A Novel Hybrid Brain-Computer Interface Based on Integration of Steady-State Visual Stimulation and Rapid Serial Visual Presentation Paradigm

Brain-computer interface (BCI) is a kind of human-computer interaction which can realize the communication and control between human brain and the external environment. The single-modality BCI has the problems of small command set and the difficulty to realize multi-dimensional control. To address these issues, a hybrid paradigm combining steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP) and rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) was proposed and designed in this study. A 16-target SSVEP-RSVP hybrid BCI (hBCI) was constructed. This novel paradigm aims to achieve fast information transmission, guarantee system performance through efficient visual stimulation, and effectively overcome the crowding effect problem in the traditional BCIs. Through offline and online experiments, the hBCI system based on the SSVEP-RSVP integration paradigm shows high performance, which provides new insights and technical and theoretical supports for the applicable hBCIs.