Transparancy in BCI: the effect of the mapping between an imagined movement and the resulting action on a user's sense of agency

Abstract

Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs) allow us to control a device, only using thought. However, the mapping between the mental task and the BCI output is often not very straightforward and therefore not very transparent. A mapping between the mental task and the BCI output is called transparent when the performed action is conform to the mental task. An non-transparent mapping may cause uncertainty about whether the user is the agent of the action and is causing or controlling the outcome. The feeling of being the one who is causing or generating an action, is called sense of agency (Gallagher, 2000). In this project, a BCI-experiment is conducted to discover the effect of the mapping between an imagined movement and the resulting action on sense of agency. Keywords: Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) , Sense of agency, Mental task, Output.