Abstract Background Ear-EEG-based brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) provide improved wearability and comfort compared to traditional scalp-EEG systems. However, their performance is constrained by low signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) and high rates of BCI illiteracy under conventional luminance-modulated steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP) paradigms. Methods This study introduces a text-sequence stimulation paradigm to address these limitations by leveraging ventral visual pathway responses that are more accessible to electrodes near the ear. Using offline frequency-sweeping experiments across 4–8 Hz, we identified optimal stimulus parameters (4.6–6.8 Hz with 0.25π phase shifts) and integrated them into a 12-target BCI system. We further conducted online experiments to compare the response characteristics and real-time spelling performance between the proposed text-sequence paradigm and conventional luminance stimulation. Results Comparative experiments with 14 participants demonstrate that text sequence stimuli achieve an average information transfer rate (ITR) of 44.59 ± 10.50 bits/min, outperforming luminance modulation by 76.18% in ITR. Notably, text sequence stimulation effectively mitigated BCI illiteracy, with all participants achieving near or above 70% accuracy (mean: 86.37 ± 9.61%). This represents a significant improvement over luminance modulation, where 50% of users fell below 70% accuracy. Conclusions By reducing the flicker area by 14% and mimicking the natural luminance variations that occur during reading, the proposed method enhanced visual comfort. The online results further validate text-sequence stimulation as a high-performance and user-friendly paradigm for ear-EEG BCIs, supporting their practicality for assistive applications.
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