Online Detection of P300 and Error Potentials in a BCI Speller

Abstract

Error potentials (ErrPs), that is, alterations of the EEG traces related to the subject perception of erroneous responses, have been suggested to be an elegant way to recognize misinterpreted commands in brain-computer interface (BCI) systems. We implemented a P300-based BCI speller that uses a genetic algorithm (GA) to detect P300s, and added an automatic error-correction system (ECS) based on the single-sweep detection of ErrPs. The developed system was tested on-line on three subjects and here we report preliminary results. In two out of three subjects, the GA provided a good performance in detecting P300 (90% and 60% accuracy with 5 repetitions), and it was possible to detect ErrP with an accuracy (roughly 60%) well above the chance level. In our knowledge, this is the first time that ErrP detection is performed on-line in a P300-based BCI. Preliminary results are encouraging, but further refinements are needed to improve performances.