Attentional Manipulations Can Enhance P300-Based BCI Performance

Severe motor disabilities such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) reduce or eliminate neuromuscular control and deprive affected patients of vital communication and control. Recent advances in noninvasive EEG-based BCIs have given patients new hope for communication and environmental control not provided by other assistive devices[1]. General lapses of attention, mind wandering, and lack of focus may all undermine BCI performance[2]. In a P300-BCI, non-target flashes are exogenous cues that could attract attention away from the endogenous task of attending to target item flashes. Thus, inducing a heightened state of attentional awareness and reducing distractibility may improve BCI performance. Mindfulness meditation and induction (MMI) offers such a possibility[3,4]. We expect MMI to have several important consequences for P300-based BCI use: one, it will focus attention to the target item; two, it will reduce distraction from non-target flashes; three, it will reduce P300 target latencies; four it will produce higher amplitude ERPs