Paper Reading #26

Embodiment in brain-computer interaction

 

Authors:	Kenton O'Hara	Microsoft Research, Cambridge, United Kingdom
	Abigail Sellen	Microsoft Research, Cambridge, United Kingdom
	Richard Harper	Microsoft Research, Cambridge, United Kingdom

 

 Proceeding 

CHI '11 Proceedings of the 2011 annual conference on Human

 

 

Summary

• Hypothesis - The researchers believed that people would act differently when operating a brain-computer device.

• Content - The MindFlex game board is a system that consists of a hand-actuated circular obstruction game path, and a EEG headset to measure brain activity. The more the user concentrates, the more a fan levitates a styrofoam ball. After this, the user rotates the game board to direct the ball past the obstacles.
• Methods -  The researchers gave 4 different groups of people a MindFlex game and instructed a leader to gather people to play the group and record the reactions during playing. The video footage was later collected and analyzed for patterns.
• Results - Participants were found to change their orientation in an attempt to change their level of concentration. Some people held their breath or came in closer to the ball as well. Other people lowered their concentration by not looking at the game. Another way for changing the level of concentration participants used was to imagine the ball moving up. The action of imagination caused more mental activity and caused the ball to move up.

Discussion
Considering the brain has the most entropy of data of all possible systems on the body for collecting data, I find it depressing that the current level of technology only allows such little interaction in BCI. For the future, it would be amazing to have the level of technology rise to the point where interfaces not just simply tell a difference in activity in localized places of the brain, but to concretely separate out different ideas being processed in the brain in real time. Obviously this wont come in the form of a $70 toy in any point in the near future, but I think it is possible.