Comparison of Steady-State Visual Evoked Potential (SSVEP) with LCD vs. LED Stimulation

The steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP) is a robust brain activity that has been used in brain-computer interface (BCI) applications. However, previous studies of SSVEP-based BCIs give contradictory results on which stimulation medium provides the best performance. This paper describes a comparison of electroencephalography (EEG) decoding accuracy between using an LCD screen, clear LEDs, and frosted LEDs to deliver flashing light stimulation. The LCD screen and frosted LEDs achieved similar mean accuracies, and both of them were significantly better than clear LEDs. Background contrast with the LEDs did not significantly influence SSVEP decoding accuracy. A strong correlation was found between SSVEP accuracy and frequency domain magnitudes of EEG measurements.