Brain Interaction for Mobile Games

ABSTRACT
Brain Computer Interfaces (BCI) presents exciting possibilities with the recent emergence of off-the-shelf low cost headsets that offer the opportunity to implement BCI in a wide variety of scenarios. One interesting possibility is the ability to link BCI devices to a mobile phone, not only to provide new interaction modalities, but also the ability to record brain activity of users as they perform everyday ‘real world’ activities which could reveal new HCI insights on how we interact with our environment. In this paper we present Brain Interaction for Mobile Games (BIMG) through a fully functioning mobile game utilising a low cost EEG headset that combines a mimetic and intuitive interface with the requirement for the player to adopt an ‘attentive’ or ‘meditative’ mental state. The results illustrate that although EEG headsets are in their relative infancy they do offer the potential for new approaches both for mobile interaction and in measuring emotional states of users in the field. Further the spatial ‘mind maps’, that link the recorded attention and meditation levels to the players location in the game, highlight the potential for visualising emotions of mobile users whilst navigating virtual and physical spaces.