P300-BCI: Disassociating Flash Groups from Physical Organizations Provides Improved Performance

Since its inception, the P300-based BCI has typically flashed in rows and columns [1]. Recently, the “checkerboard?(CB) paradigm was introduced in which targets are grouped in rows and columns on two “virtual matrices?taken from the white and black squares of a checkerboard overlaid on the physical matrix [2]. Disassociating the physical rows and columns of the matrix from how they are grouped to flash brings advantages by: 1) avoiding the problematic effects of double target flashes [3], and 2) not allowing adjacent targets to flash together. In this study, this disassociation of the “flash groups?from the physical matrix is taken further. The flash groups become purely “abstract?bearing no relationship to rows or columns either physical or virtual. This study compares performance of this new paradigm named ?-Flash?(5F) to the CB.