What is it like to use a BCI? – insights from an interview study with brain-computer interface users

Abstract

Background: The neurotechnology behind brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) raises various ethical questions. The ethical literature has pinpointed several issues concerning safety, autonomy, responsibility and accountability, psychosocial identity, consent, privacy and data security. This study aims to assess BCI users' experiences, selfobservations and attitudes in their own right and looks for social and ethical implications. Methods: We conducted nine semi-structured interviews with BCI users, who used the technology for medical reasons. The transcribed interviews were analyzed according to the Grounded Theory coding method. Results: BCI users perceive themselves as active operators of a technology that offers them social participation and impacts their self-definition. Each of these aspects bears its own opportunities and risks. BCIs can contribute to retaining or regaining human capabilities. At the same time, BCI use contains elements that challenge common experiences, for example when the technology is in conflict with the affective side of BCI users. The potential benefits of BCIs are regarded as outweighing the risks in that BCI use is considered to promote valuable qualities and capabilities. BCI users appreciate the opportunity to regain lost capabilities as well as to gain new ones. Conclusions: BCI users appreciate the technology for various reasons. The technology is highly appreciated in cases where it is beneficial in terms of agency, participation and self-definitions. Rather than questioning human nature, the technology can retain and restore characteristics and abilities which enrich our lives.

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“…We found the study in [122] to be very interesting and insightful. Such a study aimed to assess BCI users' experiences, self-observations, and attitudes in their own right and looked for social and ethical implications.…”

Optimizing SSVEP-Based BCI System towards Practical High-Speed Spelling

“…Could the users adapt to this system as it works at a very high speed? If the system output several incorrect results, could the users avoid negative emotion and continue focusing on the intended command [ 46 ]? If not, there might be more and more wrong outputs and the human–computer system would collapse.…”

What It Takes to Be a Pioneer: Ability Expectations From Brain-Computer Interface Users

“…The data material used stems from a qualitative interview study with persons who have used BCIs for therapeutic reasons [30]. Nine semi-structured interviews were conducted with BCI users who have participated in medical BCI studies with persons with physical impairments.…”

“…This can be read as further ability expectation imposed upon BCI users: being able to perform BCI actions, knowing that the credit (or agency) will not be attributed to you alone. As has been shown, BCI users get credit for their achievements of BCI training and also are able to take advantage of that even after the BCI research studies had been concluded [30]. However, the credit is not the user's only, but also goes to the engineer(s) who developed the technology.…”

“…Accordingly, requests made by users included ease of use, higher efficiency, increased comfort, integration of various functions and the possibility for home use [29]. A recent qualitative interview study with therapeutic BCI users shows that BCI use can bring about various effects [30]. Some are more direct effects such as improving the users' physical condition or restoring lost body functions.…”