Zentrum für interdisziplinäre Forschung

Research in the field of brain-computer interfaces (BCI) has made remarkable technical progress, but remains limited in its possibilities. In April psychologists and cognitive scientists Christian Beste (Dresden) and Christian Frings (Trier) organized the workshop ‘Ideomotor Principles to Enhance Interactive Brain-Environment Interfacing’ at ZiF. The results of their work have now been published open access in Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

The authors propose a paradigm shift in BCI-design rooted in ideomotor theory. Ideomotor theory is a fundamental framework in cognitive science which emphasizes the importance of anticipating perceptual effects to accomplish actions intentionally. The authors suggest that by following this approach next-generation BCIs could align more closely with the brain’s natural intentional and action-planning architecture. BCIs could focus on what users want to achieve and what they expect to happen. This could make BCIs easier to use and to design: it could make it easier for humans to learn to modulate their brain signals to instruct agents and optimise the link between brain activation and its effects. This could lead to significant advances in neurological rehabilitation and a wider diffusion of BCI technology. It could also lead to a deeper understandig of how goals and intentions are represented and enacted in the brain. They coclude: "We hope that the roadmap outlined in this article will inspire interdisciplinary efforts to realize this potential." 

Read the paper here.