Real-time feedback improves imagined 3D primitive object classification from EEG

Brain-computer interfaces (BCI) enable movement-independent information transfer from humans to computers. Decoding imagined 3D objects from electroencephalography (EEG) may improve design ideation in engineering design or image reconstruction from EEG for application in brain-computer interfaces, neuro-prosthetics, and cognitive neuroscience research. Object-imagery decoding studies, to date, predominantly employ functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and do not provide real-time feedback. We present four linked studies in a study series to investigate: (1) whether five imagined 3D primitive objects (sphere, cone, pyramid, cylinder, and cube) could be decoded from EEG; and (2) the influence of real-time feedback on decoding accuracy. Studies 1 (N=10) and 2 (N=3) involved a single-session and a multi-session design, respectively, without real-time feedback. Studies 3 (N=2) and 4 (N=4) involved multiple sessions, without and with real-time feedback. The four studies involved 69 sessions in total of which 26 sessions were online with real-time feedback (15,480 trials for offline and at least 6,840 trials for online sessions in total). We demonstrate that decoding accuracy over multiple sessions improves significantly with biased feedback (p=0.004), compared to performance without feedback. This is the first study to show the effect of real-time feedback on the performance of primitive object-imagery BCI.