Adaptive training session for a P300 speller brain–computer interface

With a brain–computer interface (BCI), it is nowadays possible to achieve a direct pathway between the brain and computers thanks to the analysis of some particular brain activities. The detection of even-related potentials, like the P300 in the oddball paradigm exploited in P300-speller, provides a way to create BCIs by assigning several detected ERP to a command. Due to the noise present in the electroencephalographic signal, the detection of an ERP and its different components requires efficient signal processing and machine learning techniques. As a consequence, a calibration session is needed for training the models, which can be a drawback if its duration is too long. Although the model depends on the subject, the goal is to provide a reliable model for the P300 detection over time. In this study, we propose a new method to evaluate the optimal number of symbols (i.e. the number of ERP that shall be detected given a determined target probability) that should be spelt during the calibration process. The goal is to provide a usable system with a minimum calibration duration and such that it can automatically switch between the training and online sessions. The method allows to adaptively adjust the number of training symbols to each subject. The evaluation has been tested on data recorded on 20 healthy subjects. This procedure lets drastically reduced the calibration session: height symbols during the training session reach an initialized system with an average accuracy of 80% after five epochs.