Abstract
Gaze-independent event-related potential (ERP) based brain-computer interfaces (BCIs)
yield relatively low BCI performance and traditionally employ unimodal stimuli. Bimodal
ERP-BCIs may increase BCI performance due to multisensory integration or summation
in the brain. An additional advantage of bimodal BCIs may be that the user can
choose which modality or modalities to attend to. We studied bimodal, visual-tactile,
gaze-independent BCIs and investigated whether or not ERP components’ tAUCs and
subsequent classification accuracies are increased for (1) bimodal vs. unimodal stimuli;
(2) location-congruent vs. location-incongruent bimodal stimuli; and (3) attending to both
modalities vs. to either one modality. We observed an enhanced bimodal (compared to
unimodal) P300 tAUC, which appeared to be positively affected by location-congruency
(p = 0.056) and resulted in higher classification accuracies. Attending either to one
or to both modalities of the bimodal location-congruent stimuli resulted in differences
between ERP components, but not in classification performance. We conclude that
location-congruent bimodal stimuli improve ERP-BCIs, and offer the user the possibility
to switch the attended modality without losing performance.
yield relatively low BCI performance and traditionally employ unimodal stimuli. Bimodal
ERP-BCIs may increase BCI performance due to multisensory integration or summation
in the brain. An additional advantage of bimodal BCIs may be that the user can
choose which modality or modalities to attend to. We studied bimodal, visual-tactile,
gaze-independent BCIs and investigated whether or not ERP components’ tAUCs and
subsequent classification accuracies are increased for (1) bimodal vs. unimodal stimuli;
(2) location-congruent vs. location-incongruent bimodal stimuli; and (3) attending to both
modalities vs. to either one modality. We observed an enhanced bimodal (compared to
unimodal) P300 tAUC, which appeared to be positively affected by location-congruency
(p = 0.056) and resulted in higher classification accuracies. Attending either to one
or to both modalities of the bimodal location-congruent stimuli resulted in differences
between ERP components, but not in classification performance. We conclude that
location-congruent bimodal stimuli improve ERP-BCIs, and offer the user the possibility
to switch the attended modality without losing performance.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 143 |
Number of pages | 14 |
Journal | Frontiers in Neuroscience |
Volume | 8 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2014 |
Keywords
- BCI
- ERP
- gaze-independent
- bimodal
- tactile
- multisensory
- location-congruency
- selective attention