[Dutch-chapter] Workshop on Playing with your Brain at ACE 2007

[A.Nijholt at ewi.utwente.nl]

BRAINPLAY '07: PLAYING WITH YOUR BRAIN

Brain-Computer Interfaces and Games

 

Workshop at ACE (Advances in Computer Entertainment) 2007

Salzburg, Austria, 12 June 2007

http://www.ace2007.org/

 

 

ORGANIZERS

Anton Nijholt, CTIT, University of Twente, the Netherlands,
anijholt at cs.utwente.nl

Desney Tan, Microsoft Research, Redmond, WA, USA,

 

 

DESCRIPTION

Advances in cognitive neuroscience and brain imaging technologies
provide us with the increasing ability to interface directly with
activity in the brain. Researchers have begun to use these technologies
to build brain-computer interfaces. In these interfaces, humans
intentionally manipulate their brain activity in order to directly
control a computer or physical prostheses. The ability to communicate
and control devices with thought alone has especially high impact for
individuals with reduced capabilities for muscular response. In fact,
applications for patients with severe motor disabilities have been the
driving force of most brain-computer interface research.

Although removing the need for motor movements in computer interfaces is
challenging and rewarding, we believe that the full potential of brain
sensing technologies as an input mechanism lies in the extremely rich
information it could provide about the state of the user. Having access
to this state information is valuable to human-computer interaction
(HCI) researchers and opens up at least three distinct areas of
research:

 

* direct control by thought, that is, inducing thoughts to manipulate
brain activity that can be mapped onto game interaction commands (e.g.,
move cursor, click buttons, control devices);

 

* determining the cognitive tasks in which the user is involved in order
to evaluate (game) interfaces or game environments;

 

* using cognitive or affective state of the user to dynamically adapt
the interface to the user (e.g., detect frustration or engagement and
provide tailored feedback).

 

Currently there is a development from traditional videogames using
keyboard, mouse or joystick to games that use all kinds of sensors and
algorithms that know about speech characteristics, about facial
expressions, gestures, location and identity of the gamer and even
physiological processes that can be used to adapt or control the game.

The next step in game development is input obtained from the measurement
of brain activity. User-controlled brain activity has been used in games
that involve moving a cursor on the screen or guiding the movements of
an avatar in a virtual environment by imagining these movements.

Relaxation games have been designed and also games that adapt to the
affective state of the user. BCI game research requires the integration
of theoretical research on multimodal interaction, intention detection,
affective state and visual attention monitoring, and on-line motion
control, but it also requires the design of several prototypes of games.

These may be games for amusement, but also (serious) games for
educational, training and simulation purposes.

 

 

PARTICIPANTS

We encourage participation from a wide range of disciplines including
Games & Entertainment Computing, Cognitive Psychology, Human-Computer
Interaction, Affective Computing, and Artificial Intelligence/Machine
Learning. Prospective participants will submit a position paper
outlining their interest in this topic to anijholt at cs.utwente.nl. Apart
from quality and relevance criteria, papers will also be selected with
the additional aim of having a balanced distribution over the themes of
the workshop. The workshop format will include a presentation by each
participant and discussion. We certainly welcome presentations and
demonstrations that can be considered as case studies and experiments.
At the end of the workshop we will discuss a possible publication
(special issue or book) devoted to the topics of this workshop.

 

 

WORKSHOP PROGRAMME COMMITTEE (to be completed)

Peter Desain, Nijmegen Institute for Cognition and Information,
Netherlands

Brendan Allison, UC of San Diego, USA

Craig Lindley, Gotland University, Sweden

Robert Jacob, Tufts University, Medford, USA

 

 

IMPORTANT DATES

30 March 2007: Submission of position papers (please contact the
organizers if you have problems with this date)

15 April 2007: Notification of acceptance

20 April 2007: End of early registration

June 12th, 2007: Workshop

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