The team led by Professor Junichi Koyomi of the Graduate School of Information Science and Technology at the University of Tokyo has won the Best Poster Honourable Mention Award at the international conference Augmented Humans 2023!

In this research, we explored a new approach to Brain-Computer Interface (BCI). This approach seeks to analyze brainwaves when one recalls the auditory direction of the sound, aiming to enable multiple inputs. In other words, we explored whether a user could input directions by imagining a sound coming from a certain direction. This approach has the advantage of enabling multiple inputs while also achieving hands-free interaction. As a result of our research thus far, we have probed the basic feasibility of our proposed approach. Specifically, we first applied deep learning methods for time series data classification to classify brainwave signals when listening to and recalling sounds from two left and right directions and demonstrated in tests that we can identify the two directions from a user’s brainwaves with up to 95% accuracy. This research brings us closer to a future of hands-free interaction by obtaining brainwave signals from auditory imagery as input, without impeding participants’ movements or perceptions. This research achievement was adopted as a peer-reviewed poster paper (4 pages) at the prestigious international conference in the field of human augmentation, Augmented Humans (AHS) 2023, and won the Best Poster Honourable Mention Award.

Please look forward to future research!