Assessment of Static, Dynamic Visual and Multimodal Guidance to Support MI-BCI Paradigm Selection: A Human Factors Comparison

Sensory cue interface design critically affects the operational performance of motor imagery brain-computer interfaces (MI-BCIs) in rehabilitation and human-machine interaction. Few studies have systematically compared visual and multisensory cues for MI control. This study investigated four cue schemes: static pictures, synchronized visual feedback, visual-audio combination, and visual-vibration combination, with evaluations focusing on BCI classification accuracy and user engagement. The results show that dynamic synchronized visual cues outperform static cues. Additional auditory and haptic stimuli cannot improve but interfere with stable MI performance. Pure synchronized visual cues achieve the most reliable MI control. This study provides ergonomic design guidelines for MI-BCI visual cue layouts.