Competing against a robot makes your brain work harder, a study has found.

Researchers from University of Florida analysed hours of table tennis matches where humans were pitted against machines and each other.

Players wore electrode caps, fitted with double the 120 electrodes in a typical brain-scanning device, so their brain activity could be monitored during the games.

Scientists found that when competing against each other, the players’ brains worked in unison, “like they were speaking the same language”, and reacted to human cues about where the opponent would serve and where the ball would land.

But when the players faced a ball-serving machine, the next move of which could not be predicted, the neurons in their brains were not aligned in the same way, a phenomenon known as desynchronisation.

Prof Daniel Ferris, a professor of biomedical engineering at the university and a co-author of the study, said: “If we have 100,000 people in a football stadium and they’re all cheering together, that’s like synchronisation in the brain, which is a sign the brain is relaxed. If we have those same 100,000 people but they’re all talking to their friends, they’re busy but they’re not in sync.

“In a lot of cases, that desynchronisation is an indication that the brain is doing a lot of calculations as opposed to sitting and idling.”

The research showed that the brain works harder when playing against robots because machines do not provide cues about what they will do next. This may suggest that training against a machine cannot fully afford a similar experience to playing against a human.

Prof Ferris added: “Humans interacting with robots is going to be different than when they interact with other humans. Our long-term goal is to try to understand how the brain reacts to these differences.”

The researchers said as robots grow more sophisticated, understanding how the human brain responds to an opponent’s moves could allow engineers to design robots to be more naturalistic.

“Robots are getting more ubiquitous,” Prof Ferris said. “You have companies like Boston Dynamics that are building robots that can interact with humans and other companies that are building socially assistive robots that help the elderly.”

Amanda Studnicki, a graduate student at the university and the lead author of the study, said: “I still see a lot of value in practising with a machine. But I think machines are going to evolve in the next 10 or 20 years, and we could see more naturalistic behaviours for players to practise against.”

The findings were published in the journal eNeuro. 

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2023]