Activity Spotlight

Examining the Relationship Between Cognitive Function and Video Game Performance

It’s probably no secret that a person’s focus and attention factor into their performance while playing video games. I recently wondered if there was a way to visualize the relationship between brain focus and video game scores, so I decided to upload my brain to the cloud and compare it with my performance in a popular console-based first-person shooter. To do this, I hacked a simple “MindFlex” toy with an EEG chip that I used to capture and analyze several factors, and save that data in the cloud. Once the brain activity was captured, I compared it to my personal game statistics obtained via the (unofficial) Call of Duty API and analyzed the results. In this session, we’ll look at how I hacked the device and how the data was published to the cloud and combined with the game stats. We’ll look at both the hardware and software side of this fun project, as well as perform a demo of the brain capture and upload process with live audience participation. It won’t require plutonium or even 1.21 gigawatts of electricity, so you don’t want to miss this session when we send our Brains to the Cloud!