Interacting in 3D Virtual Worlds with Brain Computer Interfaces

Interaction with 3D virtual worlds found in first-person action games is mainly based on keyboard input or pointing devices. Console games add new input devices like motion capturing or voice control. Though immersion is a key issue, most games do not rely on player's emotions. To take this important communication factor into account, we propose a method capturing the player’s emotions of anxiety and shock in a game and use this data to control player's and non-player-character's actions. We present a game setup that is specifically designed to evaluate the use of emotional interaction based on a small user study. A simple EEG based Brain Computer Interface (BCI) is used to translate amplitudes of alpha (stress) and beta (shock) rhythms to corresponding commands in the game engine. The game is set in a horror scenario in which the player needs to control his emotions as they may adversely influence the difficulty of the gaming tasks. The game concept implements an immersive atmosphere to bind the player emotionally and evoke signals captured by the BCI. The game engine passes these emotional inputs to actions of game entities (visuals and opponent’s reactions). Finally, the impact of emotional interaction is evaluated by a small group of test players projecting the needs for future approaches and enhancements