Five Shades of Grey: Exploring Quintary m-Sequences for More User-Friendly c-VEP-Based BCIs

Responsive EEG-based communication systems have been implemented with brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) based on code-modulated visual evoked potentials (c-VEPs). The BCI targets are typically encoded with binary m-sequences because of their autocorrelation property; the digits one and zero correspond to different target colours (usually black and white), which are updated every frame according to the code. While binary flickering patterns enable high communication speeds, they are perceived as annoying by many users. Quintary (base 5) m-sequences, where the five digits correspond to different shades of grey, may yield a more subtle visual stimulation. This study explores two approaches to reduce the flickering sensation: (1) adjusting the flickering speed via refresh rates and (2) applying quintary codes. In this respect, six flickering modalities are tested using an eight-target spelling application: binary patterns and quintary patterns generated with 60, 120, and 240 Hz refresh rates. This study was conducted with 18 nondisabled participants. For all six flickering modalities, a copy-spelling task was conducted. According to questionnaire results, most users favoured the proposed quintary over the binary pattern while achieving similar performance to it (no statistical differences between the patterns were found). Mean accuracies across participants were above 95%, and information transfer rates were above 55 bits/min for all patterns and flickering speeds.