KOCHI: The world is moving at a fast pace and so are the technological advancements. Gone are the days when teachers had to carefully assess the students’ performance to understand their cognitive skills like attention, memory, decision making, spatial ability and cognitive flexibility. Technological advancements have made it possible to measure the user’s mental state in real-time.
“It is possible to ascertain a person’s state of mind by measuring the low-frequency signals emitted by the brain with the help of EEG. The brain signals are within the range of 0.5 to 100 Hz with amplitudes in the region of microvolts,” said Kelly Choo, CEO and co-founder, Neeuro, a Singapore-based company. This valuable technology will help students to develop their cognitive skills and enable them to focus better on the solution, he added.
The low-frequency signals that the brain emits is measured with the help of a sensor called SenzeBand, which is worn like a hairband, except that its base with the sensors is placed on the forehead. According to Choo, SenzeBand picks up low-frequency signals with the help of four sensors, giving four individual channels of brain signals. “The device will help students who get easily distracted in improving their attention,” said Choo.
Demonstrating the devices’ operation with a toy jeep, Choo showed how the focused attention of a student moves the toy through a set trajectory. “If the student gets distracted, the toy will stop or deviate from its trajectory,” he said. So, in effect, with the help of the device and prescribed programmes, students can be trained to improve their attention span and hence, achieve academic excellence, he said.
According to Choo, the device can also help senior citizens fight the onset of dementia. Meanwhile, Neeuro will be organising an online competition for the ‘Brainiest Kid’ to promote the importance of cognitive skills. All primary and secondary students aged between six and 17 can join. Their abilities will be tested using Multitask Master, a game from Neeuro’s ‘Memorie’ app.
In Kochi, the programme has been launched at SMA Abacus.