MOSCOW, January 24. /TASS/. Experts at Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University have discovered a brain mechanism that improves the efficiency of information exchange. The discovery will help create better neurocomputer interfaces to assess the state of drivers and other workers who make decisions in an uncertain environment, the university's press service told TASS on Monday.
The authors studied the peculiarities of the brain's ability to perceive information with the help of Necker's cube experiment. It is a well-known optical illusion, consisting of an image of a two-dimensional cube drawn in an ambiguous way with no indications as to its orientation, so it can be interpreted differently depending on the viewer’s perception. Signals reflecting the subject’s brain electrical activity when analyzing the orientation of the cube's faces showed that the alpha rhythm power decreased and the beta rhythm power increased. The more difficult it was for the participants to make a decision, the more intense the process was.
"In fact, we discovered some pattern or a model of brain activity that helps increase the efficiency and speed of information processing under uncertain conditions. But more importantly, we linked these universal properties to the individual performance of each of the subjects. This is a direct way to create a brain-computer interface which controls human attention levels and monitors readiness to cope with uncertainty," the press service quotes Alexander Kuts, a junior researcher at the Center for Neurotechnology and Machine Learning, as saying.
The authors believe that the findings can lay the foundation for new neurocomputer systems that assess the brain activity of drivers, dispatchers, and workers in other areas where it is necessary to make quick decisions under stress and uncertainty.
"Such neurointerfaces for monitoring the state of mind can significantly improve performance and reduce the likelihood of error," Kuts noted.
The results of the study are published in Sensors, an open-access scientific journal.