EEG & Eye Tracking user experiments for spatial memory task on maps

The aim of this research is to evaluate the use of ET and EEG for studying the cognitive processes of expert and novice map users and to explore these processes by comparing two types of spatial memory experiments through cognitive load measurements. The first experiment consisted of single trials and participants were instructed to study a map stimulus without any time constraints in order to draw a sketch map afterwards. According to the ET metrics (i.e., average fixation duration and the number of fixations per second), no statistically significant differences emerged between experts and novices. A similar result was also obtained with EEG Frontal Alpha Asymmetry calculations. On the contrary, in terms of alpha power across all electrodes, novices exhibited significantly lower alpha power, indicating a higher cognitive load. In the second experiment, a larger number of stimuli were used to study the effect of task difficulty. The same ET metrics used in the first experiment indicated that the difference between these user groups was not statistically significant. The cognitive load was also extracted using EEG event-related spectral power changes at alpha and theta frequency bands. Preliminary data exploration mostly suggested an increase in theta power and a decrease in alpha power

Design and Implementation of an Eye Blink Controlled Human Computer Interface

Advances in Human Computer Interface (HCI) have made this area of research important for improving the standard of living for people with disabilities. An eye blink system is presented to allow people with disabilities to control a standard computer mouse. This system is designed for people who are paralytic with no control over their arms, speech, and anyone who is restricted to only the control of eye and head movements. This system is based on infrared reflectivity to capture and analyze real time eye blink signal of the user. It uses simple economical hardware electronics to emulate the functionality of computer mouse click based on user eye blinks. Informal tests show that the system can successfully distinguish between voluntary and involuntary eye blinks and can emulate user mouse clicks. This interface offers an economical, non-invasive, hands-free, plug and play device that provides the disabled with flexibility to improve their quality of life

Is there Joy Beyond the Joystick?: Immersive Potential of Brain-Computer Interfaces

Immersion, the state of being fully engaged in one\u27s current operation, is a descriptor commonly used to appraise user experience in computer games and software applications. As the use of brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) begins to expand into the consumer sphere, questions arise concerning the ability of BCIs to modulate user immersion. This study employed a computer game to examine the effect of a consumer-grade BCI (the Emotiv EPOC) on immersion. In doing so, this study also explored the relationship between BCI usability and immersion levels. An experiment with twenty-seven participants showed that users were significantly more immersed when controlling the testing game with a BCI in comparison to traditional control methods. The results suggest that increased immersion levels may be caused by the challenging nature of BCI control rather than the BCI\u27s ability to directly translate user intent

Child programming: an adequate domain specific language for programming specific robots

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Engenharia InformáticaDue to the limited existence of dedicated robot programming solutions for children (as well as scientific studies), this work presents the design and implementation of a visual domain specific language (DSL), using the Model-Driven Development approach(MDD), for programming robotics and automaton systems with the goal to increase productivity and simplify the software development process. The target audience for this DSL is mostly children with ages starting from 8 years old. Our work implied to use the typical Software Language Engineering life cycle, starting by an elaborate study of the user’s profile, based on work in cognitive sciences, and a Domain analysis. Several visual design paradigms were considered during the design phase of our DSL, and we have focused our studies on the Behavior Trees paradigm, a paradigm intensively used in the gaming industry. Intuitive, simplicity and a small learning curve were the three main concerns considered during the design and development phases. To help validating the DSL and the proposed approach, we used a concrete robotic product for children built with the Open Source Arduino platform as target domain. The last part of this work was dedicated to study the adequacy of the language design choices, compared to other solutions (including commercial technologies), to the target users with different ages and different cognitive-development stages. We have also studied the benefits of the chosen paradigm to domain experts’ proficient on robot programming in different paradigms to determine the possibility to generalize the solution to different user profiles

A multimodal system for stress detection

Stress is the physiological or psychological response to internal or external factors, which can happen in short or long terms. Prolonged stress can be harmful since it affects the body, negatively, in several ways, thus contributing to mental and physical health problems. Although stress is not simple to properly identify, there are several studied approaches that solidify the existence of a correlation between stress and perceivable human features. In order to detect stress, there are several approaches that can be taken into consideration. However, this task is more difficult in uncontrolled environments and where non-invasive methods are required. Heart Rate Variability (HRV), facial expressions, eye blinks, pupil diameter and PERCLOS (percentage of eye closure) consist in non-invasive approaches, proved capable to accurately identify the mental stress present in people. For this project, the users’ physiological signals were collected by an external video-based application, in a non-invasive way. Moreover, data from a brief questionnaire was also used to complement the physiological data. After the proposed solution was implemented and tested, it was concluded that the best algorithm for stress detection was the random forest classifier, which managed to obtain a final result of 84.04% accuracy, with 94.89% recall and 87.88% f1 score. This solution uses HRV data, facial expressions, PERCLOS and some personal characteristics of the userO stress é a resposta fisiológica ou psicológica a fatores internos ou externos, o que pode acontecer a curto ou longo prazo. O stress prolongado pode ser prejudicial uma vez que afeta o corpo, negativamente, de várias formas, contribuindo assim para problemas de saúde mental e física. Embora o stress não seja simples de identificar corretamente, existem várias abordagens estudadas que solidificam a existência de uma correlação entre o stress e as características humanas percetíveis. De forma a detetar o stress, existem várias abordagens que podem ser tidas em consideração. No entanto, esta tarefa é mais difícil em ambientes não controlados e onde são necessários métodos não invasivos. A variabilidade da frequência cardíaca (HRV), expressões faciais, piscar de olhos e diâmetro da pupila e PERCLOS (fecho ocular percentual) consistem em abordagens não-invasivas, comprovadamente capazes de identificar o stress nas pessoas. Para este projeto, os dados fisiológicos dos utilizadores são recolhidos a partir de uma aplicação externa baseada em vídeo, de forma não invasiva. Além disso, serão também utilizados dados recolhidos a partir de um breve questionário para complementar os dados fisiológicos Após a implementação e teste da solução proposta, concluiu-se que o melhor algoritmo de deteção de stress foi o random forest classifier, que conseguiu obter um resultado final de 84,04% de precision, com 94,89% de recall e 87,88% de f1 score. Esta solução utiliza dados de HRV, expressões faciais, PERCLOS e certas características pessoais do utilizado