Objective: Filter bank canonical correlation analysis (FBCCA) is a widely-used classification approach implemented in steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP)–based brain-computer interfaces (BCIs). However, conventional detection algorithms for SSVEP recognition problems, including the FBCCA, were usually based on 'fixed window' strategy. That's to say, these algorithms always analyze data with fixed length. This study devoted to enhance the performance of SSVEP-based BCIs by designing a new dynamic window strategy which automatically finds an optimal data length to achieve higher information transfer rate (ITR). Approach: The main purpose of 'dynamic window' is to minimize the required data length while maintaining high accuracy. This study projected the correlation coefficients of FBCCA into probability space by softmax function and built a hypothesis testing model, which took risk function as evaluation of classification result's 'credibility'. In order to evaluate the superiority of this approach, FBCCA with fixed data length (FBCCA-FW) and spatial temporal equalization dynamic window (STE-DW) were implemented for comparison. Main results: Fourteen healthy subjects' results were concluded by a 40-target online SSVEP-based BCI speller system. The results suggest that this proposed approach significantly outperforms STE-DW and FBCCA-FW in terms of accuracy and ITR. Significance: By incorporating the fundamental ideas of FBCCA and dynamic window strategy, this study proposed a new training-free dynamical optimization algorithm, which significantly improved the performance of online SSVEP-based BCI systems.

A novel training-free recognition method for SSVEP-based BCIs using dynamic window strategy.

Electroencephalograph (EEG) has been widely applied for brain-computer interface (BCI) which enables paralyzed people to directly communicate with and control external devices, due to its portability, high temporal resolution, ease of use and low cost. Of various EEG paradigms, steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP)-based BCI system which uses multiple visual stimuli (such as LEDs or boxes on a computer screen) flickering at different frequencies has been widely explored in the past decades due to its fast communication rate and high signal-to-noise ratio. In this article, we review the current research in SSVEP-based BCI, focusing on the data analytics that enables continuous, accurate detection of SSVEPs and thus high information transfer rate. The main technical challenges, including signal pre-processing, spectrum analysis, signal decomposition, spatial filtering in particular canonical correlation analysis and its variations, and classification techniques are described in this article. Research challenges and opportunities in spontaneous brain activities, mental fatigue, transfer learning as well as hybrid BCI are also discussed.

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Data Analytics in Steady-State Visual Evoked Potential-Based Brain–Computer Interface: A Review

Objective : This paper proposes a novel device-to-device transfer-learning algorithm for reducing the calibration cost in a steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP)-based brain-computer interface (BCI) speller by leveraging electroencephalographic (EEG) data previously acquired by different EEG systems. Methods : The transferring is done by projecting the scalp-channel EEG signals onto a shared latent domain across devices. Three spatial filtering techniques, including channel averaging, canonical correlation analysis (CCA), and task-related component analysis (TRCA), were employed to extract the shared responses from different devices. The transferred data were integrated into a template-matching-based algorithm to detect SSVEPs. To evaluate its transferability, this paper conducted two sessions of simulated online BCI experiments with ten subjects using 40 visual stimuli modulated by joint frequency-phase coding method. In each session, two different EEG devices were used: first, the Quick-30 system (Cognionics, Inc.) with dry electrodes, and second, the ActiveTwo system (BioSemi, Inc.) with wet electrodes. Results : The proposed method with CCA- and TRCA-based spatial filters achieved significantly higher classification accuracy compared with the calibration-free standard CCA-based method. Conclusion : This paper validated the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method in implementing calibration-free SSVEP-based BCIs. Significance : The proposed method has great potentials to enhance practicability and usability of real-world SSVEP-based BCI applications by leveraging user-specific data recorded in previous sessions even with different EEG systems and montages.

Facilitating Calibration in High-Speed BCI Spellers via Leveraging Cross-Device Shared Latent Responses

How to encode as many targets as possible with a limited-frequency resource is a difficult problem in the practical use of a steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP) based brain-computer interface (BCI) speller. To solve this problem, this study developed a novel method called dual-frequency biased coding (DFBC) to tag targets in a SSVEP-based 48-character virtual speller, in which each target is encoded with a permutation sequence consisting of two permuted flickering periods that flash at different frequencies. The proposed paradigm was validated by 11 participants in an offline experiment and 7 participants in an online experiment. Three occipital channels (O1, Oz, and O2) were used to obtain the SSVEP signals for identifying the targets. Based on the coding characteristics of the DFBC method, the proposed approach has the ability of self-correction and thus achieves an accuracy of 76.6% and 79.3% for offline and online experiments, respectively, which outperforms the traditional multiple frequencies sequential coding (MFSC) method. This study demonstrates that DFBC is an efficient method for coding a high number of SSVEP targets with a small number of available frequencies.

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SSVEP-Based Brain-Computer Interface With a Limited Number of Frequencies Based on Dual-Frequency Biased Coding

This study illustrates and evaluates a novel subject-specific target detection framework, sum of squared correlations (SSCOR), for improving the performance of steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP) based brain-computer interfaces (BCIs). The SSCOR spatial filter learns a common SSVEP representation space through the optimization of the individual SSVEP templates. The projection onto this SSVEP response subspace improves the signal to noise ratio (SNR) of the SSVEP components embedded in the recorded electroencephalographic (EEG) data. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed framework, the target detection performance of the SSCOR method is compared with the state of the art task-related component analysis (TRCA). The evaluation is conducted on a 40 target SSVEP benchmark data collected from 35 subjects. The results of the extensive comparisons of the performance metrics show that the proposed SSCOR method outperforms the TRCA method. The ensemble version of the SSCOR framework provides an offline simulated information transfer rate (ITR) of 387 ± 9 bits/min which is much higher than that of the ensemble TRCA approach (max. ITR 216 ± 27 bits/min). The significant improvement in the detection accuracy and simulated ITR demonstrates the efficacy of the proposed framework for target detection in SSVEP based BCI applications.

Designing a Sum of Squared Correlations Framework for Enhancing SSVEP-Based BCIs

Periodic component analysis as a spatial filter for SSVEP-based brain-computer interface.

Objective This study introduces and evaluates a novel target identification method, latent common source extraction (LCSE), that uses subject-specific training data for the enhancement of detection of steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP). Approach LCSE seeks to construct a common latent representation of the SSVEP signal subspace that is stable across multiple trials of electroencephalographic (EEG) data. The spatial filter thus obtained improves the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the SSVEP components by removing nuisance signals that are irrelevant to the generalized signal representation learnt from the given data. In this study a comparison of SSVEP identification performance between the proposed method, extended canonical correlation analysis (ExtCCA) and multiset canonical correlation analysis (MsetCCA) was conducted using SSVEP benchmark data of 40 targets recorded from 35 subjects to validate the effectiveness of the LCSE framework. Main results The results indicate that the LCSE framework significantly outperforms the other two methods in terms of both classification accuracy and information transfer rates (ITRs). Significance The significant improvement in the target identification performance demonstrates that the proposed LCSE method can be seen as a promising potential candidate for efficient SSVEP detection in brain-computer interface (BCI) systems.

Latent common source extraction via a generalized canonical correlation framework for frequency recognition in SSVEP based brain-computer interfaces.

Constructing an exactly periodic subspace for enhancing SSVEP based BCI

Recently, filter bank analysis has been used in several detection methods to extract selective frequency features across multiple brain computer interface (BCI) modalities due to its effectiveness and simple structure. In this work, we propose filter bank technique as a standard preprocessing method for popular training free multi-channel steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP) detection methods to overcome subject-specific performance differences and a general improvement in detection accuracy. Our study validates the effectiveness of filter bank extensions by comparing performance differences of multichannel methods with their filter bank counterparts using a forty target SSVEP benchmark dataset collected across thirty five subjects. The results demonstrate that the proposed two stage (a filter bank stage followed by SSVEP detection) implementation of popular multichannel algorithms provide significant improvement in performance at short datalengths of < 2.75 s (p < 0.001) and can be viewed as a potential standard detection approach across all SSVEP identification problems.

G R Kiran Kumar

Papers

Designing a Sum of Squared Correlations Framework for Enhancing SSVEP-Based BCIs

Periodic component analysis as a spatial filter for SSVEP-based brain-computer interface.

Latent common source extraction via a generalized canonical correlation framework for frequency recognition in SSVEP based brain-computer interfaces.

Constructing an exactly periodic subspace for enhancing SSVEP based BCI

Filter bank extensions for subject non-specific SSVEP based BCIs