Head-related Impulse Response Cues for Spatial Auditory Brain-computer Interface

TL;DR

This paper evaluates the effectiveness of head-related impulse response cues in a spatial auditory brain-computer interface, demonstrating improved accuracy and information transfer rates over traditional methods in a pilot study.

Contribution

It introduces and optimizes HRIR-based spatial sound settings for saBCI, showing their advantages over conventional virtual sound methods.

Findings

HRIR cues improve BCI accuracy

Elevation cues enhance spatial perception in saBCI

EEG P300 responses are stable and reliable

Abstract

This study provides a comprehensive test of a head-related impulse response (HRIR) cues for a spatial auditory brain-computer interface (saBCI) speller paradigm. We present a comparison with the conventional virtual sound headphone-based spatial auditory modality. We propose and optimize the three types of sound spatialization settings using a variable elevation in order to evaluate the HRIR efficacy for the saBCI. Three experienced and seven naive BCI users participated in the three experimental setups based on ten presented Japanese syllables. The obtained EEG auditory evoked potentials (AEP) resulted with encouragingly good and stable P300 responses in online BCI experiments. Our case study indicated that users could perceive elevation in the saBCI experiments generated using the HRIR measured from a general head model. The saBCI accuracy and information transfer rate (ITR) scores have been improved comparing to the classical horizontal plane-based virtual spatial sound reproduction modality, as far as the healthy users in the current pilot study are concerned.