A new time coding approach for CTVEP-based brain-computer interface

Abstract

The chromatic transient visual evoked potential (CTVEP)-based brain-computer interface (BCI) can provide safer and more comfortable stimuli than the traditional VEP-based BCIs due to its low frequency change and no luminance variation in the visual stimulation. However, it still generates relatively few codes that correspond to input commands to control the outside devices, which limits its application in the practical BCIs to some extent. Aiming to obtain more codes, we firstly proposes a new time coding technique to CTVEP-based BCI by utilizing a combination of two 4-bit binary codes to construct four 8-bit binary codes to increase the control commands to extend its application in practice. In the experiment, two time-encoded isoluminant chromatic stimuli are combined to serve as different commands for BCI control, and the results show that the high performance based on the new time coding approach with the average accuracy up to 90.28% and average information transfer rate up to 27.78 bits/min for BCI can be achieved. It turns out that the BCI system based on the proposed method is feasible, stable and efficient, which makes the method very suitable for the practical application of BCIs, such as military, entertainment and medical enterprise.