Mind Games in Dundee

by - 14:33 on 18 January 2008

I once knew a scary woman who said she could sit in committee meetings and influence what the chairman was going to say just by concentrating on a key phrase and looking at him. I find that worrying, especially as I had an odd experience in Dundee a little while ago.

I was ushered into a kind of arena or little theatre. There was a rectangular table with two chairs, one at each end. Down the centre of the table there was a track marked out, in which a little ball was able to run freely. Several sensors on a headband, connected by wires, were immediately attached to my head and I was invited to sit at one of the chairs by my host, who sat at the other. Then I was invited to play Mindball.

In case you think all this was taking place in an experimental laboratory aboard an alien spacecraft, and I later woke up dishevelled and gibbering in a field near Bonnybridge, I should say that it happened at Sensation, Dundee’s splendidly entertaining science centre. My opponent was the centre’s marketing manager, Alan Martin. He warned me, before we started, that he was rather good at the game.

It was really very simple. All I had to do was move the ball all the way to his end of the table using only, uhmm, my brain-waves – hence these sensors attached to my head. This would count as a goal for me. If the ball came down to my end, it was a goal for him. My opponent, looking suitably inscrutable, sat calmly and closed his eyes at the far end of the table.

The sensors pick up alpha and theta waves, at their strongest when you are calm. By some electronic hocus-pocus, the strength of the waves becomes movement of the ball. So the calmest and most focussed person wins. The ball is literally moved by the mind.

I shut my eyes, then opened them for a moment to see the wee ball trundling relentlessly towards me. My opponent appeared to be in a deep trance, to the extent that he looked as though he was about to levitate. (Awesome concentration.) I closed my eyes again, tried to still my darting thoughts and pictured a tranquil unspoilt beach, with wild dunes and lapping waves (Balmedie, north of Aberdeen, perhaps). Sure enough, the ball stopped and even moved back a little. Then I must have thought about my overdraft, and I quickly went a goal down. Soon it was a walk-over. 

So here was proof of mind over matter. The implications for games manufacturers are huge. You could, say, design games that let you blow up buildings on screen just by thinking about it. How useful is that? In tourism terms you could eventually fit whole busloads of visitors with these sensors and, say, let them fight a virtual Battle of Culloden. Bonnie Prince Charlie for King? OK, I’ll think about it….

Meanwhile, you can see the fascinating, if slightly unsettling, Mindball device in action at Sensation in Dundee. There’s a ton of other interesting stuff for families there as well – it’s famously hands-on for kids, and the café does proper coffee if you can sneak off while they’re amusing themselves. More on the centre at www.sensation.org.uk

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