Event-related potentials (ERPs) are indicators of brain
activity related to cognitive processes. They can be de-
tected from EEG signals and thus constitute an attractive
non-invasive option to study cognitive information pro-
cessing. The P300 wave is probably the most celebrated
example of an event-related potential and it is classically
studied in connection to the odd-ball paradigm experi-
mental protocol, able to consistently provoke the brain
wave. We propose the use of P300 detection to identify
the scientific interest in a large set of images and train
a computer with machine learning algorithms using the
subject’s responses to the stimuli as the training data set. As a first step, we here describe a number of experiments designed to relate the P300 brain wave to the cognitive processes related to placing a scientific judgment on a picture and to study the number of images per seconds
that can be processed by such a system.