Abstract
Previous proposals for controlling a P300-based BCI speller have shown an improvement using alternative images instead of letters as target stimuli under a row-column paradigm (RCP). However, the RCP is not suitable for those patients with a lack of gaze control. To solve that, the rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) paradigm has been proposed in previous studies. The aim of the present work is to assess if a set of alternative pictures that improved performance in RCP could also improve performance in RSVP. Sixteen participants controlled four conditions in calibration and online tasks: letters in RCP, pictures in RCP, letters in RSVP and pictures in RSVP. The effect given by pictures was greater under RCP than under RSVP, both for performance and event-related potential analyses. Indeed, pictures did not show any improvement under RSVP in comparison to letters. In addition, the condition with pictures under RCP was declared the favourite by most users (68.75%), while the condition with pictures under RSVP was not chosen as favourite by any participant. Therefore, this work shows that the improvement related to the use of pictures as alternative flashing stimuli under RCP may not be transferred to RSVP.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Tao G, Charm G, Kabacińska K, Miller WC, Robillard JM (2020) Evaluation tools for assistive technologies: a scoping review. Arch Phys Med Rehabil 101:1025–1040. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apmr.2020.01.008
Patterson JR, Grabois M (1986) Locked-in syndrome: a review of 139 cases. Stroke 17:758–764. https://doi.org/10.1161/01.STR.17.4.758
Bauer G, Gerstenbrand F, Rumpl E (1979) Varieties of the locked-in syndrome. J Neurol 221:77–91. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00313105
Murguialday AR, Hill J, Bensch M, Martens S, Halder S, Nijboer F, Schoelkopf B, Birbaumer N, Gharabaghi A (2011) Transition from the locked in to the completely locked-in state: a physiological analysis. Clin Neurophysiol 122:925–933. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clinph.2010.08.019
Fuchino Y, Nagao M, Katura T, Bando M, Naito M, Maki A, Nakamura K, Hayashi H, Koizumi H, Yoro T (2008) High cognitive function of an ALS patient in the totally locked-in state. Neurosci Lett 435:85–89. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neulet.2008.01.046
Lemoignan J, Ells C (2010) Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and assisted ventilation: how patients decide. Palliat Support Care 8:207–213. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1478951510000027
Wolpaw JR, Birbaumer N, McFarland DJ et al (2002) Brain-computer interfaces for communication and control. Clin Neurophysiol 113:767–791. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1388-2457(02)00057-3
Birbaumer N (2006) Breaking the silence: brain-computer interfaces (BCI) for communication and motor control. Psychophysiology 43:517–532. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-8986.2006.00456.x
Farwell LA, Donchin E (1988) Talking off the top of your head: toward a mental prosthesis utilizing event-related brain potentials. Electroencephalogr Clin Neurophysiol 70:510–523. https://doi.org/10.1016/0013-4694(88)90149-6
Zhang R, Wang Q, Li K, He S, Qin S, Feng Z, Chen Y, Song P, Yang T, Zhang Y, Yu Z, Hu Y, Shao M, Li Y (2017) A BCI-based environmental control system for patients with severe spinal cord injuries. IEEE Trans Biomed Eng 64:1959–1971
Aydın EA, Bay ÖF, Güler İ (2016) Implementation of an embedded web server application for wireless control of brain computer interface based home environments. J Med Syst 40:1–10. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10916-015-0386-0
Rezeika A, Benda M, Stawicki P, Gembler F, Saboor A, Volosyak I (2018) Brain–computer interface spellers: a review. Brain Sci 8:57. https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci8040057
Sutton S, Braren M, Zubin J, John ER (1965) Evoked-potential correlates of stimulus uncertainty. Science 150:1187–1188. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.150.3700.1187
Brunner P, Joshi S, Briskin S, Wolpaw JR, Bischof H, Schalk G (2010) Does the “P300” speller depend on eye gaze? J Neural Eng 7:56013. https://doi.org/10.1088/1741-2560/7/5/056013
Treder MS, Blankertz B (2010) (C)overt attention and visual speller design in an ERP-based brain-computer interface. Behav Brain Funct 6:28. https://doi.org/10.1186/1744-9081-6-28
Acqualagna L, Treder MS, Schreuder M, Blankertz B (2010) A novel brain-computer interface based on the rapid serial visual presentation paradigm. In: 2010 Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, EMBC’10. pp 2686–2689
Acqualagna L, Treder MS, Blankertz B (2013) Chroma speller: isotropic visual stimuli for truly gaze-independent spelling. Int IEEE/EMBS Conf Neural Eng NER 1041–1044. doi:https://doi.org/10.1109/NER.2013.6696115
Aricò P, Aloise F, Schettini F et al (2011) GeoSpell: an alternative P300-based speller interface towards no eye gaze required. Int J Bioelectromagn 13:152–153
Sato H, Washizawa Y (2016) An N100-P300 spelling brain-computer interface with detection of intentional control. Computers 5:31. https://doi.org/10.3390/computers5040031
Sellers EW, Krusienski DJ, McFarland DJ et al (2006) A P300 event-related potential brain-computer interface (BCI): the effects of matrix size and inter stimulus interval on performance. Biol Psychol 73:242–252. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsycho.2006.04.007
Ryan DB, Frye GE, Townsend G, Berry DR, Mesa-G S, Gates NA, Sellers EW (2011) Predictive spelling with a P300-based brain-computer interface: increasing the rate of communication. Int J Hum Comput Interact 27:69–84. https://doi.org/10.1080/10447318.2011.535754
Townsend G, LaPallo BK, Boulay CB et al (2010) A novel P300-based brain-computer interface stimulus presentation paradigm: moving beyond rows and columns. Clin Neurophysiol 121:1109–1120. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clinph.2010.01.030
Kaufmann T, Schulz SM, Grünzinger C, Kübler A (2011) Flashing characters with famous faces improves ERP-based brain-computer interface performance. J Neural Eng 8:056016. https://doi.org/10.1088/1741-2560/8/5/056016
Fernández-Rodríguez Á, Medina-Juliá MT, Velasco-Álvarez F, Ron-Angevin R (2020) Effects of spatial stimulus overlap in a visual P300-based brain-computer interface. Neuroscience 431:134–142. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroscience.2020.02.011
Li Q, Liu S, Li J, Bai O (2015) Use of a green familiar faces paradigm improves P300-speller brain-computer interface performance. PLoS One 10:1–15. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0130325
Fernández-Rodríguez Á, Velasco-Álvarez F, Medina-Juliá MT, Ron-Angevin R (2019) Evaluation of emotional and neutral pictures as flashing stimuli using a P300 brain-computer interface speller. J Neural Eng 16:056024. https://doi.org/10.1088/1741-2552/ab386d
Fernández-Rodríguez Á, Medina-Juliá MTMT, Velasco-Álvarez F, Ron-Angevin R (2019) Preliminary results using a P300 brain-computer interface speller: a possible interaction effect between presentation paradigm and set of stimuli. In: Rojas I, Joya G, Catala A (eds) Advances in Computational Intelligence. Springer International Publishing, pp 371–381
Schalk G, McFarland DJ, Hinterberger T et al (2004) BCI2000: a general-purpose brain-computer interface (BCI) system. IEEE Trans Biomed Eng 51:1034–1043
Velasco-Álvarez F, Sancha-Ros S, García-Garaluz E, Fernández-Rodríguez Á, Medina-Juliá MT, Ron-Angevin R (2019) UMA-BCI Speller: an easily configurable P300 speller tool for end users. Comput Methods Prog Biomed 172:127–138. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.CMPB.2019.02.015
Cheng J, Jin J, Wang X (2017) Comparison of the BCI performance between the semitransparent face pattern and the traditional face pattern. Comput Intell Neurosci 2017:1323985–1323989. https://doi.org/10.1155/2017/1323985
Lang PJ, Bradley MM, Cuthbert BN (2008) International affective picture system (IAPS): affective ratings of pictures and instruction manual. Technical Report A-8. University of Florida, Gainesville, FL
Wolpaw JR, Ramoser H, McFarland DJ, Pfurtscheller G (1998) EEG-based communication: improved accuracy by response verification. IEEE Trans Rehabil Eng 6:326–333. https://doi.org/10.1109/86.712231
Chennu S, Alsufyani A, Filetti M, Owen AM, Bowman H (2013) The cost of space independence in P300-BCI spellers. J Neuroeng Rehabil 10:1–13. https://doi.org/10.1186/1743-0003-10-82
Ma Z, Qiu T (2017) Performance improvement of ERP-based brain–computer interface via varied geometric patterns. Med Biol Eng Comput 55:2245–2256. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11517-017-1671-5
Delorme A, Makeig S (2004) EEGLAB: An open source toolbox for analysis of single-trial EEG dynamics including independent component analysis. J Neurosci Methods 134:9–21. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jneumeth.2003.10.009
Benjamini Y, Hochberg Y (1995) Controlling the false discovery rate: a practical and powerful approach to multiple testing. J R Stat Soc Ser B 57:289–300. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2517-6161.1995.tb02031.x
Lu Z, Li Q, Gao N, Yang J (2020) The self-face paradigm improves the performance of the P300-speller system. Front Comput Neurosci 13:1–12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fncom.2019.00093
Li S, Jin J, Daly I, Zuo C, Wang X, Cichocki A (2020) Comparison of the ERP-based BCI performance among chromatic (RGB) semitransparent face patterns. Front Neurosci 14:1–12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2020.00054
Jones MR, Sellers EW (2019) Faces, locations, and tools: a proposed two-stimulus P300 brain computer interface. J Neural Eng 16:1–17. https://doi.org/10.1088/1741-2552/aaff22
Kellicut-Jones MR, Sellers EW (2018) P300 brain-computer interface: comparing faces to size matched non-face stimuli. Brain-Computer Interfaces 5:30–39. https://doi.org/10.1080/2326263X.2018.1433776
Kaufmann T, Kübler A (2014) Beyond maximum speed - a novel two-stimulus paradigm for brain-computer interfaces based on event-related potentials (P300-BCI). J Neural Eng 11:056004. https://doi.org/10.1088/1741-2560/11/5/056004
Kutas M, Sereno MI, Ganis G (1996) The search for “common sense”: an electrophysiological study of the comprehension of words and pictures in reading. J Cogn Neurosci 8:89–106
Garrison KE, Crowell AL, Finley AJ, Schmeichel BJ (2017) Effects of prior mental effort on picture processing: an ERP investigation. Psychophysiology 54:1714–1725. https://doi.org/10.1111/psyp.12914
Aloise F, Aricò P, Schettini F, Riccio A, Salinari S, Mattia D, Babiloni F, Cincotti F (2012) A covert attention P300-based brain-computer interface: Geospell. Ergonomics 55:538–551. https://doi.org/10.1080/00140139.2012.661084
Pires G, Nunes U, Castelo-Branco M (2011) GIBS block speller: toward a gaze-independent P300-based BCI. Proc Annu Int Conf IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc EMBS 6360–6364. doi:https://doi.org/10.1109/IEMBS.2011.6091570
Ron-Angevin R, Varona-Moya S, Da Silva-Sauer L (2015) Initial test of a T9-like P300-based speller by an ALS patient. J Neural Eng 12:046023. https://doi.org/10.1088/1741-2560/12/4/046023
Guger C, Spataro R, Allison BZ, Heilinger A, Ortner R, Cho W, la Bella V (2017) Complete locked-in and locked-in patients: Command following assessment and communication with vibro-tactile P300 and motor imagery brain-computer interface tools. Front Neurosci 11:251. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2017.00251
Acknowledgements
Moreover, the authors would like to thank M.J. Blanca-Mena for her support in statistical analyses and all participants for their cooperation.
Funding
This work was partially supported by the project SICCAU: RTI2018-100912-B-I00 (MCIU/AEI/FEDER, UE).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher’s note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Fernández-Rodríguez, Á., Medina-Juliá, M.T., Velasco-Álvarez, F. et al. Different effects of using pictures as stimuli in a P300 brain-computer interface under rapid serial visual presentation or row-column paradigm. Med Biol Eng Comput 59, 869–881 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11517-021-02340-y
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11517-021-02340-y