Two Brains, One Game: Design and Evaluation of a Multiuser BCI Video Game Based on Motor Imagery

Abstract

How can we connect two brains to a video game by means of a BCI, and what will happen when we do so? How will the two users behave, and how will they perceive this novel common experience? In this paper we are concerned with the design and evaluation of multiuser BCI applications. We created a multiuser videogame called "BrainArena" in which two users can play a simple football game by means of two BCIs. They can score goals on the left or right side of the screen by simply imagining left or right hand movements. To add another interesting element, the gamers can play in a collaborative manner (their two mental activities are combined to score in the same goal), or in a competitive manner (the gamers must push the ball in opposite directions). Two experiments were conducted to evaluate the performance and subjective experience of users in the different conditions. In the first experiment we compared single-user situation with one multiuser situation: the collaborative task. Experiment 1 showed that multiuser conditions are significantly preferred in terms of fun and motivation compared to the single-user condition. The performance of some users was even significantly improved in the multiuser condition. A subset of well-performing subjects was involved in the second experiment, where we added the competitive task. Experiment 2 suggested that competitive and collaborative conditions may lead to similar performances and motivations. However the corresponding gaming experiences can be perceived differently among the participants. Taken together our results suggest that multiuser BCI applications can be operational, effective, and more engaging for participants.

Lu-Lu: A framework for collaborative decision making games

“…They score players on three different aspects of the game; this allows them to monitor the players' progress through different aspects of the game and encourage players to collaborate in order to improve their scores on aspects where they are weaker. Bonnet et al [57] present BrainArena a multiuser videogame in which two users play a simple football game by means of two brain-computer interfaces (BCI) either collaboratively to score goals or against each other.…”

A Hypothesis of Brain-to-Brain Coupling in Interactive New Media Art and Games Using Brain-Computer Interfaces

“…They can play either by competing against each other or by collaborating, in which case their brain activities are combined. The results of the experiments conducted for the evaluation of the performance and the user experience, have interestingly suggested that the multi-user conditions can be "operational, effective, and more engaging" for the players, and even more, some of them showed significantly improved performance comparing to the single-user condition [13].…”

Adaptive-projection intrinsically transformed multivariate empirical mode decomposition in cooperative brain–computer interface applications

“…Cooperative BCI systems have recently been proposed to allow multi-user participation in a joint cognitive BCI paradigm, resulting in performance improvements in terms of the information transfer rates (ITRs) and accuracy [6,7]. The feasibility of using cooperative BCIs based on EEG signals has been explored in the areas of robotic control [7], decision-making [8] and gaming [9]. As mentioned earlier, EEG signals are the modality of choice in the vast majority of BCI systems, but they exhibit nonlinear and non-stationary characteristics, and require signal processing schemes which can provide physically meaningful signal representation; one of such techniques is the empirical mode decomposition (EMD) [10].…”