Kid plays Space Invaders using the power of thought

Have you heard of the kid who played Space Invaders using only his brain? No, this isn’t an opening for a lame joke. According to Live Science, with the help of a technique that takes data from the surface of the brain, a 14-year-old boy from St. Louis was able to play the two-dimensional Atari game without so much as lifting a finger.

The kid already had grids implanted to monitor his brain for epilepsy, and those same grids were linked to the videogame. He was then asked to move his hands, talk, and imagine things. These movements were then correlated by researchers to the different signals fired by the brain. They then asked the boy to play Space Invaders by moving his hand and tongue and then to imagine those movements without actually performing them.

“He cleared out the whole Level One basically on brain control,” said Eric Leuthardt, a researcher at the School of Medicine at Washington University in St. Louis. “He learned almost instantaneously. We then gave him a more challenging version in two-dimensions and he mastered two levels there playing only with his imagination.”

Leuthardt and colleagues actually performed this research on four adults a couple of years ago. The team observed quicker reaction times in the boy compared to the adults, along with a higher level of detail control. Chalk that one up to time spent playing videogames. If you’re interested, you can check out a vid of the research here.

Via Live Science

Have you heard of the kid who played Space Invaders using only his brain? No, this isn’t an opening for a lame joke. According to Live Science, with the help of a technique that takes data from the surface of the brain, a 14-year-old boy from St. Louis was able to play the two-dimensional Atari game without so much as lifting a finger.

The kid already had grids implanted to monitor his brain for epilepsy, and those same grids were linked to the videogame. He was then asked to move his hands, talk, and imagine things. These movements were then correlated by researchers to the different signals fired by the brain. They then asked the boy to play Space Invaders by moving his hand and tongue and then to imagine those movements without actually performing them.

“He cleared out the whole Level One basically on brain control,” said Eric Leuthardt, a researcher at the School of Medicine at Washington University in St. Louis. “He learned almost instantaneously. We then gave him a more challenging version in two-dimensions and he mastered two levels there playing only with his imagination.”

Leuthardt and colleagues actually performed this research on four adults a couple of years ago. The team observed quicker reaction times in the boy compared to the adults, along with a higher level of detail control. Chalk that one up to time spent playing videogames. If you’re interested, you can check out a vid of the research here.

Via Live Science