Enhancing the performance of brain-computer interface with haptics

Abstract

Brain-computer interface (BCI) has been used as a communication tool to enable paralyzed people to interact with the world. Its application has been extended to other non-medical areas like self-regulation, marketing, games and entertainment. Conventionally, BCI largely relies on the visual perception channel to provide users with cues or stimuli for the generation of appropriate brain signals that can be identified accurately with classification algorithms. This could lead to visual fatigue and also distract the attention of users from the environment with which they are interacting. This paper explores the haptic perception channel for enhancing BCI performance. Analogous to the paradigms used in vision-based BCI, the corresponding P300 event related potential and steady state evoked potential in the haptics domain are discussed. Besides, the potential of using haptic feedback to improve and guide motor imagery in a way similar to that of visual feedback are also discussed.