The impact of mind-body awareness training on the early learning of a brain-computer interface

Brain-computer interface (BCI) systems allow users to interact with their environment by bypassing muscular control to tap directly into the users' thoughts. In the present study, we investigate the role of prior experience with yoga and meditation, examples of formalized mind-body awareness training (MBAT), in learning to use a one-dimensional sensorimotor rhythm based BCI. Thirty-six human subjects volunteered to participate in two different cohorts based on past experience with MBAT - experienced MBAT practitioners and controls. All subjects participated in three BCI experiments to achieve competency in controlling the BCI system. The MBAT cohort achieved BCI competency significantly faster than the control cohort. In addition, the MBAT cohort demonstrated enhanced ability to control the system on various measures of BCI performance and improved significantly more over time when compared to control. Our work provides insight into valuable strategies for reducing barriers to BCI fluency that limit the more widespread use of these systems.