How much visual stimulation/reward is too much?

[Guest guest]

When I was doing another NFB session w/ my clinician, he told me that

in the next version of the Infinity BioGraph software, they were

going to sell a low-power strobe unit that attached to the monitor,

and the software will interface with it and have it fire as part of

the visual reward. He mentioned something about not thinking the

usual graphics used in the program was as much a stimulator as the

audible tones.

That got me thinking, and I played a bit with the training design I

use on BioExplorer. I setup the " Instrument 2 " screen to include

both the video of morphing fractals (that I stole from the Infinity

software) in the middle, and surrounded it with a large Bar Graph

element that flashes white/black as fast as possible when the

software signals a reward.

I used it last night, and I seemed to be able to pay much better

attention during the training. I usually have periods where I start

to fall asleep during the training, or start to day dream and lose

focus, (which is partially why I'm doing NFB in the first place...).

There were only a few times where I started to drift off, but the

while screen flashing was enough to remind me to come back to reality

and concentrate on the training.

I did however, feel myself not concentrating on the video, as much as

just kind of gaze at the screen as a whole, and it felt a bit

hipnotic, (but once again, I was able to stay awake during the

training, which is always a struggle).

My question is, I know high contrast flashing lights can cause

seizures, and was wondering just how much visual stimulation is too

much? Should I slow down the flashing a bit, make it smaller, get

rid of it, or can I leave it as is?

Any thoughts?