Computer Game Predicts Player Moves

willatnewscientist writes "A couple of Hungarian researchers have developed a computer game that knows when you're going to press the 'jump' button ... 2 seconds before you do it. The researchers use neural networks to analyse several type of biofeedback signal — heart rate, EEG and skin conductance — and discovered that skin conductance alone is enough to predict a jump up to 2 seconds beforehand. They say the technique could ultimately be used to make aircraft controls that respond more quickly to a pilot's actions. But it could also be used to create so-called 'frustration games' that respond to a player's actions before they occur."

Comments

Re:Matrix

[UbuntuDupe]

From what I understand, it correlates the changes in physiological metrics of you, with the times you jump. So, if you intentionally prepare to jump, like you normally do, but then deliberately hold back at the last second, opposite from how you acted while it was being trained, you can fool it. You'll show the signs of jumping, but then "change your pattern" so its guess is wrong.

Oh, and it probably would have been more relevant to make a cutesy reference to Minority Report. ;-)

Danger in the cockpit

[Nanidin]

Wouldn't this be dangerous in an airplane? 2 seconds is a pretty big window of time between when a pilot might decide to do something and when he actually does it. During those two seconds, a lot could happen - unexpected turbulence, new weather data, a gust of wind on the runway, etc. If the computer acts on the command two seconds before the pilot intends for it to happen, bad things could happen.

Re:Must be an easy game..

[Blimey85]

You bring up an interesting point but it's actually rather simple. What you think you are seeing already happened approximately 2 seconds before you think it happened. It's like this: light normally travels pretty fast but for video games it's slowed down to approximately the speed of sound. That is why what you see and hear seem to go together. Instead of the visuals traveling at the typical speed of light they are traveling at only 60 frames per second, for the average user. For some it's a bit faster and for the less fortunate it can be a lot slower.

Think of it like the way you see stars in the sky but they may not even exist anymore, it's just what you see happened a long time ago. Same thing except instead of thousands of light years we're only talking approximately 2 seconds. So you see my friend, the system can still predict your twitches approximately 2 seconds before you THINK you are twitching... but as they say, it's all in the past.

Make sense now? ;)