Optimizing a left and right visual field biphasic stimulation paradigm for SSVEP-based BCIs with hairless region behind the ear

Author(s):  
Liyan Liang ◽  
Guangyu Bin ◽  
Xiaogang Chen ◽  
Yijun Wang ◽  
Shangkai Gao ◽  
...  

Abstract Objective. Steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP) based brain-computer interface (BCI) has the characteristics of fast communication speed, high stability, and wide applicability, thus it has been widely studied. With the rapid development in paradigm, algorithm, and system design, SSVEP-BCI is gradually applied in clinical and real-life scenarios. In order to improve the ease of use of the SSVEP-BCI system, many studies have been focusing on developing it on the hairless area, but due to the lack of redesigning the stimulation paradigm to better adapt to the new area, the EEG response in the hairless area is worse than occipital region. Approach. This study first proposed a phase difference estimation method based on stimulating the left and right visual field separately, then developed and optimized a left and right visual field biphasic stimulation paradigm for SSVEP-based BCIs with hairless region behind the ear. Main results. In the 12-target online experiment, after a short model estimation training, all sixteen subjects used their best stimulus condition. The paradigm designed in this study can increase the proportion of applicable subjects for the behind-ear SSVEP-BCI system from 58.3% to 75% and increase the accuracy from 74.6±20.0% (the existing best SSVEP stimulus with hairless region behind the ear) to 84.2±14.7%, and the ITR from 14.2±6.4bits/min to 17.8±5.7bits/min. Significance. These results demonstrated that the proposed paradigm can effectively improve the BCI performance using the signal from the hairless region behind the ear, compared with the standard SSVEP stimulation paradigm.

1979 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 423-439 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Jonides

Two letter classification experiments examine the hypothesis that lateral asymmetries in perceptual processing are sensitive to subtle changes in task demands. The first experiment reports a right visual field superiority for an easy letter classification, but a left field superiority for a difficult classification using the same population of stimuli. Experiment II demonstrates that the right field superiority can be reversed if the easy classification trials are embedded among more difficult trials. The implications of these results for theories of hemispheric localization are discussed.


1974 ◽  
Vol 18 (5) ◽  
pp. 533-533
Author(s):  
D.S. Kochhar ◽  
T.M. Fraser

The variable contribution of peripherally presented stimuli in a A sensory motor task has been explored in terms of stimulus and environmental variables. A simulated driving task was chosen as being a representative compensatory tracking task. Empirical models have been developed using response surface methodology, statistical design and data collected on a simulator with a 240° wrap-around screen and projection systems very much like cinerama. In this research, seven factors were isolated for a study of their effects on detection latency to peripherally presented stimuli when the subject was ‘driving’. These factors were stimulus size (circular stimuli between 18′ and 60′), stimulus color (red, white and green), stimulus-background contrast (background luminance 1ft.L and stimulus luminance of 30, 60 and 90 ft.L), stimulus location along the horizontal (between ± 90°) and vertical meridians (between ± 26°), intensity of continuous white noise (between 52 and 100 dbA), and complexity of the continuous central tracking task measured in terms of the simulated driving speed. Three levels of each variable were selected in a 7 factor Box-Behnken design. Twenty undergraduates between the ages 19 and 26 participated in the experiment. It was found that, in this multivariable environment when all seven factors were simultaneously varied, the effects of noise, stimulus location in the visual field and stimulus size were the more important determinants of response latency. In addition, marked differences for the left and right visual fields were observed for the right-handed subject population. Four models have been developed: two for the left visual field, with and without the continuous central task (CCT), and two for the right visual field for the same conditions. The response was found to be of the form 1/Yr = f (xi); i= 1,2,… 7 for both the left and right visual fields in the presence of the CCT. In the absence of the CCT the model was of the form Yr = f (xr) for the left and 1/2 = f (xi) for the right visual field where Yr = response time in millisec. and Yr xi = variables in equations. Response curves have been presented to illustrate the variation of response time with each of the seven variables for regions where response time may be expected to be a minimum. The implications of these curves and the models on which they are based have been examined from the design point of view.


1997 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 527-532 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wolfgang Skrandies

AbstractThe perception of dynamic random-dot stereograms (RDS) depends on the physiological fusion of horizontally disparate binocular visual input. Thus, the use of RDS offers the possibility to study selectively cortical processing of visual information in man. We investigated the influence of horizontal disparity on the scalp topography of RDS evoked brain activity in 33 healthy subjects. Stereoscopic checkerboard patterns were presented in the center or lateralized in the left or right visual field with horizontal disparities changing at temporal frequencies of six or eight depth reversals/s using different disparity values ranging from 3.5 to 28 min of arc. In 11 subjects evoked potential fields were recorded from 16 electrodes, and 21 subjects participated in 30-channel recordings with electrodes located over the parietal and occipital brain areas. Stimulation frequency-related brain activity was obtained with all disparity values; however, with large or small disparities the potential field strength decreased significantly while largest responses were obtained with intermediate disparities. Significant differences were observed in RDS evoked brain activity when central and lateralized stimulus locations were compared. With lateral stimuli (extending from the fovea to 17.1-deg eccentricity) maximal amplitudes were obtained at larger disparities than with central stimuli. In addition there were pronounced differences between brain activity evoked with stimuli presented in the left or right visual field; however, there were very similar evoked potential signals recorded from electrodes located over the left and right hemispheres. Our findings indicate that the processing of disparity information with lateralized stimuli is different from the processing in the center of the visual field. In addition, lateralized stimulation yields a significant disparity tuning mainly with stereoscopic targets occurring to the right from the fixation point (but not with stimuli to the left) suggesting a functional difference between the visual half-fields.


Perception ◽  
1988 ◽  
Vol 17 (6) ◽  
pp. 721-727 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clara Casco ◽  
Donatella Spinelli

Twelve observers viewed two alternating frames, each consisting of three rectangular bars which were displaced laterally by one cycle in one frame with respect to the other. At long interframe intervals (IFIs) observers perceived a group of three elements moving as a whole (group movement), whereas with IFIs shorter than 40–60 ms the overlapping elements in each frame appeared stationary while the third element appeared to move from one end of the display to the other (end-to-end movement). The percentage of group movement responses in central viewing was compared to those obtained for stimulus presentation in the left and right visual fields (4 deg eccentricity), for opposite horizontal directions of motion. All ten right-handed subjects showed a left-field advantage in sensitivity to group movement. The two left-handed subjects showed a similar advantage in sensitivity with right-field presentation. The effects of monocular vision, hand used in the task, spatial frequency, and contrast on visual field asymmetry were all investigated in two right-handed subjects. None of these factors affected the left—right asymmetry.


1994 ◽  
Vol 79 (1) ◽  
pp. 699-702 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel S. Lobel ◽  
Rex M. Swanda ◽  
Miklos F. Losonczy

Numerous studies have shown impaired verbal functioning in schizophrenic patients as compared with normals. The verbal deficits are generally attributed to damage of the left cerebral hemisphere. This attribution is based on literature which suggests that verbal processing is primarily mediated by the left hemisphere in right-handed humans. This study explored left-hemispheric integrity directly by assessing sustained attention in both the left and right hemispheres of 40 schizophrenic patients with the Weintraub Cancellation Tasks. Patients made significantly more errors of omission on the right visual field than on the left. These results are consistent with cognitive research in schizophrenia by demonstrating selective left-hemispheric impairment relative to right-hemispheric functioning.


2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (11) ◽  
pp. 1660
Author(s):  
Ella Moeck ◽  
Nicole Thomas ◽  
Steven Most ◽  
Jenna Zhao ◽  
Melanie Takarangi

1989 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 167-179 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ingegerd Carlsson

Forty‐five undergraduate students were randomly divided into two groups and tested with the Meta‐Contrast Technique (MCT), in the left or right visual field (VF). In the MCT, the presentation of a subliminal threatening picture is intended to evoke anxiety and ego mechanisms of defence against it. More signs of repressive plus isolating defences were found in the left hemisphere (LH) group. Signs of projection plus regression tended to be more common in the right hemisphere (RH) group. The total number of anxiety signs in the MCT protocols did not differ between the groups. A clear sex difference was noticed, namely that the female LH and RH groups showed significant lateralization, while the male groups did not differ significantly on a combined defensive score. The data suggest that the left and right hemispheres may show differing perceptual styles, which are described as ego mechanisms of defence in the psychoanalytic literature.


1982 ◽  
Vol 55 (3_suppl) ◽  
pp. 1319-1326 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fred H. Previc

The differences between the left and right cerebral hemispheres in terms of visual pattern recognition were examined within the context of the spatial filtering model of visual perception. On the basis of a wide range of evidence, it was hypothesized that the right hemisphere's predominant role in Gestalt perception may be related to its superiority in processing low spatial frequency information, while the left hemisphere may be more highly involved in an analysis of high frequency information contained in the visual environment. The spatial filtering capabilities of the left and right hemispheres were assessed by presenting square-wave gratings to the left and right visual fields, which project to the primary visual cortical areas of the contralateral hemispheres. 24 right-handed adult males were required to identify the orientation of each of six gratings varying in fundamental spatial frequency and level of contrast. Analyses of variance indicated that identification performance was superior over-all in the right visual field. The magnitude of the advantage of the right visual field latency was greater for the high frequency gratings, although this predicted trend did not attain significance. Results were discussed in relation to the spatial filtering theory and others concerning hemispheric differences in visual pattern recognition.


1996 ◽  
Vol 8 (6) ◽  
pp. 540-550 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia A. Reuter-Lorenz ◽  
Maxwell Drain ◽  
Corinne Hardy-Morais

By simulating neglect-like effects in neurologically intact observers, we evaluated whether normal attentional allocation can be object centered. In a series of three experiments, observers detected a small gap on the left or right side of a configuration presented in either the left of right visual field. The figures were positioned so that on different trials, the left and right sides would fall in the same retinotopic, hemispatial, and environmental location. Thus, only the location with respect to an object-centered frame varied. We found opposite patterns of bias within each visual field: For figures in the left visual field, left gaps were detected better than right gaps, whereas in the right visual field the opposite pattern was evident. Control conditions indicate that these biases are not due to masking from eccentric contours and depend on the left and right segments being united into a single form. These results indicate that opposing orientational biases of the left and right hemispheres can operate within an object-centered frame in the normal brain. This evidence converges with patient studies and single-unit electrophysiology to reveal the importance of a relatively late, abstract locus for visual selection.


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