A comparison between a matrix-based and a region-based P300 speller paradigms for brain-computer interface

Abstract

A brain-computer interface (BCI) is a system that conveys messages and commands directly from the human brain to a computer. The BCI system described in this work is based on P300 wave. The P300 is a positive peak of an event-related potential (ERP) that happens 300 ms after a stimulus. One of the most well-known and widely-used P300 applications is P300 speller designed by Farwell-Donchin in 1988. The Farwell-Donchin paradigm has been a benchmark in P300 BCI. In this paradigm, a 6x6 matrix of letters and numbers is displayed and subject focuses on a target character while rows and columns of characters flash. By detecting P300 for one row and one column, the target character can be identified. In this paper, it is shown that there is a human perceptual error in Farwell-Donchin paradigm. To remove this error, a new region-based paradigm is presented. Using experimental results, it is shown that the new paradigm has several advantages and it achieves a better accuracy compared to the Farwell-Donchin paradigm.

P300 brain computer interface: current challenges and emerging trends

“…Recent work has shown that P300 BCIs can be used for a wide range of different functions and can work with disabled users in home settings (Kübler et al, 2009; Sellers et al, 2010; Kleih et al, 2012), although some concerns about gaze shifting have emerged (Allison et al, 2008; Brunner et al, 2010; Treder and Blankertz, 2010). In addition, new paradigms for eliciting the P300 have been introduced (Fazel-Rezai and Abhari, 2009; Townsend et al, 2010), and new ways to flash or otherwise change stimuli could enhance ERPs and improve classification (Kaufmann et al, 2011; Jin et al, 2012). Overall, it is likely that P300 BCIs will remain prominent in the foreseeable future, but will probably grow further and further away from the canonical 6 × 6 matrix with single row and column flashes described in the first two P300 BCI articles.…”

“…The idea of region-based (RB) paradigm (Fazel-Rezai and Abhari, 2009) is to have flashes of several regions instead of rows and columns. The character recognition is performed in two levels (Fazel-Rezai and Ahmad, 2011).…”

Binary DE-Based Channel Selection and Weighted Ensemble of SVM Classification for Novel Brain–Computer Interface Using Devanagari Script-Based P300 Speller Paradigm

“…A c c e p t e d M a n u s c r i p t 5 Although the RC paradigms with its variants is still the most famous paradigm, several other types of paradigms have also been presented in recent times including Single Character (SC) paradigm (Guan, Thulasidas, & Wu, 2004), Region-Based (RB) paradigm (Fazel-Rezai & Abhari, 2008;Fazel-Rezai & Abhari, 2009), Check Board (CB) paradigm and Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP) based paradigm (Acqualagna & Blankertz, 2013;Acqualagna, Treder, Schreuder, & Blankertz, 2010). Although most of the P300 speller paradigms are developed for English language, P300 BCI with other alphabets, such as alphabets in Chinese (Jin et al, 2010;Minett et al, 2012) , Japanese (Yamamoto, Yoshikawa, & Furuhashi, 2015) and Arabic languages (Kabbara, Hassan, Khalil, Eid, & El-Falou, 2015) have also been published.…”

Application of P300 Event-Related Potential in Brain-Computer Interface

“…The list of characters used in seven regions in the first level of this modified edition is presented in Table 2. In a comparative study, it was found that the overall spelling accuracies averaged for the same set of subjects, trials, and characters for RC, SC, and two variations of RB paradigms were 85, 72.2, 86.1, and 90.6%, respectively [14,69]. It is interesting to note that other than P300 BCI, application of RB paradigm has been extended to other BCI modalities too [54,[70][71][72].…”