BCI Gaming Interfaces

Matthew Battison

The basic idea behind developing a game for BCI is the idea of effectance and control, what this means is the ability for the player to effect the game world it is currently within(effectance) and for the game world to impose a set of rules for the player to work with in order to win(control). With BCI interfaces this is achieved through the use of simple input and output. A guide on this style of input has to do with the correct calibration and ability of the BCI device and its capabilities translated into the gaming world(Basically don't ask the player to do something that the BCI would have a hard time with, such as very precise movements, positional based references and the such) An additional concept and guideline for BCIs is the ability for the interface to not only interact with the environment but also to interact with the rules, or the control. If the game is to easy or the signals or coming across clearly the game (understanding these signals would potentially be able to increase the difficulty to match the interface.) The idea right now behind designing a BCI game is to keep the interface and environment simple to that a relatively few signals can interact with everything required(another guideline) In a report I read it discussed the difficulties of multiplayer gaming within such an environment as it would add another level of complexity to the gaming creating a more difficult job for the interface, so to try and keep multiplayer actions simple within games for the moment.

In terms of multimodal games and BCIs, what you need to do is provide as much feedback to the user as possible without flooding them essentially, so while keeping a system simple for the BCI you would need alternate forms of interaction. An example of this might be having a piston of some sort provide a

physical feedback when pushed, now your brain is working to tell you to push and that signal could be interpreted b the game.(Although so could a sensor within the piston but this is just as example)

http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~anandk/neuro/BCI%20Overview.pdf http://doc.utwente.nl/69553/ http://doc.utwente.nl/69553/1/bacteriahunt_e09project5.pdf