Introduction

Brain Invaders can be played with the Emotiv EEG device. Note that you need a research license from Emotiv because Brain Invaders uses the raw EEG signal.

Deployment

• Install gipsa-setup-main-xx from our download page. Please check our installer page.
• The installer deploys Gipsa-lab scenarios in your OpenVibe's scenarios folder. Use the ones that say "emotiv" explicitly, otherwise use the ones for Software Tagging.
• You must deploy the Emotiv dlls (from Emotiv's SDK) in OpenVibe's bin folder: edk.dll and edk_utils.dll.
• Place the Emotiv device on your head the opposite way. This way more electrodes will be placed on your back near the visual cortex.
• Brain Invaders is started from a shortcut from the Windows Start Menu or the OpenVibe root folder. To help you with this we have create the Brain Invaders Launcher.

Work Flow

Please read the Brain Invaders documentation.

Please also note that the game will freeze if an EEG artifact is detected. Stay still and the game will resume automatically. It is also important that you stay still in the very beginning of the session (when you press space in Brain Invaders).

In general a new training is required on each Acquisition Server start/stop/restart. This is due to the Software Tagging reference point.

Training

Start the OpenVibe's Acquisition Server, verify Software Tagging is activated, connect to Emotiv First start OpenVibe and load the training scenario without playing it (all-in-one-training-software-tagging-emotiv.xml) Start Brain Invaders without initiating a game session Play the scenario in OpenVibe Press "P" inn Brain Invaders for the "Training" session to start Perform the training in Brain Invaders by focusing on the target alien Once training is done in Brain Invaders, the Designer will automatically start the process of calculation for several minutes. Wait until you see a classification result in the OpenVibe Designer console. Inspect the results in OpenVibe, stop OpenVibe.

Online

Load the "Online" scenario in OpenVibe and play it (online-software-tagging-emotiv.xml) Start Brain Invaders and press "space bar" to play the online mode of the game. Currently a restart of BI is needed between the training and online sessions! Please write down your score and report it to our team. If you missed your score start playing again - the score will be displayed. Please check Tagging for more detailed explanations.

Troubleshooting

Use two monitors. On the first play Brain Invaders, on the second you can observe that the signal is being acquired constantly and that Software Tagging is performed.

• Verify that Brain Invaders is set to use Software Tagging in ov-brain-invaders.cmd or the configuration file \share\brain-invaders.conf
• It is most important that you first verify and troubleshoot the installer.
• Watch out for spontaneous signal disconnect during the experiment. If possible keep visual contact between the Emotiv's USB dongle and the headset.
• When a "Signal Display" is connected in OpenVibe Designer to the "Acquisition box" then you should observe vertical lines in the display corresponding to every flash performed by Brain Invaders. These are OpenVibe stimulations and they are critical for the scenarios to function properly. They are communicated through Software Tagging.
• Enable/disable the drift correction in OpenVibe's Acquistion server. This is due to a time drift between your computer and the EEG device. Note that without drift correction the accumulated drift will probably prevent you from playing Brain Invaders more than 15, 20 or 25 minutes.