Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) have attracted much attention recently, triggered by new scientific progress in understanding brain function and by impressive applications. The aim of this review is to give an overview of the various steps in the BCI cycle, i.e., the loop from the measurement of brain activity, classification of data, feedback to the subject and the effect of feedback on brain activity. In this article we will review the critical steps of the BCI cycle, the present issues and state-of-the-art results. Moreover, we will develop a vision on how recently obtained results may contribute to new insights in neurocognition and, in particular, in the neural representation of perceived stimuli, intended actions and emotions. Now is the right time to explore what can be gained by embracing real-time, online BCI and by adding it to the set of experimental tools already available to the cognitive neuroscientist. We close by pointing out some unresolved issues and present our view on how BCI could become an important new tool for probing human cognition.

Issues regarding explainable AI

Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) research and (future) applications raise important ethical issues that need to be addressed to promote societal acceptance and adequate policies. Here we report on a survey we conducted among 145 BCI researchers at the 4th International BCI conference, which took place in May–June 2010 in Asilomar, California. We assessed respondents’ opinions about a number of topics. First, we investigated preferences for terminology and definitions relating to BCIs. Second, we assessed respondents’ expectations on the marketability of different BCI applications (BCIs for healthy people, BCIs for assistive technology, BCIs-controlled neuroprostheses and BCIs as therapy tools). Third, we investigated opinions about ethical issues related to BCI research for the development of assistive technology: informed consent process with locked-in patients, risk-benefit analyses, team responsibility, consequences of BCI on patients’ and families’ lives, liability and personal identity and interaction with the media. Finally, we asked respondents which issues are urgent in BCI research.

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The discovery of mirror neurons in monkeys, and the finding of motor activity during action observation in humans are generally regarded to support motor theories of action understanding. These theories take motor resonance to be essential in the understanding of observed actions and the inference of action goals. However, the notions of "resonance," "action understanding," and "action goal" appear to be used ambiguously in the literature. A survey of the literature on mirror neurons and motor resonance yields two different interpretations of the term "resonance," three different interpretations of action understanding, and again three different interpretations of what the goal of an action is. This entails that, unless it is specified what interpretation is used, the meaning of any statement about the relation between these concepts can differ to a great extent. By discussing an experiment we will show that more precise definitions and use of the concepts will allow for better assessments of motor theories of action understanding and hence a more fruitful scientific debate. Lastly, we will provide an example of how the discussed experimental setup could be adapted to test other interpretations of the concepts.

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is a well-accepted treatment for movement disorders and is currently explored as a treatment option for various neurological and psychiatric disorders. Several case studies suggest that DBS may, in some patients, influence mental states critical to personality to such an extent that it affects an individual’s personal identity, i.e. the experience of psychological continuity, of persisting through time as the same person. Without questioning the usefulness of DBS as a treatment option for various serious and treatment refractory conditions, the potential of disruptions of psychological continuity raises a number of ethical and legal questions. An important question is that of legal responsibility if DBS induced changes in a patient’s personality result in damage caused by undesirable or even deviant behavior. Disruptions in psychological continuity can in some cases also have an effect on an individual’s mental competence. This capacity is necessary in order to obtain informed consent to start, continue or stop treatment, and it is therefore not only important from an ethical point of view but also has legal consequences. Taking the existing literature and the Dutch legal system as a starting point, the present paper discusses the implications of DBS induced disruptions in psychological continuity for a patient’s responsibility for action and competence of decision and raises a number of questions that need further research.

Fodor and Pylyshyn (1988) argue that connectionist models are not able to display systematicity other than by implementing a classical symbol system. This claim entails that connectionism cannot compete with the classical approach as an alternative architectural framework for human cognition.We present a connectionist model of sentence comprehension that does not implement a symbol system yet behaves systematically. It consists in a recurrent neural network that maps sentences describing situations in a microworld, onto representations of these situations. After being trained on particular sentences-situation pairs, the model can comprehend new sentences, even if these describe new situations. We argue that this systematicity arises robustly and in a psychologically plausible manner because it depends on structure inherent in the world.