Brain State of Watching different Videos Using OpenBCI

Yuanchu Si, Yuxuan Liu, Yunbo Yang

In this study, we want to analyze how different types of content stimulate different brain activities. We collected data by OpenBCI with six channels on the front head and observed the variation of power bands by time series. We showed the participant three pieces of video to see the difference.

The OpenBCI software extracted five power bands: delta, theta, alpha, beta, and gamma. The reference of what power bands indicate is shown below. In summary, delta and theta represent the level of drowsiness, alpha represents the level of relaxing, beta represents the range of focus and gamma is high when you recognize something you have seen recently.

Provocative music video

The participant listened to a K-pop song and its provocative music video by order. When he listened to the music only, his brainwave doesn’t show much variation among different bands, showing he might not be paying attention. When he was presented the music video, we can see more up-and-downs, especially beta and gamma bands. Also, he paid more attention when the music video is shown. 

We found that the gamma band would rise significantly each time when the refrain repeats. It shows the participant recognized the refrain and enjoyed it. Also when it reached the part that the singers danced with provocative postures, beta band rises significantly. It might show the participant was stimulated and more interested in these parts of the music video.

Dota Watafak

This Dota 2 compilation video consists of some hilarious clips of gameplay. The bands were normal before the hilarious part begins. When it reached the funny part, all bands rise significantly. He must be amused by the stupid plays. 

Summary

In this study, we compared different power bands of EEG between listening to a piece of music and watching its music video. We found that beta signal would rise when watching the video against only listening to music, which confirms our hypothesis that both vision and hearing could influence the degree of concentration. Moreover, different scenes of a video significantly determine the focus level of the participant.