Examining brain activity while playing computer games

In this paper, an investigation and its results towards brain activity pattern recognition while playing computer games using a non-invasive brain-computer interface (BCI) device is presented. The main aim of the study was to analyse data recorded while participants were engaged in playing popular computer games. The major contribution of the analysis presented is the confirmation of the hypothesis that there is a connection between activities in the brain and the different categories of computer games. Three different popular computer games were used, and the recordings took place under the conditions imposed by two different environments, a noisy one (a typical open-access university computer lab) and a quiet one (a typical controlled-access university computer lab under controlled environmental parameters). Initial results, obtained after analysing the raw electro-encephalography (EEG) recorded data, suggest that there might be a significant connection between the type of activity taking place in the human brain and the type of computer game a player is engaging with.