BCI Users and Their Needs
Leigh R. Hochberg, Kim D. Anderson · Oxford University Press eBooks · 2012
Most of this book is focused on the “what” and “how” of brain-computer interfaces (BCIs). For the purposes of discussion, it is assumed that the challenges of BCI development will be overcome and that the BCIs currently being envisaged will become available to the people who want and need them. This chapter asks a more fundamental question: for whom, exactly, are these BCIs being developed? Whom will they serve and in what ways? It describes the functions that BCIs may eventually serve and highlights particular clinical disorders that result in the loss of these functions and the challenges that these disorders pose for BCI development. Commonly anticipated BCI functions fall into three categories: communication, mobility, and autonomic function. Following discussion of these three categories, the chapter considers other possible BCI uses and concludes by enumerating the properties that ideal BCI systems would need to possess.