EEG Systems for Educational Neuroscience

Numerous studies suggest that digital technology has an important role to play in physical and mental functioning and generally in the quality of life of elderly people. Many digital serious games have been developed to enhance cognitive functions. These games incorporate a multitude of multimedia elements that are perceived as sensory stimuli. To implement an effective digital environment, all sensory representations have to be investigated in order to be compatible with the visual, acoustic and tactile perception of the user. An effective way to examine those stimuli is to study the users’ brain functioning and especially the electric activity by using electroencephalographic recording systems. In recent years, there has been a growth of low-cost EEG systems. These are used in various fields such as educational research, serious games, mental and physical health, entertainment, etc. This study investigates whether a wireless low-cost EEG system (EPOC EMOTIV) can deliver qualitative results compared to a research system (G.tec) while recording the EEG data at an event-related brain potentials setup regarding the differentiation of the semantic content of two image categories. Our results show that, in terms of signal quality, the Emotiv system lags G.tec, however, based on the answers of the participants in the questionnaire, Emotiv excels in terms of ease of use. It can be used in continuous EEG recordings in game environments and could be useful for applications such as games in ageing.