Attention and P300-based BCI performance in people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether attentional features correlate with P300-based brain-computer interface (BCI) performance in people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Six participant with ALS used a P300-spelling application in copy mode and performed a rapid serial presentation task (RSVP), aimed at investigating selective attention. Preliminary findings showed a significant correlation between performance reached in the attention task and the amplitude of the P300 elicited in the BCI task. A tendency to a significant negative correlation was found between the performance reached in the attention task and the number of stimulus sequences needed for correct character classification. We speculated that attentive processes, would influence P300-based BCI performances.