Data from: Playing 20 Questions with the mind: collaborative problem solving by humans using a brain-to-brain interface

We present, to our knowledge, the first demonstration that a non-invasive brain-to-brain interface (BBI) can be used to allow one human to guess what is on the mind of another human through an interactive question-and-answering paradigm similar to the “20 Questions” game. As in previous non-invasive BBI studies in humans, our interface uses electroencephalography (EEG) to detect specific patterns of brain activity from one participant (the “respondent”), and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to deliver functionally-relevant information to the brain of a second participant (the “inquirer”). Our results extend previous BBI research by (1) using stimulation of the visual cortex to convey visual stimuli that are privately experienced and consciously perceived by the inquirer; (2) exploiting real-time rather than off-line communication of information from one brain to another; and (3) employing an interactive task, in which the inquirer and respondent must exchange information bi-directionally to collaboratively solve the task. The results demonstrate that using the BBI, ten participants (five inquirer-respondent pairs) can successfully identify a “mystery item” using a true/false question-answering protocol similar to the “20 Questions” game, with high levels of accuracy that are significantly greater than a control condition in which participants were connected through a sham BBI.据我们所知，本研究首次证实，无创脑机接口（non-invasive brain-to-brain interface, BBI）可通过类似"二十问"游戏的交互式问答范式，实现一名人类受试者感知另一名人类受试者的所思所想。与此前针对人类的无创BBI研究一致，本研究的接口采用脑电图（electroencephalography, EEG）采集一名受试者（即"应答者"）的特定脑活动模式，并通过经颅磁刺激（transcranial magnetic stimulation, TMS）向第二名受试者（即"询问者"）的大脑传递功能相关的信息。本研究结果对既往BBI研究进行了拓展：（1）通过刺激视觉皮层，传递询问者亲自体验并有意识感知到的视觉刺激；（2）实现了脑与脑之间的实时信息通信，而非离线通信；（3）采用交互式任务，要求询问者与应答者双向交换信息以协同完成任务。研究结果表明，借助该BBI，10名受试者（共5组询问者-应答者配对）可通过类似"二十问"游戏的真假问答范式成功识别"神秘物品"，其准确率显著高于采用假BBI连接受试者的对照条件。