Interaction study of SSVEP and P300 in electroencephalogram

Abstract

Electroencephalogram (EEG) is a noninvasive measurement of electrical activities produced by the firing of neuros within the brain. In a specially designed experiment, usually in which a large number of identical stimuli are presented repeatedly Event-related potential (ERP) can be extracted by averaging EEG epochs together. Since ERP is the measured brain response that is the direct result of a specific sensory or cognitive event, it has been widely used in the research fields of neuroscience, cognitive science, psychology, and has important application in Brain computer interface (BCI). Steady-State Visual Evoked Potential (SSVEP) are cerebral cortex responses to a repetitive visual stimulus oscillating at a constant frequency, and P300 component evoked by a rare, random, task-relevant stimulus. Although there have been many attempts in extraction and analysis of P300 and SSVEP, most of the traditional ERP paradigms only evoke one kind of EEG pattern for the subsequent studies, and up to now there is no work to focus on the interaction of SSVEP and P300. In this work, we present a new ERP paradigm that involves signal-detection task in frequency flashing stimulation, which would generate P300 and SSVEP simultaneously. By analysis of the feature of SSVEP and P300 in spatial and temporal modals, the interactions of SSVEP and P300 are presented: there are mutual effects between the P300 and SSVEP SSVEP stimuli increase the amplitude and delay the latency of P300, while P300 task reduces the power of SSVEP. This study has potentially important application in the development of hybrid BCI, and help to cognitive science, psychology research.