One of this year's hottest toys claims to harness brain waves
December 21st 2009 21:33
Signature Tune
By Spencer Hunt
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
TOM DODGE | DISPATCH
Battelle senior research scientist Chad Bouton, who studies brain waves, evaluates the Mindflex game.
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The science behind the Mindflex toy
A few years ago, Battelle scientist Chad Bouton wired the brain of a paralyzed woman to the controls of an electric wheelchair and watched as she moved it with her thoughts.
At the time, he called the work "a step toward the man-and-machine gap being closed."
And on a recent day, in a corner of Battelle's cafeteria, Bouton attempted something similar.
Sort of.
Bouton strapped on a simple headset and tried to levitate a small foam-rubber ball with his mind.
After about an hour of experimentation, Bouton was not so sure Mattel's Mindflex is doing much to close that gap.
"I think it's probably picking up general brain activity," Bouton said.
"I didn't see a lot of correlation with what I was trying to do by modulating my brain activity."
Maybe not, but Mattel is onto something. The company famous for Barbie dolls and Hot Wheels cars is marketing one of this year's must-have toys.
Mindflex is impossible to find in stores. Those who can't live without one under the Christmas tree are snapping them up on eBay and other auction sites for more than double the retail price of $60 to $80.
Mattel said this kind of interactive toy represents a new push.
"One of the things in our charter is to constantly look for technologies to enhance game play or bring a magical moment," said Stephen Lister, Mattel's vice president of electronics and sound design.
"Connecting to the mind could potentially be an incredibly unique feature to a toy."
Here's how it works.
Players wear a headset equipped with an electrode that sits squarely on their foreheads. Two clips are attached to their earlobes. A small fan inside the plastic game deck pushes the ball upward.
NeuroSky developed the mind-reading technology for the toy. It's based on medical devices that have been used for decades to record electroencephalograms, or EEGs, which are measurements of electrical activity in the brain.
Tansy Brook, a NeuroSky spokeswoman, said a computer chip in the headset is programmed to send different signals that change the fan's speed when it detects a player is concentrating or relaxing his or her mind.
Concentration, she said, makes the ball rise. Mental relaxation makes it drop.
EEG tests do show changes in alpha wave and beta wave activity in the brain that mirror these mental states. But the medical devices often use more than 20 electrodes.
Adding electrodes improves the accuracy of an EEG, Bouton said, because skin, muscle and bone can cloud the signals. In other words, the more, the better.
He said he's not sure the one electrode on the Mattel headset gets a clear reading.
Dominique Durand, a Case Western Reserve University researcher who is developing mind-controlled prosthetics for amputees, said the single Mindflex electrode might pick up stronger electrical impulses from muscles in the forehead.
"That's what I think all of these devices are doing," Durand said. "When they say you are controlling it with your mind, they're not wrong.
"It's still brain control because your brain is controlling the muscle."
NeuroSky's Brook said that the chip in the headset uses an algorithm -- a complex series of equations -- to filter out muscle and other electrical signals.
She said that with practice, players can make the toy respond to their thoughts.
"Some people pick a point and focus on it," she said. "Some people imagine the ball going up."
Brook said NeuroSky's technology might someday be used in portable devices that can help monitor and improve concentration in Alzheimer patients and children with ADHD.
The technology, she said, is showing up in toys because they don't need Food and Drug Administration approval.
Durand's and Bouton's research is far more advanced. It involves attaching tiny electrodes to brain and nerve tissues that send direct signals to mechanical devices.
Bouton developed algorithms that interpreted signals in the brain's motor cortex that correspond with movement.
"If this was attached directly to the brain, then you'd be talking," Bouton said about Mindflex.
Bouton said that without actual data -- and more practice -- he can only guess at how well Mindflex really interprets mind waves.
"EEG is a fairly crude signal and they have only one electrode," he said. "When I tried to relax and see if the ball would drop, I found the ball would sometimes rise."
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