Leeb, Robert and Lancelle, Marcel and Kaiser, Vera and Fellner, Dieter W. and Pfurtscheller, Gert (2013):
Thinking Penguin: Multimodal Brain-Computer Interface Control of a VR Game.
In: IEEE Transactions on Computational Intelligence and AI in Games, 5 (2), pp. 117-128. DOI: 10.1109/TCIAIG.2013.2242072,
[Article]

Abstract

In this paper, we describe a multimodal brain-computer interface (BCI) experiment, situated in a highly immersive CAVE. A subject sitting in the virtual environment controls the main character of a virtual reality game: a penguin that slides down a snowy mountain slope.While the subject can trigger a jump action via the BCI, additional steering with a game controller as a secondary task was tested. Our experiment profits from the game as an attractive task where the subject is motivated to get a higher score with a better BCI performance. A BCI based on the so-called brain switch was applied, which allows discrete asynchronous actions. Fourteen subjects participated, of which 50 achieved the required performance to test the penguin game. Comparing the BCI performance during the training and the game showed that a transfer of skills is possible, in spite of the changes in visual complexity and task demand. Finally and most importantly, our results showed that the use of a secondary motor task, in our case the joystick control, did not deteriorate the BCI performance during the game. Through these findings, we conclude that our chosen approach is a suitable multimodal or hybrid BCI implementation, in which the user can even perform other tasks in parallel.

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