An Analysis of the Accuracy of the P300 BCI

Abstract: The P300 Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) is a well-established communication channel for severely disabled people. The P300 event-related potential is mostly characterized by its amplitude or its area, which correlate with the spelling accuracy of the P300 speller. Here, we introduce a novel approach for estimating the efficiency of this BCI by considering the P300 signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), a parameter that estimates the spatial and temporal noise levels and has a significantly stronger correlation with spelling accuracy. Furthermore, we suggest a Gaussian noise model, which utilizes the P300 event-related potential SNR to predict spelling accuracy under various conditions for LDA-based classification. We demonstrate the utility of this analysis using real data and discuss its potential applications, such as speeding up the process of electrode selection.