So far during the summer, a colleague (Martin Gemborn Nilsson) and I have been working on setting up a real-time BCI system. We had our struggles, but in the end, we managed. We used Timeflux and Psychopy.
The BCI system detects the user’s workload (“how hard is the user thinking”). To calibrate, the user does an n-back experiment where the user is presented with many numbers and should remember if the number shown on the screen right now was shown n steps back. The higher n, the harder it is and the higher workload. When calibration is done, a ball is shown on the screen. The ball moves up if the user has a high workload and down if the workload is low.
This system could be used as a passive BCI system. The classic example is by a surgeon so that everyone else can see when the surgeon has a high workload and should not disturb. We will most likely use it when we want to try new BCI features, such as adaptive calibration, or for Master’s thesis projects.
After the summer vacation, we keep on working with the BCI system. I’m proud of what we have done until now, and I’m looking forward to what will come next!
Frida Heskebeck 