Training Users' Spatial Abilities to Improve Brain-Computer Interface Performance: A Theoretical Approach

National audience; —Mental-Imagery based Brain-Computer Interfaces (MI-BCIs) allow their users to send commands to a computer using their brain activity alone (typically measured by ElectroEn-cephaloGraphy-EEG), which is processed while they perform specific mental tasks. While very promising MI-BCIs remain barely used outside laboratories because of the difficulty encountered by users to control them. Indeed, although some users obtain good control performances after training, a substantial proportion remains unable to reliably control an MI-BCI. This huge variability in user performance led the community to look for predictors of MI-BCI control ability. Mainly, neurophysiolog-ical and psychological predictors of MI-BCI performance have been proposed. In this paper, a newly-depicted lever to increase MI-BCI performance is introduced: namely a spatial ability training. The aims of this paper are to clarify the relationship between spatial abilities and mental imagery tasks used in MI-BCI paradigms, and to provide suggestions to include a spatial ability training in MI-BCI training protocols.