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Playing Games With One's Brainwaves
PolloDiablo writes "Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have reported success with recording the signals a brain sends out to the other parts of the body and using them to play a game. The subjects had to move a cursor towards a target in a one-dimensional environment without using any bodypart, just pure brainpower. One subject had a success rate of 100%. This could prove a breakthrough in the use of prosthetics. The next step is repeating the same test in a 2-dimensional environment. Similar tests have been done with monkeys before but never with humans."
Make sure your developers aren't Russian, else you'll need to think in Russian to fire your weapons, and that'd suck.
How do you say 'railgun' in Russian, anyway?
But how generally applicable is this? Obviously we will need to approach near-100% accuracy to make anything useful of it, but it makes me wonder if it's possible to have the machine just work for everybody, or will it need to be trained to your brain before it can be of use?
Atari was working on this at one point, when their business model started to tank in the mid 80s. It's not only not new, it's really really not new. And I can't imagine they were using monkeys for their games, because the SPCA has ensured that even monkeys don't have to play that godawful E.T. title they tried to push out.
This sig was blatantly stolen from someone else.
Just yesterday I was advising a coworker about his repetitive strain injury. He said he gamed a lot, and I told him that gaming (e.g. loads of rapid mouseclicks under stress) can be a factor. I'm afflicted with RSI crap to the point where I no longer game much, if at all. I can't wait for this brain wave kind of technology to be polished so I can play Far Cry, Half Life 2, etc. without worrying about pain.
to see how this technology will migrate to prosthetics, see the anime Angelic Layer ;)
P.S. other two references I can remember from the top of my head are Playstation commercial (guessing that they will have a brain-controlled PS sometime in the future) and a gaming console in Cowboy Bebop
Did you know that "FTW" ("for the win") is a direct translation of "Sieg Heil"?
I seem to remember seeing pictures demonstrating one-dimensional cursor movement using the human mind years ago. I'm confident that I'm not imagining things.
Maybe emotions could be used to help provide movement as well. An intense emotion such as anger has been known to motivate people.
How big is a cursor in 1-D on an 800x600 screen? I must not be understanding this correctly. Does that mean the cursor could only move in two directions to begin with?
activity-data taken invasively right from the brain surface
I don't think that extra millisecond of response time in your favorite videogame is worth invasive brain surgery.
My point is, this sounds incredible, however the topic is slightly misleading; this is not yet ready as a practical application because it does require brain surgery, and I for one am not in the mood to have an assortment of wires placed on the surface of my brain.
it's much easier to do invasively than non-invasively, as they state. in this article they sort of market invasive as being superior, but that depends on your perspective. it is superior in its ease of understanding signals, but it is inferior to those who object to direct tinkering with the brain.
ideally we could accurately decipher signals non-invasively to get the same result. invasive is inherently more dangerous, and certainly more complicated from a medical point of view.
.sigs are for post^Hers.
What I saw was one dimensional, and I think I saw it on the Discovery Channel back in the day, as in 2001 or before.
Of course, none of this will do us any good until developers finally adopt the 1DGSC recommendations (One Dimensional Gaming Standards Committee).
As it is now, all those 1-D games that we all know and love each operate on an entire different API! In one game it's all Up and Down. In another it's North/South... or +/-. Madness, I say!
then we can play theremins with our Minds!
.
. hmmm
Does anyone know how they can get there hands on this kind of equipment without selling their houses or cars?
For a few months now I keep thinking of the possiblity of googling by thought. If you can just get two different kinds of signals out, you've got morse code automatically.
Combine that with some of those lasers that shine images directly on your retinas that we hear about from time-to-time, and you'd have a real winner. Think of the productivity gains (or losses from having almost-in-brain IM services)
Ummm...strudel?
This sig is only here so people stop skipping the last lines of my posts.
Man I hate when they mess with my brainwaves. I always start singing folk songs.
B. Rodriquez
I remember picking up something back a while ago, from a company called "The Other 90% Technologies" that used an electrode you attach to a finger to control the games. It was basically a downhill slalom skiing game. You had to "think hard right" and "relax left" in order to move the playing piece. I couldn't quite get the hang of it, and ended up giving the thing away. Cost was around $30 or so.
Being able to browse the web with both our hands free. ;)
Abaddon: An Xbox 360 Indie game
Whoever filed this as "Games" is nuts - needs a serious implant...
I know americans think the rest of the world means alaska but this is nothing new. We are all just waiting for someone to turn it into a working product.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
You'd need to recalibrate it for every user.
The complexity of a human brain is absolutely
staggering, and creating a fast auto-calibrating
'brainreader' would need so much data about
different 'possible' user brainwave patterns
that it at the moment would be nigh impossible.
At the moment, anyway.
Music to suit and better your current
emotional state! Yeah! This could be
great! Think about it; train your
computer to know your emotions, and
which type of music works to pick you
up when you're down and to keep you
happy when you are - schweetness!
(And I don't just mean "Emotion-
playslists", more interactive inter-
active music)
Think about it this way: ;p
You don't need to 'let go' to change/control the pr0n when you're at it
(It was a surprise, after a play about the inventor)
The music was OK (I take it, as the sound technician didn't fathom
that there was an upper limit to the 'enjoyable' portion of the
decibel scale - ow!)
It was some world-renowned russian woman, who had been taught
by Lev himself, apparently (I seem to recall, at any rate)
If you read the article, you'll note that the researchers aren't using EEG, which is part of the reference you include in your seperate post.
The difference between an EEG and the technique they use in this study is invasiveness - EEGs are Non-Invasive, that is, they don't need to stick anything into your head (they attach electrodes at various points on the skull corresponding to lobes of the brain) - this study uses the ECoG, a more invasive technique for monitoring brain activity.
Note that the "breakthrough" was in acquisition of the task. This increased acquisition level may lead to much faster experimentation. Of course, the acquisition comes at a cost - invasive surgery.
Just thought I'd keep you up to article, there. =)
Wouldn't a nerve / electronics interface be more efficient?
Ie, something you can attach to a nerve either directly or indirectly as an imput device. Picture typing without a keyboard as a device in your arm captures the signals to your fingers and interprets them. It should be possible to train your brain and the input device to accept more signals faster than is currently possible through a keyboard.
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
pr0n
(or this)
/empaler*
While you're at bashing at Americans for no particular reason, could you please give Microsoft a little attention as well? It wouldn't be fair to MS to be forgotten when being rash and narrowminded.
(* very anti-american - but not rash)
When I was a kid, adults used to say that you'd go blind if you kept playing with your brainwaves.
He decided to just watch the government, and kind of scale it down to size, and run his life that way. --Laurie Anderson
I'd like to know the accuracy. Also, I doubt it was just thinking of a color. Some subconscious other action may have accompanied it (maybe even a scam). You'd have to make it work immediately with other people (which is something we are very far from--picking out something subjective like that).
-I am an elective eunuch.
All humans are already disabled. Why must we thirst, age, and poo? Transhumanism comes down to I/O to consciousness, and this is a major step that way. I for one am glad the disabled are testing the prototypes, but I'll be first in line to have it done no matter how "normal" I am.
-I am an elective eunuch.
I've actually played a rudimentery version of this. It was a skiing game where you thought "center" to center yourself and left or right to move left and right. I also once played a Pacman game where the more of a certain type of brain wave you had the faster Pacman went. I became quite good at this.
Something very similar to this seems to have already been done. Back in 2000, the Swedish Interactive Insititute developed a game they called BrainBall. The game used the brain waves of the contestants to move a ball back and forth a table. The one with the least brain activity would win.
It was even covered on Slashdot.
Obviously it's just a first step. But the experience of the Lumiere brothers comes to my mind relating to the introduction of a new technology. People ran away when the saw the train coming towards them rather than enjoying the show.
It's a matter of refining and improving the technology by making a lot of trials and errors.
Let's see, in facts, what is going to happen with a 2D game.
What if brain-control is support by eye beam recognization and retina scan?
I have collected some quotes about the main articles, here:
Mind-controlled Games
Yours,
Angelmax
When can I buy a biofeedback/thought controlled game for my computer or PS2? I would buy it even if the controller was as expensive as the one for Steel Battalion, at least it would be really unique and a new way to play.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
Pretty soon we'll just be lying in bed with IVs for food and matrix-like things hooked up to our brain.... oh yeah
--------
Free your mind.
A group of grad students at the Entertainment Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon University did a somewhat similar project last semester called AugCog (Augmented Cognition). The main purpose was for military applications, as it was funded by DARPA, but they also did a bunch of mini-projects on the side that had Entertainment Applications. An interesting note about this project also is that the faculty advisor for this project was Jesse Schell, the new head of the International Game Developers Association.
The thought input mechanism would require some safe-control mechanism (like google's safe search). Elsewise, we would be getting characters doing some strange and perverted things...
Frink: Nice try floyd, but you were designed for scrubbing, and scrubbing is what you shall do.
I saw something like this in the 80s at the local Amiga store (Yes we had a local Amiga store!). They had a game that came with a head strap. The game consisted of bubbles that floated from the bottom of the screen to the top the more relaxed you became the bubbles would sink the more tense the bubbles would rise and pop. I saw some one play for about 15 minutes he thought he had it down to a science.... when he left the guys running the store said "hey this head set thing needs bateries that guys been watching a demo" I guess this is why it never realy took off.
The game of playing games with one's brainwaves already exists. It's called "Girlfriend". When you start playing the game, it's really easy and fun. Brainwaves, coupled with alcohol, help you cross the bar and talk a good game. They get you first the first few weeks of a relationship. Then they start asking questions like "Do you think she looks better than me?" or "Do I look fat?" and your brainwaves are likely to fail you. Hopefully they've got these limitations worked out in this new version.
They achieved between 74 and 100 percent accuracy, with one patient hitting 33 out of 33 targets correctly in a row
With people like this around, fragging you left and right, you'll anyway (re)quit the games within an hour.
(Karma be damned; I am no better than an AC anyway)
This is /. buddy
You must be new here
you'll get used to the nuts and bolts
We're all curious about the holes ancient Egyptians had drilled in the heads of various patients for no apparent reason, I wonder what future generations will say about these skeletons?
As far as gaming goes I have a feeling it'll be very difficult to teach yourself to THINK the correct thought for complex games. We're so used to responding directly with our hands (and feet) in games that I feel it will be quit difficult to make the transition. However as far as replacing limbs for amputee's seems like a more practical application. Playing a game with your mind seems more feasible if you hvae direct input from the game into your mind (not via eyes/ears).. Then again I've never tried such games so I could just be talking out of my ass again.. Hmm there's an idea...
Finally a game that I can play against my giant pet snail and where it can beat me.
(The mention of W. is also a good one)
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.