Use of the evoked potential P3 component for control in a virtual apartment

Abstract

Virtual reality (VR) may prove useful for training individuals to use a brain-computer interface (BCI). It could provide complex and controllable experimental environments during BCI research and development as well as increase user motivation. In the study reported here, we examined the robustness of the evoked potential P3 component in virtual and nonvirtual environments. We asked subjects to control several objects or commands in a virtual apartment. Our results indicate that there are no significant differences in the P3 signal between subjects performing a task while immersed in VR versus subjects looking at a computer monitor. This indicates the robustness of the P3 signal over different environments. For an online control task, the performance in a VR environment was not significantly different from performance when looking at a computer monitor. There was, however, a more significant result when the subject's head view of the virtual world was fixed (p < 0.05) when compared with looking at a computer monitor. We also found that subjects' self-reported qualitative experiences did not necessarily match their objective performance. Six out of nine subjects liked the VR environment better, but only one of these subjects performed the best in this environment. The possible ramifications of this, as well as plans for future work, are discussed.

Tactile, Visual, and Bimodal P300s: Could Bimodal P300s Boost BCI Performance?

“…Samples between 550 and 800 ms resulted in (almost) as high classification accuracy as the epoch around the P300 (i.e., between 300 and 550 ms). Several P300 papers show a similar difference between targets and standards [10,18,[47][48][49]. However, though the figures show a negativity after the P300 for targets versus standards, none of the authors comment on the effect.…”

“…P300s are of specific interest for BCIs because they can be manipulated by the voluntary focus of attention without training, and they are relatively easily detectable in the EEG signal [4]. Several groups built P300 BCIs that, for instance, allow participants to spell a word [5][6][7][8], to control a wheelchair [9], to switch devices on or off in a virtual room [10], and to stop a virtual car [11]. Apart from P300s elicited by a voluntarily attended stimulus, low-level perceptual properties [12][13][14], rareness [15,16], and inherent meaning [17,18] can make a stimulus stand out from other stimuli and produce a P300.…”

Constructing Ambient Intelligence

“…It is a positive wave peaking around 300 ms after task-relevant stimuli [36]. Traditionally, P300 has been used in BCI research to develop virtual keyboards [2] [9] with a typing speed of five letters per minute, but recently this same potential has also been the basis for brain-actuated control of a virtual reality system [4] and of a wheelchair [36]. Steady-state visual evoked potentials (SSVEP) are another example of evoked potentials that are induced by a visual stimulus repeated at a rate higher than 6 Hz [40].…”

Social Interaction in a Cooperative Brain-Computer Interface Game

“…Possibilities are applications such as virtual environment controllers [1] and games [11]. An advantage of games is that when one is integrating BCI into a game one could turn a disadvantage, the lower accuracy that is associated with BCI, into a challenge that the gamer has to master [10].…”