ERP-BASED BRAIN-COMPUTER INTERFACE FOR THE DISABLED

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The project will evaluate the feasibility of a Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) to be used by disabled individuals communicating with a computer. The BCI's principle of operation is based on the fact that rare, task- relevant, events presented in the so called "Oddball Paradigm", elicit an Event-Related Brain Potential characterized by a P300 component. Farwell and Donchin have used a display of a 6 by 6 matrix of characters, the rows and columns of which were independently and randomly intensified. By detecting, online, the matrix elements that elicited a P300, the identity of the attended cell was determined. This project will be concerned with the application of novel pattern recognition methods, such as wavelets and neural networks, to speed item recognition. The system will be tested with 5 disabled individuals. The demonstration that the system can be used by disabled individuals, at a communication speed of at least 10-12 characters per minute, will lead to a Phase II project in which a commercial version of the BCI will be developed. Such a BCI will meet the communication needs of individuals who are thoroughly paralyzed, and may also turn out to be of use in less severely-restricted cases. PROPOSED COMMERCIAL APPLICATION: There is a large market for assistive, prosthetic, devices that allow an individual to communicate with a data entry device. The system that will be evaluated, and developed, in this project addresses the needs of users who cannot benefit from existing systems because they lack motor controls. There is a significant possibility that the operating mode of the proposed BCI will be more tractable in use than are currently common devices that utilize a head mounted stick, or eye movements, to communicate.