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Performance improvement of ERP-based brain–computer interface via varied geometric patterns

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Abstract

Recently, many studies have been focusing on optimizing the stimulus of an event-related potential (ERP)-based brain–computer interface (BCI). However, little is known about the effectiveness when increasing the stimulus unpredictability. We investigated a new stimulus type of varied geometric pattern where both complexity and unpredictability of the stimulus are increased. The proposed and classical paradigms were compared in within-subject experiments with 16 healthy participants. Results showed that the BCI performance was significantly improved for the proposed paradigm, with an average online written symbol rate increasing by 138% comparing with that of the classical paradigm. Amplitudes of primary ERP components, such as N1, P2a, P2b, N2, were also found to be significantly enhanced with the proposed paradigm. In this paper, a novel ERP BCI paradigm with a new stimulus type of varied geometric pattern is proposed. By jointly increasing the complexity and unpredictability of the stimulus, the performance of an ERP BCI could be considerably improved.

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Acknowledgements

This work was partially funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grants 81241059, 61172108, and 61139001), the National Key Technology R&D Program of China (Grant 2012BAJ18B06), Key Laboratory of Human–Machine Intelligence-Synergy Systems, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (2014DP173025), Special Program of Guangdong Frontier and Key Technological Innovation(2016B010108010), Guangdong Technology Project (2016B010125003), and Shenzhen Technology Project (JSGG20160331185256983, JCYJ20140910003939013).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, 518055, China

    Zheng Ma

  2. Department of Biomedical Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, 116024, China

    Tianshuang Qiu

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  1. Zheng Ma
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  2. Tianshuang Qiu
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Correspondence to Zheng Ma.

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Ma, Z., Qiu, T. Performance improvement of ERP-based brain–computer interface via varied geometric patterns. Med Biol Eng Comput 55, 2245–2256 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11517-017-1671-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11517-017-1671-5

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