Spatial Tactile Brain-Computer Interface Paradigm Applying Vibration Stimuli to Large Areas of User's Back

We aim at an augmentation of communication abilities of locked-in syndrome (LIS) patients by creating a brain-computer interface (BCI) which can control a computer or other device by using only brain activity. As a method, we use a stimulus–driven BCI based on vibration stimuli delivered via a gaming pad to the user’s back. We identify P300 responses from brain activity data in response to the vibration stimuli. The user’s intentions are classified according to the P300 responses recorded in the EEG. From the results of the psychophysical and online BCI experiments, we are able to classify successfully the P300 responses, which proves the effectiveness of the proposed method.