Twitting with the power of mind
Published 21 April, 2009, 17:29
Scientists have used a brain-computer interface to post an update on Twitter micro-blog without a single movement.
The message, just 23 characters long, was sent by Adam Wilson, a University of Wisconsin-Madison biomedical engineering doctoral student.
The work Wilson and his colleagues do is to help people whose bodies do not work because of a brain-stem stroke or spinal cord damage to have better means of communication.
Vladimir Kremlev for RT. Click to enlarge.
The team paired am electrode-studded cap reading brain signals with a special interface they’ve developed in collaboration with Research Scientist Gerwin Schalk and colleagues at the Wadsworth Center in Albany, New York.
It has an alphabet displayed on a screen with individual characters flashing in turn. If the user focuses his glance in a flashing character, the machine registers it.
“What your brain does is, if you’re looking at the ‘R’ on the screen, and all the other letters are flashing, nothing happens. But when the ‘R’ flashes, your brain says, ‘Hey, wait a minute. Something’s different about what I was just paying attention to,’” explained Justin Williams, Wilson’s research advisor.
Wilson says the process is similar to texting, as users improve their skills with practice. He says people are able to do up to ten characters per minute. This may be not a lot, unless you compare it to not having been able to type text at all.
Williams said Twitter, a micro-blog website which caps the length of messages at 140 characters, is a good fit for people with ‘locked-in’ conditions.
Schalk agrees. “This is one of the first—and perhaps most useful—integrations of brain-computer interface techniques with Internet technologies to date,” he said.
Scientists say brain-computer interface has big potential. In the future, it may even beat more traditional means like keyboard and mouse. Now researchers try to improve it with projects like controlling Japanese robots ASIMO with thought or using brainwave-controlled headsets in gaming.
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