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

Abstract

Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) are envisioned to enable new abilities of action. This potential can be fruitful in particular when it comes to restoring lost motion or communication abilities or to implementing new possibilities of action. However, BCIs do not come without presuppositions. Applying the concept of ability expectations to BCIs, a wide range of requirements on the side of the users becomes apparent. We examined these ability expectations by taking the example of therapeutic BCI users who got enrolled into BCI research studies due to particular physical conditions. Some of the expectations identified are quite explicit, like particular physical conditions and BCI “literacy”. Other expectations are more implicit, such as motivation, a high level of concentration, pain tolerance, emotion control and resources. These expectations may produce a conception of the human and a self-understanding among BCI users that objectify the body in favour of a brain-centred, cerebral notion of the subject which also plays its part in upholding a normality regime.

Brain-Computer Interfaces, Inclusive Innovation, and the Promise of Restoration: A Mixed-Methods Study with Rehabilitation Professionals

“…human flourishing (Kögel and Wolbring 2020), the role of rehabilitation professionals in inclusive innovation is not straightforward. Somewhat more worrisome, as positioning themselves as key actors in understanding user preferences and needs, rehabilitation professionals might even contradict actual users in the name of inclusive or responsible innovation.…”

“…Vidal (2009), working across history, philosophy, and anthropology, explains how cultures of "brainhood"-the widely shared idea that persons are, in essence, brains-have served as the foundation and not the result of contemporary neuroscience. Implicit ontologies of the "cerebral subject" are thus widespread, observed even in the subjectivities of experimental BCI users (Kögel and Wolbring 2020;Vidal and Ortega 2017).…”

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Thoughts Unlocked by Technology—a Survey in Germany About Brain-Computer Interfaces

“…These findings stand in contrast to clinical data. Patients raised serious concerns about the creation of self-transcending human-machine hybrids and reported feelings of loss of control and a rupture of their identity [43,44,52]. Furthermore, a study with stroke patients and persons suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) formulated concerns about BCIs creating techno-cerebral subjects [53].…”

Discipline and Work Environment Affect Employee Productivity: Evidence From Indonesia

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