Collaborative Video Gaming by Brain-to-Brain Communication

BrainNet allows an arbitrary number of interactions between senders and the receiver as they collaborate to solve a task. Source: arXiv:1809.08632 [cs.HC]Brain-to-brain communication has been demonstrated in the context of video gaming. Past research has shown the potential for two people to collaborate to a limited extent using brain waves for this purpose, and now scientists from the University of Washington and Carnegie Mellon University have extended the technology to include a third person.

To set up the BrainNet system, two subjects were fitted with electrodes on their scalps to detect brain waves. Conventional electroencephalogram hardware and software were used to process the signals. A third participant fitted with electrodes for reading brain waves also had devices placed near his head for conducting transcranial magnetic stimulation.

The first two volunteers functioned as senders, watching the same Tetris game as the third participant or receiver, and gave hints using their minds.

As a person looks at an LED blinking at 15 Hz, their brain waves sync with it and begin transmitting at the same frequency. If that person switches to looking at an LED blinking at 17 Hz, their brainwaves start transmitting at 17 Hz. This phenomenon allowed the senders to “speak” in binary to the receiver, giving cues as to whether to rotate a falling object in the game.

The receiver’s view of the game was partially blocked, with access to only the top half of the screen, and relied on binary hints from the senders to determine whether to rotate a falling object or not.

Earlier research showed that when a subject received a magnetic pulse to the occipital lobe in the brain, they would see a flash of light. To "hear" a message from a sender, the receiver would see such flashes of light indicating when to rotate the block. Afterward, the senders could offer more hints based on changes in orientation to the object in the game.

The technology might be used by as many people as desired for cooperative problem solving in the future. The BrainNet research is published in arXiv.