An auditory multiclass brain-computer interface with natural stimuli: Usability evaluation with healthy participants and a motor impaired end user

Please always quote using this URN: urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-126450
  • Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) can serve as muscle independent communication aids. Persons, who are unable to control their eye muscles (e.g., in the completely locked-in state) or have severe visual impairments for other reasons, need BCI systems that do not rely on the visual modality. For this reason, BCIs that employ auditory stimuli were suggested. In this study, a multiclass BCI spelling system was implemented that uses animal voices with directional cues to code rows and columns of a letter matrix. To reveal possible training effectsBrain-computer interfaces (BCIs) can serve as muscle independent communication aids. Persons, who are unable to control their eye muscles (e.g., in the completely locked-in state) or have severe visual impairments for other reasons, need BCI systems that do not rely on the visual modality. For this reason, BCIs that employ auditory stimuli were suggested. In this study, a multiclass BCI spelling system was implemented that uses animal voices with directional cues to code rows and columns of a letter matrix. To reveal possible training effects with the system, 11 healthy participants performed spelling tasks on 2 consecutive days. In a second step, the system was tested by a participant with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in two sessions. In the first session, healthy participants spelled with an average accuracy of 76% (3.29 bits/min) that increased to 90% (4.23 bits/min) on the second day. Spelling accuracy by the participant with ALS was 20% in the first and 47% in the second session. The results indicate a strong training effect for both the healthy participants and the participant with ALS. While healthy participants reached high accuracies in the first session and second session, accuracies for the participant with ALS were not sufficient for satisfactory communication in both sessions. More training sessions might be needed to improve spelling accuracies. The study demonstrated the feasibility of the auditory BCI with healthy users and stresses the importance of training with auditory multiclass BCIs, especially for potential end-users of BCI with disease.show moreshow less

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Metadaten
Author: Nadine Simon, Ivo Käthner, Carolin A. Ruf, Emanuele Pasqualotto, Andrea Kübler, Sebastian Halder
URN:urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-126450
Document Type:Journal article
Faculties:Fakultät für Humanwissenschaften (Philos., Psycho., Erziehungs- u. Gesell.-Wissensch.) / Institut für Psychologie
Language:English
Parent Title (English):Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
Year of Completion:2015
Volume:8
Issue:1039
Source:Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 8:1039. doi:10.3389/fnhum.2014.01039
DOI:https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2014.01039
Dewey Decimal Classification:1 Philosophie und Psychologie / 15 Psychologie / 150 Psychologie
Tag:ALS; EEG; P300; auditory BCI; brain-computer interface; communication
Release Date:2016/02/01
EU-Project number / Contract (GA) number:288566
OpenAIRE:OpenAIRE
Collections:Open-Access-Publikationsfonds / Förderzeitraum 2015
Licence (German):License LogoCC BY: Creative-Commons-Lizenz: Namensnennung