An ERP-based BCI using an oddball paradigm with different faces and reduced errors in critical functions

Recent research has shown that a new face paradigm is superior to the conventional "flash only" approach that has dominated P300 brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) for over 20 years. However, these face paradigms did not study the repetition effects and the stability of evoked event related potentials (ERPs), which would decrease the performance of P300 BCI. In this paper, we explored whether a new "multi-faces (MF)" approach would yield more distinct ERPs than the conventional "single face (SF)" approach. To decrease the repetition effects and evoke large ERPs, we introduced a new stimulus approach called the "MF" approach, which shows different familiar faces randomly. Fifteen subjects participated in runs using this new approach and an established "SF" approach. The result showed that the MF pattern enlarged the N200 and N400 components, evoked stable P300 and N400, and yielded better BCI performance than the SF pattern. The MF pattern can evoke larger N200 and N400 components and more stable P300 and N400, which increase the classification accuracy compared to the face pattern.