A neurofeedback game for speech sounds learning in foreign language

Neurofeedback is a sub-category of biofeedback that is concerned with using brain signals as the source of training data in a feedback loop. The neurofeedback training procedures in this study focused on the mismatch negativity (MMN) component, an event-related potential (ERP) that reflects the cognitive processes of auditory discrimination ability. This paper proposes a neurofeedback game that allows the subject to control the game with the help of auditory discrimination ability based MMN. We examined whether the proposed game is effective in helping native Japanese speakers discriminate speech sounds in English that are usually difficult to be differentiated. Subjects seemed to improve significantly in speech sound discrimination after playing a number of game sessions demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed game in speech sounds learning in foreign language.