The Log Roll of Intelligent Adaptation

I originally coined the term ‘physiological computing’ to describe a whole class of emerging technologies constructed around closed-loop control.  These technologies collected implicit measures from the brain and body of the user, which informed a process of intelligent adaptation at the user interface.

If you survey research in this field, from mental workload monitoring to applications in affective computing, there’s an overwhelming bias towards the first part of the closed-loop – the business of designing sensors, collecting data and classifying psychological states.  In contrast, you see very little on what happens at the interface once target states have been detected.  The dearth of work on intelligent adaptation is a problem because signal processing protocols and machine learning algorithms are being developed in a vacuum – without any context for usage.  This disconnect both neglects and negates the holistic nature of closed-loop control and the direct link between classification and adaptation.  We can even generate a maxim to describe the relationship between the two:

the number of states recognised by a physiological computing system should be minimum required to support the range of adaptive options that can be delivered at the interface

This maxim minimises the number of states to enhance classification accuracy, while making an explicit link between the act of measurement at the first part of the loop with the process of adaptation that is the last link in the chain.

If this kind of stuff sounds abstract or of limited relevance to the research community, it shouldn’t.  If we look at research into the classic ‘active’ BCI paradigm, there is clear continuity between state classification and corresponding actions at the interface.  This continuity owes its prominence to the fact that the BCI research community is dedicated to enhancing the lives of end users and the utility of the system lies at the core of their research process.  But to be fair, the link between brain activation and input control is direct and easy to conceptualise in the ‘active’ BCI paradigm.  For those systems that working on an implicit basis, detection of the target state is merely the jumping off point for a complicated process of user interface design.

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Neuroadaptive Technology as Symmetrical Human-Computer Interaction

Back in 2003, Lawrence Hettinger and colleagues penned this paper on the topic of neuroadaptive interface technology. This concept described a closed-loop system where fluctuations in cognitive activity or emotional state informs the functional characteristics of an interface. The core concept sits comfortably with a host of closed-loop technologies in the domain of physiological computing.

One great insight from this 2003 paper was to describe how neuroadaptive interfaces could enhance communication between person and system. They argued that human-computer interaction currently existed in an asymmetrical form. The person can access a huge amount of information about the computer system (available RAM, number of active operations) but the system is fundamentally ‘blind’ to the intentions of the user or their level of mental workload, frustration or fatigue. Neuroadaptive interfaces would enable symmetrical forms of human-computer interaction where technology can respond to implicit changes in the human nervous system, and most significantly, interpret those covert sources of data in order to inform responses at the interface.

Allowing humans to communicate implicitly with machines in this way could enormously increase the efficiency of human-computer interaction with respects to ‘bits per second’. The keyboard, mouse and touchscreen remain the dominant modes of input control by which we translate thoughts into action in the digital realm. We communicate with computers via volitional acts of explicit perceptual-motor control – the same asymmetrical/explicit model of HCI holds true for naturalistic modes of input control, such as speech and gestures. The concept of a symmetrical HCI based on implicit signals that are generated spontaneously and automatically by the user represents a significant shift from conventional modes of input control.

This recent paper published in PNAS by Thorsten Zander and colleagues provides a demonstration of a symmetrical, neuroadaptive interface in action.

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Special Issue of Interacting with Computers

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I am one of the co-editors of a special issue of the Interacting With Computers, which is now available online here.   The title for the special issue is Physiological Computing for Intelligent Adaptation, it contains five full research papers covering a range of topics such as:  use of VR for stress reduction, mental workload monitoring and a comparison of EEG headsets.

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What’s The Deal With Brain-to-Brain Interfaces?

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When I first heard the term ‘brain-to-brain interfaces’, my knee-jerk response was – don’t we already have those?  Didn’t we used to call them people?  But sarcasm aside, it was clear that a new variety of BCI technology had arrived, complete with its own corporate acronym ‘B2B.’

For those new to the topic, brain-to-brain interfaces represent an amalgamation of two existing technologies.  Input is represented by volitional changes in the EEG activity of the ‘sender’ as would be the case for any type of ‘active’ BCI.  This signal is converted into an input signal for a robotised version of transcrannial magnetic stimulation (TMS) placed at a strategic location on the head of the ‘receiver.’

TMS works by discharging an electrical current in brief pulses via a stimulating coil.  These pulses create a magnetic field that induces an electrical current in the surface of the cortex that is sufficiently strong to induce neuronal depolarisation.  Because activity in the brain beneath the coil is directly modulated by this current, TMS is capable of inducing specific types of sensory phenomena or behaviour.  You can find an introduction to TMS here (it’s an old pdf but freely available).

A couple of papers were published in PLOS One at the end of last year describing two distinct types of brain-to-brain interface between humans.

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Forum for the Community for Passive BCI

A quick post to alert people to the first forum for the Community for Passive BCI Research that take place from the 16th to the 18th of July at the Hanse Institute for Advanced Study in Delmenhorst, near Bremen, Germany.  This event is being organised by Thorsten Zander from the Berlin Institute of Technology.

The main aim of the forum in his own words “is to connect researchers in this young field and to give them a platform to share their motivations and intentions. Therefore, the focus will not be primarily set on the presentation of new scientific results, but on the discussion of current and future directions and the possibilities to shape the community.”

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Reflections on first International Conference on Physiological Computing Systems

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Last week I attended the first international conference on physiological computing held in Lisbon.  Before commenting on the conference, it should be noted that I was one of the program co-chairs, so I am not completely objective – but as this was something of a watershed event for research in this area, I didn’t want to let the conference pass without comment on the blog.

The conference lasted for two-and-a-half days and included four keynote speakers.  It was a relatively small meeting with respect to the number of delegates – but that is to be expected from a fledgling conference in an area that is somewhat niche with respect to methodology but very broad in terms of potential applications.

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Comfort and Comparative Performance of the Emotiv EPOC

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I’ve written a couple of posts about the Emotiv EPOC over the years of doing the blog, from user interface issues in this post and the uncertainties surrounding the device for customers and researchers here.

The good news is that research is starting to emerge where the EPOC has been systematically compared to other devices and perhaps some uncertainties can be resolved. The first study comes from the journal Ergonomics from Ekandem et al and was published in 2012. You can read an abstract here (apologies to those without a university account who can’t get behind the paywall). These authors performed an ergonomic evaluation of both the EPOC and the NeuroSky MindWave. Data was obtained from 11 participants, each of whom wore either a Neurosky or an EPOC for 15min on different days. They concluded that there was no clear ‘winner’ from the comparison. The EPOC has 14 sites compared to the single site used by the MindWave hence it took longer to set up and required more cleaning afterwards (and more consumables). No big surprises there. It follows that signal acquisition was easier with the MindWave but the authors report that once the EPOC was connected and calibrated, signal quality was more consistent than the MindWave despite sensor placement for the former being obstructed by hair.

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Deadline extension for BCI Grand Challenge at ICMI 2012

I am one of the organisers for a workshop event at ICMI 2012 entitled “BCI Grand Challenges.”  The deadline for submissions was this coming Friday (15th) but has now been extended until the 30th June.  Full details are below.

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CFP – Special Session at ICMI 2011 “BCI and Multimodality”

The deadline for submissions to this special session has been extended to May 20th

Anton Nijholt from University of Twente and Rob Jacob from Tufts University are organizing a special session at ICMI 2011 on “BCI and Multimodality”. All ICMI sessions, including the special sessions, are plenary. Hence, having a special session during the ICMI conference means that there is the opportunity to address a broad audience and make them aware of new developments and special topics.  Clearly, if we look at BCI for non-medical applications a multimodal approach is natural. We can make use of knowledge about user, task, and context. Part of this information is available in advance, part of the information becomes available on-line in addition to EEG or fNIRS measured brain activity. The intended user is not disabled, he or she can use other modalities to pass commands and preferences to the system, and the system may also have information obtained from monitoring the mental state of the user. Moreover, it may be the case that different BCI paradigms can be employed in parallel or sequentially in multimodal (or hybrid) BCI applications.
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CFP – 2nd Workshop on Affective Brain-Computer Interfaces (aBCI)

Workshop at ACII 2011

http://hmi.ewi.utwente.nl/abci2011

http://www.acii2011.org

The second workshop on affective brain-computer interfaces will explore the advantages and limitations of using neuro-physiological signals as a modality for the automatic recognition of affective and cognitive states, and the possibilities of using this information about the user state in innovative and adaptive applications. The goal is to bring researchers from the communities of brain computer interfacing, affective computing, neuro-ergonomics, affective and cognitive neuroscience together to present state-of-the-art progress and visions on the various overlaps between those disciplines.

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