Measuring Brainwaves to Make a New Kind of Bike Map for NYC | WIRED

Interesting times

"The helmet is the MindRider, which Ducao helped develop as a grad student at MIT in 2010. The setup is simple: An off-the-shelf EEG brainwave sensor made by NeuroSky is built into a standard helmet. To make the map, eight riders spent September and October riding most of Manhattan (favoring north-south thoroughfares over east-west cross streets). Every second, the EEG sensor sends, via Bluetooth, data on the rider’s level of focus. Attention level rises when the user focuses on one thing (say, a car about to swerve into the bike lane), and decreases when they’re less focused. In other words, it provides an idea of where you’re totally stressed and when you’re chill. A riders’ level of attention was ranked from 0 to 100, then correlated onto a color scale, from green to yellow to red.

Plotted onto a map of Manhattan, the result is an easy to read guide to where cycling is relaxing (green) and where it’s stressful (red). It seems like a great tool for making cities bike-friendlier, for determining where street signs and other measures are helping cyclists and where city planers [sic] might do more."

Measuring Brainwaves to Make a New Kind of Bike Map for NYC | WIRED