplitude modulation, better classification) of overt attention over covert attention, and there is also an advantage of the Hex-o-Spell over the Matrix. Using overt attention, P1, N1, P2, N2, and P3 components are enhanced by attention. Using covert attention, only N2 and P3 are enhanced for both spellers, and N1 and P2 are modulated when using the Hex-o-Spell but not when using the Matrix. Consequently, classifiers rely mainly on early evoked potentials in overt attention and on later cognitive components in covert attention. CONCLUSIONS: Both overt and covert attention can be used to drive an ERP-based BCI, but performance is markedly lower for covert attention. The Hex-o-Spell outperforms the Matrix, especially when eye movements are not permitted, illustrating that performance can be increased if one accounts for peculiarities of peripheral vision.
| S-EPMC2904265 | biostudies-literature
Project description:UnlabelledAttention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms can be difficult to treat. We previously reported that a 20-session brain-computer interface (BCI) attention training programme improved ADHD symptoms. Here, we investigated a new more intensive BCI-based attention training game system on 20 unmedicated ADHD children (16 males, 4 females) with significant inattentive symptoms (combined and inattentive ADHD subtypes). This new system monitored attention through a head band with dry EEG sensors, which was used to drive a feed forward game. The system was calibrated for each user by measuring the EEG parameters during a Stroop task. Treatment consisted of an 8-week training comprising 24 sessions followed by 3 once-monthly booster training sessions. Following intervention, both parent-rated inattentive and hyperactive-impulsive symptoms on the ADHD Rating Scale showed significant improvement. At week 8, the mean improvement was -4.6 (5.9) and -4.7 (5.6) respectively for inattentive symptoms and hyperactive-impulsive symptoms (both p<0.01). Cohen's d effect size for inattentive symptoms was large at 0.78 at week 8 and 0.84 at week 24 (post-boosters). Further analysis showed that the change in the EEG based BCI ADHD severity measure correlated with the change ADHD Rating Scale scores. The BCI-based attention training game system is a potential new treatment for ADHD.Trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov NCT01344044.
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Project description:Gaze-independent brain computer interfaces (BCIs) are a potential communication tool for persons with paralysis. This study applies affective auditory stimuli to investigate their effects using a P300 BCI. Fifteen able-bodied participants operated the P300 BCI, with positive and negative affective sounds (PA: a meowing cat sound, NA: a screaming cat sound). Permuted stimuli of the positive and negative affective sounds (permuted-PA, permuted-NA) were also used for comparison. Electroencephalography data was collected, and offline classification accuracies were compared. We used a visual analog scale (VAS) to measure positive and negative affective feelings in the participants. The mean classification accuracies were 84.7% for PA and 67.3% for permuted-PA, while the VAS scores were 58.5 for PA and -12.1 for permuted-PA. The positive affective stimulus showed significantly higher accuracy and VAS scores than the negative affective stimulus. In contrast, mean classification accuracies were 77.3% for NA and 76.0% for permuted-NA, while the VAS scores were -50.0 for NA and -39.2 for permuted NA, which are not significantly different. We determined that a positive affective stimulus with accompanying positive affective feelings significantly improved BCI accuracy. Additionally, an ALS patient achieved 90% online classification accuracy. These results suggest that affective stimuli may be useful for preparing a practical auditory BCI system for patients with disabilities.
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Project description:BackgroundAttention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a prevalent child neurodevelopmental disorder that is treated in clinics and in schools. Previous trials suggested that our brain-computer interface (BCI)-based attention training program could improve ADHD symptoms. We have since developed a tablet version of the training program which can be paired with wireless EEG headsets. In this trial, we investigated the feasibility of delivering this tablet-based BCI intervention at home.MethodsTwenty children diagnosed with ADHD, who did not receive any medication for the preceding month, were randomised to receive the 8-week tablet-based BCI intervention either in the clinic or at home. Those in the home intervention group received instructions before commencing the program and got reminders if they were lagging on the training sessions. The ADHD Rating Scale was completed by a blinded clinician at baseline and at week 8. Adverse events were monitored during any contact with the child throughout the trial and at week 8.ResultsChildren in both groups could complete the tablet-based intervention easily on their own with minimal support from the clinic therapist or their parents (at home). The intervention was safe with few reported adverse effects. Clinician-rated inattentive symptoms on the ADHD-Rating Scale reduced by 3.2 (SD 6.20) and 3.9 (SD 5.08) for the home-based and clinic-based groups respectively, suggesting that home-based intervention was comparable to clinic-based intervention.ConclusionsThis trial demonstrated that the tablet version of our BCI-based attention training program can be safely delivered to children in the comfort of their own home. Trial registration This trial is registered at clinicaltrials.gov as NCT01344044.
| S-EPMC9878772 | biostudies-literature
Project description:OBJECTIVE:The use of brain-computer interface in neurofeedback therapy for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a relatively new approach. We conducted a randomized controlled trial (RCT) to determine whether an 8-week brain computer interface (BCI)-based attention training program improved inattentive symptoms in children with ADHD compared to a waitlist-control group, and the effects of a subsequent 12-week lower-intensity training. STUDY DESIGN:We randomized 172 children aged 6-12 attending an outpatient child psychiatry clinic diagnosed with inattentive or combined subtypes of ADHD and not receiving concurrent pharmacotherapy or behavioral intervention to either the intervention or waitlist-control group. Intervention involved 3 sessions of BCI-based training for 8 weeks, followed by 3 training sessions per month over the subsequent 12 weeks. The waitlist-control group received similar 20-week intervention after a wait-time of 8 weeks. RESULTS:The participants' mean age was 8.6 years (SD = 1.51), with 147 males (85.5%) and 25 females (14.5%). Modified intention to treat analyzes conducted on 163 participants with at least one follow-up rating showed that at 8 weeks, clinician-rated inattentive symptoms on the ADHD-Rating Scale (ADHD-RS) was reduced by 3.5 (SD 3.97) in the intervention group compared to 1.9 (SD 4.42) in the waitlist-control group (between-group difference of 1.6; 95% CI 0.3 to 2.9 p = 0.0177). At the end of the full 20-week treatment, the mean reduction (pre-post BCI) of the pooled group was 3.2 (95% CI 2.4 to 4.1). CONCLUSION:The results suggest that the BCI-based attention training program can improve ADHD symptoms after a minimum of 24 sessions and maintenance training may sustain this improvement. This intervention may be an option for treating milder cases or as an adjunctive treatment.
| S-EPMC6528992 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundThe number of people with cognitive deficits and diseases, such as stroke, dementia, or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, is rising due to an aging, or in the case of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, a growing population. Neurofeedback training using brain-computer interfaces is emerging as a means of easy-to-use and noninvasive cognitive training and rehabilitation. A novel application of neurofeedback training using a P300-based brain-computer interface has previously shown potential to improve attention in healthy adults.ObjectiveThis study aims to accelerate attention training using iterative learning control to optimize the task difficulty in an adaptive P300 speller task. Furthermore, we hope to replicate the results of a previous study using a P300 speller for attention training, as a benchmark comparison. In addition, the effectiveness of personalizing the task difficulty during training will be compared to a nonpersonalized task difficulty adaptation.MethodsIn this single-blind, parallel, 3-arm randomized controlled trial, 45 healthy adults will be recruited and randomly assigned to the experimental group or 1 of 2 control groups. This study involves a single training session, where participants receive neurofeedback training through a P300 speller task. During this training, the task's difficulty is progressively increased, which makes it more difficult for the participants to maintain their performance. This encourages the participants to improve their focus. Task difficulty is either adapted based on the participants' performance (in the experimental group and control group 1) or chosen randomly (in control group 2). Changes in brain patterns before and after training will be analyzed to study the effectiveness of the different approaches. Participants will complete a random dot motion task before and after the training so that any transfer effects of the training to other cognitive tasks can be evaluated. Questionnaires will be used to estimate the participants' fatigue and compare the perceived workload of the training between groups.ResultsThis study has been approved by the Maynooth University Ethics Committee (BSRESC-2022-2474456) and is registered on ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT05576649). Participant recruitment and data collection began in October 2022, and we expect to publish the results in 2023.ConclusionsThis study aims to accelerate attention training using iterative learning control in an adaptive P300 speller task, making it a more attractive training option for individuals with cognitive deficits due to its ease of use and speed. The successful replication of the results from the previous study, which used a P300 speller for attention training, would provide further evidence to support the effectiveness of this training tool.Trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov NCT05576649; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT05576649.International registered report identifier (irrid)DERR1-10.2196/46135.
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Project description:A brain-computer-interface (BCI)-based attention training game system has shown promise for treating attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) children with inattentive symptoms. However, little is known about brain network organizational changes underlying behavior improvement following BCI-based training. To cover this gap, we aimed to examine the topological alterations of large-scale brain functional networks induced by the 8-week BCI-based attention intervention in ADHD boys using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging method. Compared to the non-intervention (ADHD-NI) group, the intervention group (ADHD-I) showed greater reduction of inattention symptoms accompanied with differential brain network reorganizations after training. Specifically, the ADHD-NI group had increased functional connectivity (FC) within the salience/ventral attention network (SVN) and increased FC between task-positive networks (including the SVN, dorsal attention (DAN), somatomotor, and executive control network) and subcortical regions; in contrast ADHD-I group did not have this pattern. In parallel, ADHD-I group had reduced degree centrality and clustering coefficient as well as increased closeness in task-positive and the default mode networks (prefrontal regions) after the training. More importantly, these reduced local functional processing mainly in the SVN were associated with less inattentive/internalizing problems after 8-week BCI-based intervention across ADHD patients. Our findings suggest that the BCI-based attention training facilitates behavioral improvement in ADHD children by reorganizing brain functional network from more regular to more random configurations, particularly renormalizing salience network processing. Future long-term longitudinal neuroimaging studies are needed to develop the BCI-based intervention approach to promote brain maturation in ADHD.
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Project description:Realizing the decoding of brain signals into control commands, brain-computer interfaces (BCI) aim to establish an alternative communication pathway for locked-in patients. In contrast to most visual BCI approaches which use event-related potentials (ERP) of the electroencephalogram, auditory BCI systems are challenged with ERP responses, which are less class-discriminant between attended and unattended stimuli. Furthermore, these auditory approaches have more complex interfaces which imposes a substantial workload on their users. Aiming for a maximally user-friendly spelling interface, this study introduces a novel auditory paradigm: "CharStreamer". The speller can be used with an instruction as simple as "please attend to what you want to spell". The stimuli of CharStreamer comprise 30 spoken sounds of letters and actions. As each of them is represented by the sound of itself and not by an artificial substitute, it can be selected in a one-step procedure. The mental mapping effort (sound stimuli to actions) is thus minimized. Usability is further accounted for by an alphabetical stimulus presentation: contrary to random presentation orders, the user can foresee the presentation time of the target letter sound. Healthy, normal hearing users (n?=?10) of the CharStreamer paradigm displayed ERP responses that systematically differed between target and non-target sounds. Class-discriminant features, however, varied individually from the typical N1-P2 complex and P3 ERP components found in control conditions with random sequences. To fully exploit the sequential presentation structure of CharStreamer, novel data analysis approaches and classification methods were introduced. The results of online spelling tests showed that a competitive spelling speed can be achieved with CharStreamer. With respect to user rating, it clearly outperforms a control setup with random presentation sequences.
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Project description:There have been few reports that investigated the effects of the degree and pattern of a spectral smearing of stimuli due to deteriorated hearing ability on the performance of auditory brain-computer interface (BCI) systems. In this study, we assumed that such spectral smearing of stimuli may affect the performance of an auditory steady-state response (ASSR)-based BCI system and performed subjective experiments using 10 normal-hearing subjects to verify this assumption. We constructed smearing-reflected stimuli using an 8-channel vocoder with moderate and severe hearing loss setups and, using these stimuli, performed subjective concentration tests with three symmetric and six asymmetric smearing patterns while recording electroencephalogram signals. Then, 56 ratio features were calculated from the recorded signals, and the accuracies of the BCI selections were calculated and compared. Experimental results demonstrated that (1) applying smearing-reflected stimuli decreases the performance of an ASSR-based auditory BCI system, and (2) such negative effects can be reduced by adjusting the feature settings of the BCI algorithm on the basis of results acquired a posteriori. These results imply that by fine-tuning the feature settings of the BCI algorithm according to the degree and pattern of hearing ability deterioration of the recipient, the clinical benefits of a BCI system can be improved.
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Project description:Objective.Present methods for assessing color vision require the person's active participation. Here we describe a brain-computer interface-based method for assessing color vision that does not require the person's participation.Approach.This method uses steady-state visual evoked potentials to identify metamers-two light sources that have different spectral distributions but appear to the person to be the same color.Main results.We demonstrate that: minimization of the visual evoked potential elicited by two flickering light sources identifies the metamer; this approach can distinguish people with color-vision deficits from those with normal color vision; and this metamer-identification process can be automated.Significance.This new method has numerous potential clinical, scientific, and industrial applications.
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