Study on Novel Designs with Reduced Fatigue for Steady State Motion Visual Evoked Potentials

Abstract

The paper focuses on incorporation of Brain Computer Interfacing (BCI) within an Augmented Reality (AR) platform to provide means for individuals with communication disabilities to interact with the outer world. Recently, there has been a recent surge of interest on Steady-State Visual Evoked Potentials (SSVEP). In a typical SSVEP-based BCI system, the virtual object within the AR environment flickers with a specific frequency while the signal processing module extracts the effects of the flickering frequency on the Electrophysiological (EEG) signals. Despite the popularity of SSVEPs, their utilization for practical application especially for assistive technologies is complicated and challenging due to eye fatigue and risk of induced epileptic seizure. In this regard, the key issue being targeted in this paper is addressing fatigue of flicker (or brightness modulation) by development of flicker-free steady-state motion visual evoked potential (SSMVEP). Two novel SSMVEP paradigms, i.e., Square-based and Circle-based paradigms, with low luminance contrast and oscillating expansion and contraction motions are designed, and integrated within a BCI system. Through experimental evaluations, high detection accuracy of 95.31% is achieved for the square-based SSMVEP.