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Mind-control Gaming coming soon…
At 2008 Game Developers Conference, Julian Wixson and a small panel of associates described and demonstrated the Emotiv headset and SDK, suggesting how a developer might incorporate the technology into a new or even quite finished production.
The svelte Emotiv headset uses an array of sixteen EEG sensors to detect electrical impulses in the scalp. These signals are then interpreted by a suite of tools, each with its own range of applications. 
The “Expressiv” application identifies and interprets facial expressions; one of Wixson’s associates demonstrated winking, blinking, and an unnerving grin, each of which was replicated on a rough facial model. Another application, called “Affectiv”, recognizes emotional states.
The most substantial and interesting application is the most active one, “Cognitiv”, which “classifies conscious active intent”. That is to say, it interprets what the wearer wants to do, allowing a player to execute specific commands and actions through thought alone.
Origins
Emotiv began about four years ago in Sydney, Australia, as a medical research company, focused on identifying emotional states in the brain of the individual. After some development, however, the company soon changed focus to consumer hardware.
The reasons they chose EEG, out of all the available brain monitoring methods, are that it is the cheapest option; it is by far the easiest to use, requiring only about a minute of setup; that it is small and lightweight; and that it is a completely passive, non-invasive monitor of the body’s “free” signals.
Touchy Feely
Some of the “Expressiv” signals, like blinking, are detected in binary (either they’re on or they’re off); most others, such as mouth movement, are progressive, interpreting a wide range of expression. Suggested uses include MMORPGs and other avatar-based situations, to enhance communication. NPCs in a standard RPG setting, however, could also react differently depending on the player’s decorum (in place of overt dialog branching).
Amongst uses in development for “Affetiv” is a frustration detector, which could lead to dynamic difficulty adjustment. The player’s emotional state might also drive aspects of the game, such as musical score or graphical flourishes.
On the more practical end, this application would be useful in monitoring play testers, offering quantitative user data. A more deliberate use might involve mental challenges, such as remaining calm while fighting, or meditating to generate magic.
The “Fun Part”
“Cognitiv” is the most complex application, and also the most flexible. As it is quite a different thing to detect active intent, compared with passive and more or less universal brain functions, both the software and the player need a bit of training and adaptation to produce much of a constructive result.
The training phase consists of the player being asked to imagine conducting a particular action – such as pushing a cube into the screen – for a certain number of seconds. Depending on the player’s focus, this might at first take more than one attempt. As the player becomes more adept, actions become easier and more natural, and soon the player can begin to juggle multiple thoughts at once.
Some suggested uses include telekinesis, disintegration, and “social manipulation” (“I am the Master, and you will obey me!”). The Emotiv team stresses that it does not envision the headset as a replacement for traditional input so much as an additional layer on top of familiar control schemes.
Some Logistics
Any “Cognitiv” actions should probably be more properly thought of as more sophisticated and unconventional “super moves” rather than mere strings of button presses. That said, there are various ways of interpreting and integrating actions, from direct interaction (think the bat in Wii Sports) to various scripts (specific thoughts triggering abstract sequences of action).
One curious function, “Emokey”, allows direct mapping of thoughts to keystrokes. This can also apply to legacy applications; the team discussed their experiences playing Bioshock with the headset.
It is up to developers to choose the depth of integration, from a surface-level key binding, down through some compromises with certain default settings, all the way to a hardcore, full integration, incorporating training into the game design.
Any training might be subtly, even subversively, integrated into the tutorial portion of a game. Since people change over time, it might also be wise to allow the player to train again and “refocus” at will.
“We expect to be amazed,” engineer James Wright said, referencing some of the imagination vacuum in Wii and DS software. “I will be very disappointed if the only ideas [developers come up with] are ones we’ve talked about here in this session.”
Click Here to See a Video on Emotiv
Courtesy of Gamasutra
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4 Responses to “Mind-control Gaming coming soon…”
November 22nd, 2008 at 2:28 am
I’ve got a design for a video game that is a simulation for the player being a mind control VICTIM,.. it will be called WW3:tommorow,. right now it is (c)2008 Rhys Paul Hovey (to whatever extend I can sue for) I would like to use an acutal subvocal speech regognizer so you cand be effectly hasrased by the AI,. with the “pseudotorture” effect in the video game,, and it is meant to be a lesson to children to let them know if MIND CONTROL and long range BCI ever get used on them,..
January 12th, 2009 at 2:04 am
so watch what the FUCK you say about mind control asshwoles,.
January 12th, 2009 at 2:04 am
Or my SATAN warshipping clan of Half-Elves is coming for you,.. KANDAR!
May 18th, 2009 at 3:44 am
About subvocal speech and video games
I sent this e-mail to the FBI over 20 times, and to CERT at least 2-3,. of couse Akamai technologies is in front of the FBI,. I would personally like to warn anyone interested in cybercrime or computers (particularly young people) about this hard to belive weapon that has almost killed several of my friends.
This is the letter:
Hello, my name is (guess), a computer scientist, now victim of high tech organized crime,. I have been trying to get to some help for sometime,. but am constantly blocked by electronic communications (crashing cell phones, e-mails with no response). I have talked to fake call takers who were supposed to be CIA, and got into screaming matches about my mental health. I am an applicant to several cybercrime fighting units, such as CSIS (Canada) and RCMP, as well as companies like general dynamics, and boeing. I am a grad from the university of NB (Canada), and was debating my masters in cryptography under prof. Rod Cooper. A few years ago, I called the FBI looking for information on the Church of Scientology (while living in LA) who were activly trying to recruit me, possibly for hacking purposes. They were very interested in “what I wanted”. Since my call to the FBI, an attack began on my life using very high tech satalite equipment. There equipment is capable of long range subvocal speech extraction, which determines unspoken phonetic information from the larnyx nerves. (similar to http://www.theaudeo.com) Their system is also capable of transmitting quiet sound into various places, including my home. They attempted to get me commited to a mental institution by transmitting recordings that said “kill little children, kill little children”,. the idea is to tell the police about these sounds, then their proceedure is to certify you, for being dangerous because you here voices that tell you to “kill little children”. I did not fall for this trick, I have been shown by doctors to have no mental illness. On the internet the victims are being hidden undeneath propaganda about “targeted individuals” at least 2 of my friends have almost died from this attack. please help us. please warn everyone about their sound weapon, no matter if it’s also an elections cheating device.
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