Effect of Machine Reliability on the Cognitive Processes of the Task Performance

Brain machine interfaces (BMI) are becoming increasingly prevalent in diverse applications including motor rehabilitation, virtual reality training, etc. Two critical aspects of an effective BMI are machine reliability and cognitive workload (CWL). Previous studies have reported a notable effect of machine reliability on the 6 factors of the CWL. However, it remains unclear whether this effect can be detected in cognitive processes. Electroencephalography (EEG) is a widely used technique to explore cognitive processes by recording brain activities as signals. Therefore, we utilized the event-related spectral power (ERSP) feature of EEG signals to determine the cognitive processes regarding the effect of machine reliability. The results revealed that machine reliability affected the CWL factor of performance which was reflected in the
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band activities of the right prefrontal cortex. The findings indicate the potential of cognitive processes in detecting the effect of machine reliability. The detection could pave the way for designing adaptive BMI to balance the machine reliability and the CWL.