The N400 for brain computer interfacing: complexities and opportunities
The N400 is an event related potential that is evoked in response to conceptually meaningful
stimuli. It is for instance more negative in response to incongruent than congruent words in a
sentence, and more negative for unrelated than related words following a prime word. This
sensitivity to semantic content of a stimulus in relation to the mental context of an individual
makes it a signal of interest for Brain Computer Interfaces. A complicating aspect is the number of
factors that can affect the N400 amplitude. In this paper, we provide an accessible overview of this
range of N400 effects, and survey the three main BCI application areas that currently exploit the
N400: (1) exploiting the semantic processing of faces to enhance matrix speller performance, (2)
detecting language processing in patients with Disorders of Consciousness, and (3) using semantic
stimuli to probe what is on a user’s mind. Drawing on studies from these application areas, we
illustrate that the N400 can ...