An Online Neurofeedback Game using Consumer-grade EEG for Improving Attention and Memory Skills

Electroencephalography (EEG)-based neurofeedback training is an emerging paradigm that has the potential to enhance cognitive performance in healthy and cognitive-deficit patients. State-of-the-art methods focus on improving a single cognitive skill, typically the attention skill. In this work, we propose a real-time neurofeedback-based game using a consumer-grade wireless EEG and study its effectiveness in improving multiple cognitive skills, i.e., attention and working memory for healthy individuals. The game uses a matrix-filling task during which players memorize locations of various elements shown in a matrix and refill them correctly using their attentional levels and working memory. Twenty-one healthy individuals played three sessions of the neurofeedback game. The effectiveness of the proposed neurofeedback game is evaluated using the percentage of correctly filled matrix elements and attention scores based on Sample entropy of EEG signals. The EEG-based attention score and matrix-filling score improved from the first session to the third session in the range 1.96%-36.88% and 6.67%-33.25%, respectively.