CHS: Small: Auditory and Haptic Based Brain-Computer Interfaces Using In-Ear Electrodes

CHS：小型：使用入耳式电极的基于听觉和触觉的脑机接口

基本信息

批准号：
1718705
负责人：
Melody Jackson
金额：
$ 49.77万
依托单位：
Georgia Tech Research Corporation
依托单位国家：
美国
项目类别：
Standard Grant
财政年份：
2017
资助国家：
美国
起止时间：
2017-09-01 至 2021-08-31
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1718705&HistoricalAwards=false
关键词：
CHS Small Auditory Haptic Based

项目摘要

Brain Computer Interfaces (BCIs) are systems that allow people to control computers and other devices with brain signals alone. BCIs have the potential to improve the lives of many individuals with severe physical disabilities, by allowing them to communicate and control their environment without needing muscle movement or voice. After more than two decades of research, BCIs have become robust and reliable enough to consider them for mainstream applications, such as hands-free and voice-free control of devices. However, the most common BCIs require visual attention, which restricts their utility for people with visual impairments, or for mobile environments (such as driving) where diverting visual attention is dangerous or not possible. Intriguing alternatives to visual displays are auditory (sounds) or haptic (touch or sensations such as vibrations) based BCI interfaces, or multimodal BCI interfaces which are a combination of these. In addition to providing an alternate interface for people with visual impairments or for special purposes, nonvisual BCI control of devices could also be useful in everyday life, such as when responding to a text message in a movie theater without looking at a device screen or speaking. This project will extend the state of the art in BCIs by evolving the body of knowledge in auditory, haptic, and multimodal stimuli, which are relatively unexplored areas of the field. Additionally, the research will create and explore small, wearable in-ear electrodes to detect brain signals, and thus will contribute to the emerging field of mobile BCIs which will open possibilities for large numbers of mainstream users. Current BCI systems cover a wide and varying range of brain signals and recording technologies; this research focuses on "evoked-response" electroencephalograph (EEG) approaches, that is to say brain signals that are triggered due to a stimulus such as a sound, flashing light, or touch.To these ends, the project will study auditory and haptic cues to determine the best ways to map them to input choices. One of the biggest challenges with auditory and haptic interfaces is how to label a stimulus so it is meaningful to the BCI user. To address this problem, the project will explore novel methods of encoding the labeling and mapping of auditory and haptic stimuli into the stimuli themselves (in a manner analogous to how it is possible to label visual stimuli, such as when the target is a flashing letter so the user can determine the meaning of a cue by looking at it). The plan is to leverage research in sonification (which largely focuses on presenting data in auditory "displays") to devise techniques for encoding speech or patterned tones (such as Morse code) into audio cues in such a way that a user can simply listen to the cue to determine its meaning. The team will also experiment with a variety of multimodal approaches (combining visual, auditory, and haptic cues in a single system) in order to achieve higher accuracy than is possible with a single stimulus mode alone. Finally, the project will evaluate the effectiveness of in-ear EEG electrodes in detecting brain responses to auditory and haptic stimuli, experimenting with electrode design, placement within the ear, and various filters and classifiers to improve the signal-to-noise ratio. The results of the experiments in alternative stimuli will be combined with the optimized wearable electrode system, to create the first hands-free, voice-free, vision-free interfaces for mainstream users.

大脑计算机界面（BCIS）是允许人们单独控制计算机和其他设备的系统。 BCI有可能通过允许他们进行沟通和控制环境而无需肌肉运动或声音来改善许多严重身体残疾的人的生活。经过二十多年的研究，BCIS变得稳健且可靠，可以将它们考虑到主流应用，例如对设备的无提和无语音控制。但是，最常见的BCI需要视觉关注，这限制了他们对视觉障碍者或移动环境（例如驾驶）的效用，在这些环境（例如驾驶）中转移视觉关注是危险或不可能的。视觉显示的有趣替代方案是基于听觉（声音）或触觉（触摸或感觉）的BCI接口，或多模式BCI接口，它们是这些组合的。除了为有视觉障碍或出于特殊目的的人提供替代界面外，对设备的非视觉BCI控制也可能在日常生活中有用，例如在无需查看设备屏幕或讲话的情况下响应电影院中的短信时。该项目将通过在听觉，触觉和多模式刺激中发展知识的体系来扩展BCIS的艺术状态，这些刺激是该领域的相对未开发的领域。此外，该研究将创建和探索小型，可穿戴的入射电极以检测大脑信号，因此将有助于移动BCI的新兴领域，这将为大量主流用户开放可能性。当前的BCI系统涵盖了广泛而不同的大脑信号和记录技术。这项研究的重点是“诱发的响应”脑电图（EEG）方法，也就是说，由于声音，闪光或触摸等刺激而引起的大脑信号。在这些目的中，该项目将研究听觉和触觉提示，以确定绘制它们以映射它们以绘制选择的最佳方法。听觉和触觉接口面临的最大挑战之一是如何标记刺激，因此对BCI用户有意义。为了解决这个问题，该项目将探讨编码听觉和触觉刺激的标签和映射到刺激本身中的新方法（以类似于如何标记视觉刺激的方式，例如目标是闪烁的字母，以便用户可以通过查看它来确定提示的含义）。该计划是利用索索（很大程度上集中于在听觉“显示”中展示数据）中的研究来设计用于编码语音或图案的音调（例如Morse代码）的技术，以使用户可以简单地聆听提示来确定其含义的方式以使用户可以简单地聆听提示。该团队还将尝试采用多种多模式方法（在单个系统中组合视觉，听觉和触觉提示），以达到比单个刺激模式更高的精度。最后，该项目将评估入耳脑脑电图电极在检测大脑对听觉和触觉刺激的响应中的有效性，使用电极设计，耳朵内的放置以及各种过滤器和分类器来提高信噪比的比例。替代刺激中实验的结果将与优化的可穿戴电极系统相结合，为主流用户创建第一个免提，无语音，无视力的接口。