6 ms·

to be completely pedantic, i already control all games i play with my mind... more seriously, i worked on a brain-computer interface (BCI) system a few years a

to be completely pedantic, i already control all games i play with my mind... more seriously, i worked on a brain-computer interface (BCI) system a few years ago that was supposed to do directional control of a cursor from scalp EEG recordings. A $90 eye tracker worked an order of magnitude better and three orders faster.

konceptz 9y ago
Good points. You say an order of magnitude, do you have any information about generational increases? Like was last generation an order of magnitude worse than what you worked on?
- hprotagonist 9y ago
  our control paradigm was steady state visually evoked responses -- these are low-frequency components of a scalp EEG rig that correspond to the visual cortex locking on to a blinking test pattern. On a good day with a bald subject and fresh gel, decoding time is between 6 and 11 seconds. A tobii eye tracker has a latency of about 30 ms. Spatial discrimination is oodles better, too.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
kortex 9y ago
I've spent a lot of time working with EEG and pulling my hair out over garbage SNR, finnicky setups, and artifacts galore. I don't understand why so many folks try to go the route of using EEG as mouse/keyboard/generic HID for the masses, when (ignoring para/quadraplegics) most humans have no problem with computer input. There are tons of applications where the EEG can be used for what it's (sorta) good at: attentional and mood states, which, in the time of distraction firehose, seems like it would have a use case. But no, we have to make yet another pick-up-a-virtual-object interface. (not to imply X-aplegics are not worthy of tech. it's just that as mentioned above, eye tracking is WAY more robust)
- hprotagonist 9y ago
  Yup. IN fact, our application was locked-in patients. SSVEP BCI "works", but only if you can foveate on the target, which means you can move your eyes, which means you should use an eye tracker.
  - yoz-y 9y ago
    There are quite a lot of papers that show you can actually modulate SSVEP response even without eye movement. Their protocol was quite fascinating, they used a swarm of targets with four frequencies all intermingled. You had vertical and horizontal (short) lines which were either blue or red. One would control the system by concentrating on blue horizontal stripes for example. Of course the throughput was quite low even for a BCI. I think more research in this vein could reveal some interesting possibilities.
    - hprotagonist 9y ago
      You can. In our experience, we were unable to get reliable performance with SSVEP or m-sequences with targets in the periphery, though - the subject had to be foveating on the target to get a good response. Given that constraint, an eye tracker would be just as applicable to the patient population, so SSVEP was a bag of disadvantages with no obvious upside.
- beekunrah 9y ago
  Yes the primary commercial application found in the EEG literature seems to be fatigue monitoring for professional drivers. Certainly "control" BCI applications won't be the first Neurotech killer app.
- Sir_Substance 9y ago
  >pulling my hair out over garbage SNR I bought into the OCZ NIA about a decade ago. Nice unit, but I was using it within about 2m of a set of AC/DC plugpack transformers. It had a SNR visualiser, and you could see it go increasingly ballistic as I moved my head towards and away from the powerboard. I have my sincere doubts that EEG devices can ever function satisfactorily in residential homes. Too many microwaves and fridges, turns out there's a reason hospital EEGs are done in faraday cage rooms.
taneq 9y ago
> A $90 eye tracker worked an order of magnitude better and three orders faster. For VR, you could even just use the headset's forward-vector, making it like Cardboard's 'look to select' interface.
- Tepix 9y ago
  But that's very straining when doing it for any extended period of time.
ahhhhhhhhhh 9y ago
Late states of some progressive diseases eventually affect eye movement too (ALS, for example) - so there are some use cases where EEG recordings could be important.
cpqwise 9y ago
Do you know of any viable setups for using eye tracking in daily computer use? I think it would be pretty nifty to be able to control my mouse while having both hands on my keyboard.
- hprotagonist 9y ago
  Tobii's entry level eye tracker bar does this. "Blink twice to jump the mouse to where I'm looking", too.
  - lostmsu 9y ago
    Can you recommend any one in particular? Tobii EyeX Gaming vs Tobii Eye Tracker 4C
    - hprotagonist 9y ago
      the technology is pretty robust now. I used the eyeX, but any of them are going to be good performers.

konceptz 9y ago

Good points. You say an order of magnitude, do you have any information about generational increases? Like was last generation an order of magnitude worse than what you worked on?

hprotagonist 9y ago
our control paradigm was steady state visually evoked responses -- these are low-frequency components of a scalp EEG rig that correspond to the visual cortex locking on to a blinking test pattern. On a good day with a bald subject and fresh gel, decoding time is between 6 and 11 seconds. A tobii eye tracker has a latency of about 30 ms. Spatial discrimination is oodles better, too.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

kortex 9y ago

I've spent a lot of time working with EEG and pulling my hair out over garbage SNR, finnicky setups, and artifacts galore. I don't understand why so many folks try to go the route of using EEG as mouse/keyboard/generic HID for the masses, when (ignoring para/quadraplegics) most humans have no problem with computer input. There are tons of applications where the EEG can be used for what it's (sorta) good at: attentional and mood states, which, in the time of distraction firehose, seems like it would have a use case. But no, we have to make yet another pick-up-a-virtual-object interface. (not to imply X-aplegics are not worthy of tech. it's just that as mentioned above, eye tracking is WAY more robust)

hprotagonist 9y ago
Yup. IN fact, our application was locked-in patients. SSVEP BCI "works", but only if you can foveate on the target, which means you can move your eyes, which means you should use an eye tracker.
- yoz-y 9y ago
  There are quite a lot of papers that show you can actually modulate SSVEP response even without eye movement. Their protocol was quite fascinating, they used a swarm of targets with four frequencies all intermingled. You had vertical and horizontal (short) lines which were either blue or red. One would control the system by concentrating on blue horizontal stripes for example. Of course the throughput was quite low even for a BCI. I think more research in this vein could reveal some interesting possibilities.
  - hprotagonist 9y ago
    You can. In our experience, we were unable to get reliable performance with SSVEP or m-sequences with targets in the periphery, though - the subject had to be foveating on the target to get a good response. Given that constraint, an eye tracker would be just as applicable to the patient population, so SSVEP was a bag of disadvantages with no obvious upside.
beekunrah 9y ago
Yes the primary commercial application found in the EEG literature seems to be fatigue monitoring for professional drivers. Certainly "control" BCI applications won't be the first Neurotech killer app.
Sir_Substance 9y ago
>pulling my hair out over garbage SNR I bought into the OCZ NIA about a decade ago. Nice unit, but I was using it within about 2m of a set of AC/DC plugpack transformers. It had a SNR visualiser, and you could see it go increasingly ballistic as I moved my head towards and away from the powerboard. I have my sincere doubts that EEG devices can ever function satisfactorily in residential homes. Too many microwaves and fridges, turns out there's a reason hospital EEGs are done in faraday cage rooms.

taneq 9y ago

> A $90 eye tracker worked an order of magnitude better and three orders faster. For VR, you could even just use the headset's forward-vector, making it like Cardboard's 'look to select' interface.

Tepix 9y ago
But that's very straining when doing it for any extended period of time.

ahhhhhhhhhh 9y ago

Late states of some progressive diseases eventually affect eye movement too (ALS, for example) - so there are some use cases where EEG recordings could be important.

cpqwise 9y ago

Do you know of any viable setups for using eye tracking in daily computer use? I think it would be pretty nifty to be able to control my mouse while having both hands on my keyboard.

hprotagonist 9y ago
Tobii's entry level eye tracker bar does this. "Blink twice to jump the mouse to where I'm looking", too.
- lostmsu 9y ago
  Can you recommend any one in particular? Tobii EyeX Gaming vs Tobii Eye Tracker 4C
  - hprotagonist 9y ago
    the technology is pretty robust now. I used the eyeX, but any of them are going to be good performers.