The Effect of Auditory Stimuli on User's Meditation and Workload in a Brain–Computer Interface Game

摘要

The advancement of Brain–computer interface (BCI) technology allowed for the development of applications not only for physically-impaired users, but for entertainment purposes as well. However, there are still numerous challenges in the development of such applications, as it is not known to which extent external stimuli may interfere with the captured brain signals. Being so, understanding the possible limitations caused by these external stimuli may help developers and designers in the development of future BCI-based applications. This paper presents the results of a controlled experiment designed for investigating the effects of auditory stimuli (AS) on subjects playing a neurofeedback-based game. The experiment consisted of sixteen volunteer subjects who played a total of twelve game matches each, for a total of 144 matches, over the course of three experiment sessions. Statistical analysis and qualitative instruments were employed to investigate key features of the subjects' interaction with the game over time, especially regarding the influence of AS in both subjects' performance and self-assessed, subjective workload. It was concluded that the subjects' level of meditation tends to increase over time, that the self-assessed workload tends to decrease over time, and that the game's AS did neither significantly influenced the performance nor the subjective workload of the subjects.