In May 2023, our newly formed Baltic research team (Jachin Edward Pousson, Mārtiņš Dāboliņš, Kent Langel, Reza Sobhani, Valdis Bernhofs) was awarded an innovation grant in Berlin through the Serendipity Collective platform for our proposal for a multi-user Brain-Computer Music Interface (BCMI).
Over the past 6 months, the team has created a new platform for cooperative research, BrainMusic Innovations, which has now established a network of partner laboratories in Estonia (Lanmer Group), Lithuania (Biophysics lab, Vilnius University), USA (Brain Music Lab, Colorado University), UK (Interdisciplinary Centre for Computer Music Research), Taiwan (Neuroergonomics lab, National Sun Yat-sen University), and Spain (Starlab, Barcelona). The team has also designed an EEG hyperscanning study and developed unique software for controlling the experiment using two 32 channel EEG headsets connected to a single computer and for visualising synchronised EEG data from two brains.
Our EEG Hyperscanning study planned for 2024 involves musicians engaged in various co-creative tasks, and is expected to provide details for designing new hardware and software tools necessary for networking synchronised EEG signals from groups of people performing co-creative tasks, and visualising various Inter-Brain Synchronisation (IBS) metrics in real-time.
The results of the study are expected to characterise neural activity related to co-creative teamwork in multiple brains and contexts, and to enable the development of a multi-user BCMI system which catalyses co-creative group performance by monitoring and rewarding IBS.
Such a multi-user BCMI system would be expected to find immediate application areas for further EEG hyperscanning research, training co-creative teams, the arts and multimedia interactions. However, IBS is a predictor of team performance in all types of environments and contexts, so the tool is expected to have applications for all kinds of co-creative teams such as dancers, athletes, gamers, coders, peacemakers, flight crews or astronauts.
BrainMusic Innovations is made up of JVLMA researchers and artists in Riga, and scientists and engineers based in Tartu, Estonia. We look forward to further expanding our team and research horizons in the coming months.