Can teenagers control a 3D racing game using motion-onset visual evoked potentials?

Abstract

Motion-onset visual evoked potentials (mVEPs) are time and phase-locked brain responses to motion-related stimuli. An mVEP response provides robust features for brain-computer interface (BCI) applications and have the added benefit of being less visually fatiguing than other visual evoked potentials (VEPs). In this study an mVEP BCI that enables control of a visually rich, 3-dimensional (3D) car-racing video-game is evaluated. A group of fifteen teenage school children (13-16 years old) participated in a single session while they attended a summer school. Participants were asked to control the direction of a car within a realistic racing circuit, where the position of the car was controlled by focusing on one of five motion-related stimuli. Classification accuracy (%) and information transfer rate (ITR) (bits per minute (bpm)) results were encouraging, with participants achieving an average online accuracy of 72% (12bpm) in the first lap, 67% (10bpm) in the second lap and 65% (10bpm) in the third lap (chance accuracy and ITR is 20% and zero bpm). The study shows for the first time the feasibility of using the mVEP paradigm in a commercial-grade car-racing video-game. It is also one of the first reports on the performance of a group of teenagers using a BCI.

Neurogaming With Motion-Onset Visual Evoked Potentials (mVEPs): Adults Versus Teenagers

“…Fifteen healthy BCI naïve (nvBCI) teenagers (age range 13-16, 4 female) and 33 healthy adults (19 nvBCI and the remaining 14 had prior BCI experience (exBCI) age 18-40, 6 female) participated. Details of the teenagers study including results are available in [32]. Ethical approval was granted by the Ulster University Research Ethics Committee (UUREC).…”

“…As the lap speed changed, a different car was presented representing analogous achievement as in commercially available racing games [41] [42]. Due to time restrictions on the teenage study, each teenage participant completed only three laps using 5 trials for classification [32]. Each lap of online gameplay contained twenty checkpoints and mVEP stimuli are presented twenty times, once for each checkpoint.…”

“…Results showed that contemporary visual display technologies could be used in mVEP-based neurogaming without degrading mVEP detection accuracies, compared to a standard LCD monitor. In [32], we tested a group of fifteen BCI naïve teenagers who played an online 3D racing car game using mVEP stimuli to control a racing car. Using one of five stimuli, participants were asked to select the correct lane while the car travelled around a racing track.…”

Brain-Computer Interfaces for Children With Complex Communication Needs and Limited Mobility: A Systematic Review

“…Then 359 titles and abstracts were reviewed and 203 were removed, according to the inclusion criteria (section Screening Process: Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria), leaving 156 articles that required full-text review. Twelve articles were subsequently identified as eligible for inclusion and grouping into sub-categories: seven relating to communication (Beveridge et al, 2017(Beveridge et al, , 2019Taherian et al, 2017;Norton et al, 2018;Zhang et al, 2019;Vařeka, 2020); and five concerning mobility (Sanchez et al, 2008;Breshears et al, 2011;Pistohl et al, 2012Pistohl et al, , 2013Jochumsen et al, 2018). The flowchart in Figure 2 details outcomes of: identification; screening; eligibility; inclusion steps.…”

The sixth international brain–computer interface meeting: advances in basic and clinical research

“…The subsequent papers describe some of the innovative advances reported at the meeting, including incorporation of user responses to improve BCI accuracy [9], proof-of-concept of fMRI self-regulation [10], expansion of BCI testing in young people [11], and the feasibility of language models for communication in the home environment [12]. Studies continue to grow in rigor and to progress in evaluation of issues vital to real-world success, such as detection of the idle state [13].…”