Photo: Contiki
It’s no surprise that we at Contiki are big believers in the power of travel. I mean, it’s one of the few activities in life that really has the ability to teach you so much, move you, and potentially completely change you as a person all in one. And while we’re sure many of you would agree – there’s real magic in travel – we wanted to put this to the test. A scientific test, to be exact.
Enter Myndplay, a neuroscience-based company started by Tre Azam harnessing brainwaves to better understand the human psyche and emotions. Working together, we sent real travellers on Contiki trips to South Africa, Thailand and Europe and measured their brainwaves at various points to see what made them the most happy, the most stressed, the most inspired, etc.
We’ve recently chatted to Tre himself so that he can explain the role MyndPlay played in our experiment and the science behind capturing brain waves. So, if you want to do some real learning about the mind, travel, and maybe yourself, read one!
Hi Tre! Could you first please tell me a little bit about Myndplay and what it is you do?
“Sure, so, MyndPlay is a UK based brainwave technology company, and we build and manufacture our own EEG (electroencephalogram) brainwave monitoring headsets. We build custom apps for research and custom applications for brands and agencies, and we create our own algorithms to do research projects for various organisations around the world.”
“We also provide hardware to universities and to therapists, as well as to individual athletes and coaches. We use the technology for everything from neurofeedback and neuromarketing, brain research and more.”
Image source:Contiki
How did this idea come about? What steps did you take to start?
“My background was actually in mental health and therapy, and while I was researching different types of therapy, I thought there must be a way to sort of treat people remotely effectively. The thing about remote therapy is that you can’t necessarily understand what’s going on in a person’s mind and how they’re actually reacting – my thought was that there must be a way to get the reactions.”
“I ended up looking into EEG, which stands for electroencephalogram and which had been around for 80 years already at the time – more now. At the time, EEG monitoring was restricted to hospitals and labs, it wasn’t used much in other fields. Though, there was a growing market for it.”
“Collaborating with an American company called Neurosky, we worked together to build our own EEG chip and hardware, and everything stemmed from that. One of the first projects we did was create a video which changed depending on the emotions the person watching is feeling. Eventually, this led to us being able to monitor people’s reactions to various therapy techniques, and therefore make remote therapy work better, while also bringing neuroscience research out of the lab and into the real world.”
Could you please explain the science behind EEG brainwaves and Myndplay in layman’s terms?
“Myndplay experiments are based off of EEG. Basically, we use a headset which the subject will wear and it picks up the electrical signals in your brain which are then converted into different brainwave frequencies, which we later translate into states of mind and emotions.”
“Once we break these down into sets of emotions, we can track the fluctuation of them in real time. So, for example, we could create an algorithm tracking brain waves that we associate with mental focus on a scale of not very focused to hyper-focused. By tracking these frequencies over a period of time, while someone is engaged in a variety of activities, we can track the patterns of this person’s mental focus and tell where it peaks and dips.”
Since founding Myndplay, what are some of the experiments you have conducted?
“We’ve done a lot of really cool stuff over the years! One of the projects we led was interactive films and movie trailers where you could change the outcome depending on your EEG readings. We did that for a Keanu Reeves film, as well as for the X-Men franchise.”
“Another project we led was a golf game that you play with your mind for the bank HSBC, as well as creating a blanket which changes colour depending on your emotions for British Airways.”
“Those are some of the fun and creative bits of MyndPlay, but we quickly realised that getting people to play these games with their minds actually has big mental health benefits as well. So, we’ve been able to expand into all sorts of amazing things to do with the brain, but the journey started in mental health, and remains there.
Image source:Contiki
Have you ever done an experiment around travel before?
“We have worked in travel before, but it was work around a completely different element of travel. We created sort of a ‘walkable’ itinerary in the mind which would then tell you what kind of traveller you are based on emotions and personality traits observed.”
“But this experiment we conducted with Contiki was something new for us. We’ve never done anything where we’re actually tracking emotions felt by travellers through a real travelling experience. Another dimension which was new is that we connected the trackers to cameras which took pictures in real time at the height of certain emotions. This experiment with Contiki really breaks down the emotional science and experience of travelling. That’s what was so unique about the Contiki project.”
What were your expectations for the Contiki experiment?
“I actually didn’t have any expectations, but I was excited by the project because of how unique it is in that it was the first time we were tracking people in real time, in an objective manner. There was also the added element of taking pictures at high emotional points in real time – I didn’t know what to expect from that, so I was just very curious.”
“I was very, very pleasantly surprised by the amount and the breadth of data we were able to get back from the experiment and how much we could learn from it.”
What were you surprised by in the results?
“I think what was most fascinating to me was how we were using the same technology and parameters for all the travellers, and yet we were able to identify such unique experiences for each of them. I expected there to be a sense of homogeneity or sort of a ‘normal’ baseline between all of them. I thought it would be difficult to differentiate between each traveller, but it wasn’t at all.”
“It was amazing how many different insights you could pull out about an individual just by looking at moments where their brain was objectively peaking, regardless of what they were thinking or feeling – their brains were giving amazing responses. And we got such deep insights from such a short amount of time, you could just tell how comfortable people were, how engaged they were.”
What does travel mean to you personally?
“For me when I travel, I like experiences that involve a lot of adrenaline, so I guess travel is something extraordinary, where I get to feel my blood pumping. I love the mountains, and I love beautiful views – when I think of travel that’s what I immediately think of.”
“Having at least one moment per trip that’s significant enough to become a memory is also important to me. What I mean by that is, sometimes I worry about doing too much in one trip to remember anything significant, but I like to do one experience that I know will leave a memory, so I always try to find that. I want to create a really hard and long lasting memory.”
