A step towards developing an intelligent psychophysiology based computer assisted interactive system

Alertness is the state of one’s active attention that is expressed in terms of high sensory awareness. Many individuals face the problems of unsatisfactory performance when assigned a task due to lack of alertness which is evident in day-to-day lives as well. This problem becomes critical for individuals with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder and autism due to core deficits. Though conventional techniques based on observation have been in use, requirement of skilled interventionist for estimation of alertness has restricted their applicability. Also, presently available technology-assisted training approaches are mostly performance sensitive with lesser focus on the internal cognitive states such as alertness during a task. Considering the importance of alertness in learning, we have designed a computer based interactive task environment in which the participants were offered with three types of tasks by using a switching rationale while monitoring their performance and alertness through Electroencephalogram (EEG) signals. Additionally, we have employed a biofeedback approach in the task switching rationale which made the participants aware of their alertness during the task which was estimated through physiological indices extracted from the EEG signal. In our present work, we have designed a usability study as a proof-of-concept application. Before applying it for children with attention deficits, we tested our system by running it through twelve typically developing (TD) children. This thesis presents the design of the usability study in which TD children interacted with our computer based system that was adaptive to both the performance and predicted alertness of the participants. The results of the preliminary analysis were encouraging and revealed the capability of our system to have positive implications on the participant’s performance.by Taruna YadavM.Tech