The first step is to choose a task or mental command used for BCI control. The more specific the description the better. This includes the typical user, BCI device, environments, situations and other project details. The project can be real or hypothetical. For example, the command might be to “send a text to a friend” using their phone, while at home, just by thinking about it. Or, the task might be for a paralyzed person to “reach to grasp my phone” with a neuroprosthetic arm & hand, using visualization.
Once the challenge is defined, and both parties agree, Mind Brain Insights, LLC can provide a response to the challenge, in the form of a 1-3 page analysis. This features (a) a definition of the subject’s mind, and (b) how to map this to the brain, and brain signal. How to construct a mind-based signature and classifier can also be part of the analysis.
The response should be compared to another’s analysis. That allows our analysis to be more fully understood, while pointing out potential shortcomings in the conventional one.
The challenge includes a functional mind model of the user — what mental states and processes are presumed active. The challenger can also narrow the contest to a particular set of mind components.
Aspects of Mind which can be Included in the Challenge:
- Perception: vision, hearing, smell, touch, taste, somatosensation
- Meaning
- Imagination
- Attention
- Situations (social, work, leisure…)
- Episodic memory
- Any cognitive neuroscience category: the reward center, executive control, working memory etc. (including Russell Poldrack’s Cognitive Atlas)
- Intention (to do, think, experience…)
- Language: hearing, speaking, writing, reading
- Inner speech
- Conscious or unconscious states & processes
- Recognition, Identification
- Thoughts and thinking
- Goals
- Emotion, motivation, arousal
- Activities and tasks
- Motor control
- The self (perceptual & conceptual)
- Prediction
- A specific example of any of the above
- Any combination of the above