Short description:

Use your Brains in Interaction

Keywords:

BCI, Multi Modal Intraction, Games, Affective Computing

Research Themes:

• Brain Computer Interaction
• Multimodal Interactions

Description

The general theme of the BCI Research at the HMI group is "BCI for healthy users". At the moment the research topics are:

• Intuitive BCI for Games.
  An example of Intuitive BCI for Games is alpha-World of Warcraft. alpha-WoW is a demonstration of how one can control a character in the virtual environment of the popular videogame World of Warcraft, just by using his or her brain.
  In the videogame the user plays a druid, who is very close to nature and can also make use of its magic. In the human form the druid (user) is very capable of casting spells, but is also more fragile. The druid change into a bear form, which is naturally more suited for claw-to-claw combat.
  
  
  
  The brain activity of the user is analyzed for alpha activity, which is brain activity within a very specific frequency band (8-12Hz). Different frequency bands have been linked to specific mental states. Alpha activity is, for example, related to relaxation.
  
  
  
  A short period of stress will trigger the bear form which is great for dealing with enemies in close-combat, while being relaxed will revert the druid to a human shape in which the user can use their mind to cast useful spells.
  
  World of Warcraft and Blizzard Entertainment are trademarks or registered trademarks of Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries.

• Machine Learning for BCI and Games.
  Info on ML for BCI and Games

• BCI and Affective Computing.
  Info on BCI and Affective Computing
• BCI in MultiModal Interaction.
  So far, involvement of BCI in games has occurred in an unnatural manner due to devices used to record brain signals (such as EEG) being prone to artefacts such as sound, eye blinks and movements. During experiments conducted in isolated rooms subjects are usually asked to concentrate on only the stimulus presented, not to blink their eyes much and not to talk or move at all. However in reality, gamers would like to move freely, make gestures, and talk frequently. This work attempts to find out to what extent BCI games can co-operate with different modalities such as speech, vibration, and the like. which are traditionally discarded, being sources of noise.
• BCI and Ambient Intelligence.
  

BCI@HMI in the Press

For the moment consult the following web pages:

• Press page of Anton Nijholt
• Press page of Danny Oude Bos

BCI@HMI at TED Talks in Amsterdam

• alphaWoW at TEDxAmsterdam

BCI@HMI on Posters

• Bacteria Hunt. A multimodal, multiparadigm BCI game
• Fun and Games 2008
• AISB 2009
• ICT Delta 2009
• Posters from the 2008 BrainGain Consortium meeting:
  • BrainGain WP23: Christian Muehl
  • BrainGain WP25: Danny Oude Bos
  • BrainGain WP25: Boris Reuderink

Publications related to this showcase are:

B. Reuderink and M. Poel Robustness of the Common Spatial Patterns algorithm in the BCI-pipeline, Technical Report, TR-CTIT-08-52, Enschede, Centre for Telematics and Information Technology, University of Twente, Pages: 5, 2008 [ BiBTeX ] []

A. Nijholt BCI for Games: A 'State of the Art' Survey, in 7th International Conference on Entertainment Computing (ICEC), S.M. Stevens and S. Saldamarco (eds), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, volume 5309, Springer Verlag, Berlin, ISBN 978-3-540-89221-2, pp. 225-228, 2009 [ BiBTeX ] []

D. Plass-Oude Bos and B. Reuderink BrainBasher: a BCI Game, in Extended Abstracts of the International Conference on Fun and Games 2008, P. Markopoulos, J. Hoonhout, I. Soute and J. Read (eds), Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, ISBN 978-90-386-1457-1, pp. 36-39, 2008 [ BiBTeX ] []

A. Nijholt, B. Reuderink and D. Plass-Oude Bos Turning Shortcomings into Challenges: Brain-Computer Interfaces for Games., in Proceedings 3rd International Conference on Intelligent Technologies for Interactive Entertainment (INTETAIN 09), A. Nijholt, D. Reidsma and G.H.W. Hondorp (eds), Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social-Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering (LNICST), volume 9, Springer Verlag, Berlin, ISBN 978-3-642-02314-9, ISSN 1867-8211, pp. 153-168, 2009 [ BiBTeX ] []

B.L.A. van de Laar, D. Plass-Oude Bos, B. Reuderink and D.K.J. Heylen Actual and Imagined Movement in BCI Gaming, in Proceedings of the International Conference on Artificial Intellingence and Simulation of Behaviour (AISB 2009), D. Romano and D. Moffat (eds), SSAISB, Brighton, Brighton, pp. 5, 2009 [ BiBTeX ] []

B. Reuderink, A. Nijholt and M. Poel Affective Pacman: A Frustrating Game for Brain-Computer Interface Experiments, in 3rd International Conference on Intelligent Technologies for Interactive Entertainment (INTETAIN 09), A. Nijholt, D. Reidsma and G.H.W. Hondorp (eds), Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social-Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering (LNICST), volume 9, Springer Verlag, Berlin, ISBN 978-3-642-02314-9, ISSN 1867-8211, pp. 221-227, 2009 [ BiBTeX ] []

M. van Gerven, J. Farquhar, R. Schaefer, R. Vlek, J. Geuze, A. Nijholt, N. Ramsay, P. Haselager, L. Vuurpijl, S. Gielen and P. Desain The Brain-Computer Interface Cycle, Journal of Neural Engineering, 6(4):1-10, ISSN 1741-2560, 2009 [ BiBTeX ] []

G. Garcia Molina, T. Tsoneva and A. Nijholt Emotional Brain-Computer Interfaces, in Proceedings 3rd International Conference on Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction (ACII 2009). Volume I, J. Cohn, A. Nijholt and M. Pantic (eds), ACII 2009 Proceedings, volume Volume 1, IEEE Computer Society Press, Los Alamitos, ISBN 978-1-4244-4799-2, pp. 138-146, 2009 [ BiBTeX ] []

C. Mühl and D.K.J. Heylen Cross-modal Elicitation of Affective Experience, in Proceedings Workshop on Affective Brain-Computer Interfaces. ACII 2009 Proceedings Volume 2, IEEE Computer Society Press, Los Alamitos, ISBN 978-1-4244-4799-2, pp. 42-53, 2009 [ BiBTeX ] []

S. Koelstra, C. Mühl and I. Patras EEG analysis for implicit tagging of video data, in Proceedings Workshop on Affective Brain-Computer Interfaces. ACII 2009 Proceedings Volume 2, IEEE Computer Society Press, Los Alamitos, ISBN 978-1-4244-4799-2, pp. 27-32, 2009 [ BiBTeX ] []

C. Mühl, H. Gürkök, D. Plass-Oude Bos, M.E. Thurlings, L. Scherffig, M. Duvinage, A.A. Elbakyan, S. Kang, M. Poel and D.K.J. Heylen Bacteria Hunt: A multimodal, multiparadigm BCI game, in Proceedings of the Fifth International Summer Workshop on Multimodal Interfaces, University of Genoa, Genoa, pp. 22, 2010 [ BiBTeX ] []

HMI-members working on this showcase are:

• Anton Nijholt
• Boris Reuderink
• Bram van de Laar
• Christian Mühl
• Danny Plass-Oude Bos
• Dirk Heylen
• Hayrettin Gürkök
• Job Zwiers
• Mannes Poel

Projects involved with this showcase:

• BrainGain [BrainGain: Brain-computer and computer-brain interfaces]
• PetaMedia [PetaMedia]
• SSPnet [SSPnet]