A Multivariate Randomized Controlled Experiment about the Effects of Mindfulness Priming on EEG Neurofeedback Self-Regulation Serious Games

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This study developed a human-computer framework to assist the self-regulation(SR) of Neurofeedback with the intent of decreasing the number of unsuccessful practitioners (non-responders) of SR tasks. The assistance was done by priming the subject with mindfulness guided instructions right before the explicit Neurofeedback training (NFT). This intervention was the first step to demonstrate that priming with external stimulation assists Neurofeedback self-regulation in SR serious games, and potentially turn NFT non-responders into responders. The result showed that priming with mindfulness stimuli enables higher significance of EEG target self-regulation in a single session.Some related studie could be discussed: Internal Feature Selection Method of CSP Based on L1-Norm and Dempster-Shafer Theory，IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems,2020, 10.1109/TNNLS.2020.3015505, The Effects of Audiovisual Inputs on Solving the Cocktail Party Problem in the Human Brain: An fMRI Study. Cereb Cortex. 2018 Oct 1;28(10):3623-3637. , An Asynchronous Hybrid Spelling Approach Based on EEG-EOG Signals for Chinese Character Input，IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON NEURAL SYSTEMS AND REHABILITATION ENGINEERING， 2019， 27（6）：1292-1302 Here are some questions that should be answered:

1. Please write full names instead of abbreviations, when you first write “GSR” and “HRV”.
2. Please give a description of “the eyes protocol” in more detail in section 2.2.
3. “From schedule slots slot 1 (9-11h), slot 2 (11h-13h), slot 3 (13h-15h) and slot 4 (15h-17h), the participants would choose to be allocated, and they were allocated following the rule first come/first served.” What does the time periods in parentheses mean, please give a description?
4. When you expound interventions of your framework in section 2.3, why is priming with MM the target condition in the no-priming experimental condition?
5. It is better to indicate the form of the serious game mentioned in the title, although you have introduced it implicitly when you describe the NFT paradigm.
6. It is better to mark the waveforms(EEG amplitude or EEG spectrum) in Figure 3.
7. It seems impossible to draw such a conclusion that there were a significant decrease between Bin and Bout for the REST EC condition in alpha, SMR and Beta from Figure 4.
8. It is better to summarize the results of the experiment  in terms of specific evaluation criteria in the conclusions part.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors,

    Greetings. Thanks so much for your manuscript submission to Applied Science. After careful review, I justify that this research article represents very good set of work. The organization, presentation and experimental design all have good merits. A few problematic issues (not limited to these) for further updates can be summarized as follows:

    a) Abstract: Please shorten the long sentences (and make it more concise and readable); meanwhile, it is preferrable to include 1~2 keynote quantitative results in the concluding sentences. Thanks a lot!

    b) Introduction: while the authors summarized three set of research study, we recommend you to include a short pargraph on major contributions; besides, the structure of paragraph should be adjusted (merging some short paragraphs and avoid using starting term such as "although...").

    c) Stop using hyphen to connect breaking words from rear of one line to the front of the next line, where the current version looks a bit awkward. You should use professional proofreading system to calibrate this issue. Thanks.

   d) The authors must fix the distortion issues and ambiguous legends in Figures 1, 4 and 5. Part of the current version is unacceptable for publishing.

   e) Make the required keynote notations (i.e., "p" of p-value, "t", "T x G") italic, and do proofreading for other related terms.

   f) Tables 1-3: some of tabulated lines are too bold, please reduce the weight of the corresponding lines.

   g) I think the conclusion session may include main summary, remaining questions to be solved, and prospects for future work; however, the last section on discussions had some future proposals, while the last two short paragraphs looks a bit thin, which should be polished in the revised version.

   h) References: the current version looks nice, I think it is better to include more state-of-the-art citations in Years 2019-2021; meanwhile, be sure all the added reference fulfill the requirement as specified in MDPI template (for publishing a research article in a specific journal).

   In sum, good set work while a few minor edits are necessary. We look forward to seeing your success in the near future. Good luck and stay safe!

Best regards,

Yours faithfully,

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Authors have addressed my questions.