Playing Table Tennis Against Robots Boosts Brain Activity.

A new study from the University of Florida has found that the brains of table tennis players react differently to human or machine opponents. When playing against a human, players' neurons work in unison, but when playing against a robotic server, neural activity desynchronizes. The study suggests that human opponents provide a realism that can't be replaced with machine helpers, and as robots grow more common and sophisticated, understanding our brains' response could help make our artificial companions more naturalistic.