Scientific Outreach with Teegi, a Tangible EEG Interface to Talk about Neurotechnologies

Abstract

Teegi is an anthropomorphic and tangible avatar exposing a users' brain activity in real time. It is connected to a device sensing the brain by means of electroencephalography (EEG). Teegi moves its hands and feet and closes its eyes along with the person being monitored. It also displays on its scalp the associated EEG signals, thanks to a semi-spherical display made of LEDs. Attendees can interact directly with Teegi -e.g. move its limbs -to discover by themselves the underlying brain processes. Teegi can be used for scientific outreach to introduce neurotechnologies in general and brain-computer interfaces (BCI) in particular.

Defining and quantifying users’ mental imagery-based BCI skills: a first step

“…These concepts being abstract and unusual for BCI users, a considerable work is needed in terms of user-centered design and human-computer interaction to find out the most consistent, intuitive and pleasant ways to provide such an explanatory feedback. To do so, such features might be combined with engaging and rich tools for real-time visualization of EEG patterns, such as those presented in [30,10,11]. These metrics revealing what seemed like fast learning effects, they could also be used as a cheap, possibly online way (faster and more convenient than CV) to identify when to update and retrain classifiers.…”

"Teegi's so cute!"

“…The first version of Teegi [20] relied on electroencephalography (EEG) to display the user's realtime brain activity and was tested with adults in laboratory conditions. This second version of Teegi [21] was designed for public awareness without having to use a brain activity acquisition system. The goal of this TUI is then to render these complex physiological functions easy to explore and tangible, that is to say undeniably real.…”

“…In this study, we tested with schoolchild participants the relevance of a pedagogical TUI, which is the new version of Teegi (see Figures 1 & 2). This TUI was designed for introducing simple concepts of brain functions to a wide audience [21]. Teegi is a physical animated puppet that is easy to manipulate.…”

Teegi, he's so cute

“…Pour ce faire, la première itération de Teegi [12] reposait sur l'affichage en temps réel de l'activité cérébrale, recueillie au moyen d'un EEG. La seconde version de Teegi [13] Sa tête est un affichage semi-sphérique composé de 402 diodes électrolumisentes couleur (LED -Adafruit Neopixels). Leur lumière est diffusée à l'aide du « casque » de Teegi, une coque de 3mm d'épaisseur en plexiglas.…”

“…Dans cet article, nous cherchons à explorer la pertinence d'une telle approche pour un public d'enfants. Pour cela, nous nous appuyons sur la nouvelle version de Teegi « standalone » pensée pour rendre plus facilement accessible à un large public des notions simples du fonctionnement cérébral [13]. Cette nouvelle version vise plus précisément la découverte de la structuration cérébrale et de la présence de zones « dédiées » à des fonctions spécifiques que sont la vue et la motricité des mains et des pieds.…”