Emanuel Donchin, a professor of psychology at the University of South Florida, will present the U. of I. department of psychology’s 2015 Lyle Lanier Lecture, “Typing With Your Brain Waves: A Communication Tool for Locked In Patients.” The lecture is at 4 p.m. Oct. 15 at the auditorium of the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology.
Donchin’s laboratory is continuing to develop a brain computer interface, an enterprise resource planning-based tool that makes it possible for severely disabled individuals to communicate with computers using the P300 as a channel of communication. A 1988 report by Lawrence Farwell and Donchin demonstrated that such communication is possible. In the last few years, using a portable system developed at the Wadsworth Center in Albany, New York, his laboratory tested the brain computer interface with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis patients who are completely paralyzed but have an intact cognitive and affective system. His laboratory also has created, in collaboration with the U. of I. College of Engineering, the P300-based brain computer interface for the control of robotic systems.
