Paper Reading #26 : Embodiment in Brain-Computer Interaction

Reference

Authors: Kenton O’Hara, Abigail Sellen, Richard Harper

Affiliations : Microsoft Research, 7 J J Thomson Avenue Cambridge, UK

Presentation: CHI 2011, May 7–12, 2011, Vancouver, BC, Canada

Summary

Hypothesis

The paper highlights the importance of considering the body in BCI and not simply what is going on in the head. They hypothesize that people use bodily actions to facilitate control of brain activity but also to make their actions and intentions visible to, and interpretable by, others playing and watching the game and hence allows those action to be socially organised, understood and coordinated with others and through which social relationships can be played out.

Contents

The paper discusses findings from a real world study of a BCI-controlled game played as a social activity in the home. This study draws on the philosophical and analytic concerns found in CSCW where techniques for analysing the social in all its embodied forms are well developed. For the study purpose, the MindFlex® Game which is a commercially available and is amenable to use in a real world study was used.

Methods

16 participants in group of four were given the MindFlex® game to take home for approximately 1 week. They were asked to play the game at home with other people they knew and take the videos while playing.The video sessions were subject to a detailed interaction analysis by the researchers, that focused on the physical manifestation of behaviour around the game, looking in detail at bodily action, gestures and utterances occurring during game play

Results

Proxemic arrangement of players with respect to the game and others was an important consideration for controlling concentration and relaxation. Deliberate adjustments in body posture were performed to relax and achieve focus.Players were seen to think explicitly about lowering the ball in order to get it to fall. This turns out to be counter-productive since these kinds of thoughts lead to increased concentration levels.Interaction manipulations are difficult to discern by those watching the game because these manipulations are not visible and those co-present might normally infer intentionality of a player from the interaction effects.Different body manifestations help make the game understandable for those watching as well as making it more entertaining as a spectator experience.

Discussion

The research does a petty good job in pointing out the ways to interact socially while being involved in BCI games. The most intriguing observation for me was the way people focused more to get the ball down but instead they were supposed to be putting on less concentration. The research provides a good foundation in designing new BCI games where social interactions can be implemented using bodily interactions. Integration of BCI games like this into games where Kinect is used for bodily gesture can be an interesting research to be done if it has not been done it.