A tactile P300-based BCI for communication and detection of awareness

In this publication a tactile P300-based BrainComputer Interface (BCI) is presented. It can be used for communication, but is also aimed for testing the consciousness in nonresponsive patients. Three different settings were evaluated: two stimulators for testing if a P300 could be detected; three stimulators that could be used for simple communication, and a setup with eight stimulators that provides more classes and is hence suitable for advanced communication. The BCI was evaluated on 12 healthy users showing a mean accuracy of 100% for classification in the two stimulator approach, 80% in the three stimulator approach and 69.4% in the eight stimulator approach.