Adaptation of hybrid human-computer interaction systems using EEG error-related potentials

Performance improvement in both humans and artificial systems strongly relies in the ability of recognizing erroneous behavior or decisions. This paper, that builds upon previous studies on EEG error-related signals, presents a hybrid approach for human computer interaction that uses human gestures to send commands to a computer and exploits brain activity to provide implicit feedback about the recognition of such commands. Using a simple computer game as a case study, we show that EEG activity evoked by erroneous gesture recognition can be classified in single trials above random levels. Automatic artifact rejection techniques are used, taking into account that subjects are allowed to move during the experiment. Moreover, we present a simple adaptation mechanism that uses the EEG signal to label newly acquired samples and can be used to re-calibrate the gesture recognition system in a supervised manner. Offline analysis show that, although the achieved EEG decoding accuracy is far from being perfect, these signals convey sufficient information to significantly improve the overall system performance.