Brain-computer communication: motivation, aim, and impact of exploring a virtual apartment.
The step away from a synchronized or cue-based brain-computer interface (BCI) and from laboratory conditions towards real world applications is very important and crucial in BCI research. This work shows that ten naive subjects can be trained in a synchronous paradigm within three sessions to navigate freely through a virtual apartment, whereby at every junction the subjects could decide by their own, how they wanted to explore the virtual environment (VE). This virtual apartment was designed similar to a real world application, with a goal-oriented task, a high mental workload, and a variable decision period for the subject. All subjects were able to perform long and stable motor imagery over a minimum time of 2 s. Using only three electroencephalogram (EEG) channels to analyze these imaginations, we were able to convert them into navigation commands. Additionally, it could be demonstrated that motivation is a very crucial factor in BCI research; motivated subjects perform much better than unmotivated ones.
Leeb
Robert
R
Laboratory of Brain-Computer Interfaces, Institute for Knowledge Discovery, Graz University of Technology, Austria.
Lee
Felix
F
Keinrath
Claudia
C
Scherer
Reinhold
R
Bischof
Horst
H
Pfurtscheller
Gert
G
D000328:Adult; D016477:Artifacts; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D004566:Electrodes; D004569:Electroencephalography; D004576:Electromyography; D005133:Eye Movements / Q000502:physiology; D005246:Feedback; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D014584:User-Computer Interface