TY - JOUR
T1 - A closed-loop, music-based brain-computer interface for emotion mediation
AU - Ehrlich, Stefan K.
AU - Agres, Kat R.
AU - Guan, Cuntai
AU - Cheng, Gordon
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 Ehrlich et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
PY - 2019/3
Y1 - 2019/3
N2 - Emotions play a critical role in rational and intelligent behavior; a better fundamental knowledge of them is indispensable for understanding higher order brain function. We propose a non-invasive brain-computer interface (BCI) system to feedback a person’s affective state such that a closed-loop interaction between the participant’s brain responses and the musical stimuli is established. We realized this concept technically in a functional prototype of an algorithm that generates continuous and controllable patterns of synthesized affective music in real-time, which is embedded within a BCI architecture. We evaluated our concept in two separate studies. In the first study, we tested the efficacy of our music algorithm by measuring subjective affective responses from 11 participants. In a second pilot study, the algorithm was embedded in a real-time BCI architecture to investigate affective closed-loop interactions in 5 participants. Preliminary results suggested that participants were able to intentionally modulate the musical feedback by self-inducing emotions (e.g., by recalling memories), suggesting that the system was able not only to capture the listener’s current affective state in real-time, but also potentially provide a tool for listeners to mediate their own emotions by interacting with music. The proposed concept offers a tool to study emotions in the loop, promising to cast a complementary light on emotion-related brain research, particularly in terms of clarifying the interactive, spatio-temporal dynamics underlying affective processing in the brain.
AB - Emotions play a critical role in rational and intelligent behavior; a better fundamental knowledge of them is indispensable for understanding higher order brain function. We propose a non-invasive brain-computer interface (BCI) system to feedback a person’s affective state such that a closed-loop interaction between the participant’s brain responses and the musical stimuli is established. We realized this concept technically in a functional prototype of an algorithm that generates continuous and controllable patterns of synthesized affective music in real-time, which is embedded within a BCI architecture. We evaluated our concept in two separate studies. In the first study, we tested the efficacy of our music algorithm by measuring subjective affective responses from 11 participants. In a second pilot study, the algorithm was embedded in a real-time BCI architecture to investigate affective closed-loop interactions in 5 participants. Preliminary results suggested that participants were able to intentionally modulate the musical feedback by self-inducing emotions (e.g., by recalling memories), suggesting that the system was able not only to capture the listener’s current affective state in real-time, but also potentially provide a tool for listeners to mediate their own emotions by interacting with music. The proposed concept offers a tool to study emotions in the loop, promising to cast a complementary light on emotion-related brain research, particularly in terms of clarifying the interactive, spatio-temporal dynamics underlying affective processing in the brain.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85063299225&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0213516
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0213516
M3 - Article
C2 - 30883569
AN - SCOPUS:85063299225
SN - 1932-6203
VL - 14
JO - PLoS ONE
JF - PLoS ONE
IS - 3
M1 - e0213516
ER -