Analyzing P300 Distractors for Target Reconstruction

P300-based brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) are often trained per-user and per-application space. Training such models requires ground truth knowledge of target and nontarget stimulus categories during model training, which imparts bias into the model. Additionally, not all non-targets are created equal; some may contain visual features that resemble targets or may otherwise be visually salient. Current research has indicated that non-target distractors may elicit attenuated P300 responses based on the perceptual similarity of these distractors to the target category. To minimize this bias, and enable a more nuanced analysis, we use a generalized BCI approach that is fit to neither user nor task. We do not seek to improve the overall accuracy of the BCI with our generalized approach; we instead demonstrate the utility of our approach for identifying targetrelated image features. When combined with other intelligent agents, such as computer vision systems, the performance of the generalized model equals that of the user-specific models, without any user specific data.