Initial results of a high-speed spatial auditory BCI
Martijn Schreuder, Michael Tangermann and Benjamin Blankertz
Int J Bioelectromagnetism Volume 11, Number 2, pp. 105-109, 2009.

Abstract

Most P300 BCI approaches use the visual modality for stimulation. For use with ALS patients this might not be the preferable choice because of sight deterioration. Moreover, using a modality different from the visual one minimizes interference with possible visual feedback. Therefore, a multi-class brain-computer interface paradigm is proposed that uses spatially distributed, auditive cues. Ten subjects participated in an offline oddball task with the spatial location of the stimuli being a discriminating cue. Different inter-stimulus intervals of 1000 ms, 300 ms and 175 ms were tested. With averaging over multiple classifier outputs, selection scores went over 90% for most conditions; two subjects reached a 100% correct score. Corresponding information transfer rates were high, up to an average optimal score of 20.99 bits/minute for the 175 ms condition (best subject 37.80 bits/minute). We conclude that the proposed paradigm is successful for healthy subjects and shows promising results that may lead to a fast BCI that solely relies on the auditory sense.

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