Had my calibration routine wrong for 2 years, a slip of the tongue changed it

I have been doing BCI calibration sessions every Monday for about 2 years. My whole method was to stare at the fixation cross as hard as I could, trying to force clean signals. Turns out that extra effort was the problem. A grad student at the Boston lab I visit casually mentioned that relaxed attention works way better than intense focus for most people. I switched to a soft gaze and let my mind wander a bit, and my classifier accuracy jumped from 72% to 84% in one session. Made me wonder if I had wasted all that time fighting my own brain. Has anyone else found that trying too hard actually messes up their signal quality, or is it just me?

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kevin_carr14d ago

Whoa, that is a wild realization. I always figured the harder you concentrate on something, the better the result would be, but your story makes total sense now. It sounds like relaxing is the actual skill, and I'm definitely going to try easing up on my own focus next time.