Think to Click

We tap, we click, we touch. Our daily interaction with technology pretty much comes down to pushing on things with our fingers. Now we’ve taken the first steps toward cutting out the middleman and turning thought directly into digital action, thanks to new developments in brain-computer interfaces (BCIs). Early BCI research strove to help people with disabilities communicate, but several companies now see greater mainstream potential for the technology —because really, who doesn’t want superpowers?

Michael Schuette, PhD, vice president of technology and development for OCZ Technology, helped create the company’s Neural Impulse Actuator (NIA) BCI headset. Dr. Schuette recalled the first time he used an early prototype to play Unreal Tournament 2004. The NIA translated the electrical signals from millions of firing neurons and nerves in his head so that Dr. Schuette could move in the game world without lifting a finger. “I thought, This is absolutely freaky,” he said. “I’m feeling like I’m actually part of the game, which is a sensation I’ve never had when playing with a keyboard.”

The NIA is available now (about $130), and will be joined by Emotiv’s EPOC ($299) and the NeuroSky MindSet (which will be bundled with third-party games and toys) in 2009. Will we remember these devices as an epic transition point in human-machine interaction … or as a gimmicky flash in the pan?

Thought Recognition

BCI headsets try to make sense of the electrical static produced by our brains, nerves, and muscles. The headsets have sensors that rest on the scalp or forehead (the Mindset has one, the NIA three, and the EPOC packs 16) that relay the cacophony to software that interprets it, filtering out unwanted signals. The basic idea isn’t new: In 1967, a researcher communicated in Morse code by signaling with brain waves recorded by an electroencephalogram (EEG). The difference now is that EEG data (along with EMG, the electromyogram that records muscle twitches) can be captured with a relatively inexpensive and convenient headset, and analyzed in real time by modern PCs.

So what can you do with a BCI? The NIA maps several biosignal metrics, including brain-wave frequencies and facial, eye, and eyelid muscle activity, to user-defined keystrokes. For example, you can map a brain-wave frequency to a virtual joystick with four zones of activation, so that your brain signal controls the degree of “joystick” movement; an eye twitch could pull a virtual trigger. Dr. Schuette emphasized that BCI control blurs the line between conscious and unconscious commands. By binding the “jump back” command in a game to a brain-wave frequency associated with fear, a player’s character could respond appropriately almost automatically.

“You bypass the need for hand-eye coordination,” said Thijs Rieken, a multi-platform programmer and avid NIA gamer who uses the headset to move his character in a game, but the mouse to aim. “It doesn’t yet make control easier, but it increases your involvement in the game,” he said.

Unlike the NIA, which maps arbitrary brain and muscle signals to actions, Emotiv’s EPOC promises to understand specific thoughts, in theory providing a Matrix-esque ability to interact with virtual objects. “If you think ‘Push forward,’ the object [on the screen] moves forward,” said Emotiv cofounder and president Tan Le. “This is the first detection of its kind.” As with the NIA, this requires a training phase and is somewhat dependent on individual abilities (which can be honed with a practice program). The EPOC software learns to recognize your thoughts for six axes of movement, but controlling and focusing those thoughts is your job.

Replacing certain keyboard commands is neat, but the most revolutionary potential of BCIs may lie in their ability to detect unconscious and emotional states, giving a computer insight into your feelings without any explicit input on your part. The EPOC, for example, can interpret a wide range of facial expressions, along with tension levels. “You can tie directly into the fantasy of the game,” Le said. “It can help AI [computer-controlled] characters respond to you appropriately.” Le also believes the EPOC will enable games to adjust their difficulty dynamically to hit the right balance between challenge and frustration in players.

NeuroSky’s single-sensor headset is designed for simplicity and economy, said Greg Hyver, vice president of marketing at NeuroSky, and isn’t so much about directional game control. “It falls into the category of BCI, but I look at it as a tool that allows an application to understand a person’s mental states—their relaxation and excitement levels,” he explained.