NASA Develops Tech To Hear Words Not Yet Spoken

alex_guy_CA writes "Yahoo News has a story about technology that comes close to reading thoughts not yet spoken, by analyzing nerve commands to the throat. 'A person using the subvocal system thinks of phrases and talks to himself so quietly it cannot be heard, but the tongue and vocal cords do receive speech signals from the brain,' said developer Chuck Jorgensen, of NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California. Jorgensen's team found that sensors under the chin and one each side of the Adam's apple pick up the brain's commands to the speech organs, allowing the subauditory, or 'silent speech' to be captured. The story indicates the method could be useful on space missions or other difficult working conditions."

Comments

Lie Detector

[Nermal6693]

This could potentially take a lie detector to a new level - people are likely going to think over their possible responses before replying, and this could be used to obtain those thoughts. Scary.

Re:sub-vocal communication

[Anonymous Coward]

Combine this with a transmitter and receiver, and you get the ability to have sub-vocal backchannel communication with people

Or the ability to "wiretap" the things floating around in someone's head, the dissents they thought that they were voicing only to themselves.

Thoughtcrime, indeed.

Re:Could be dangerous

[Mr. Slippery]

Is abstract thought possible without language?

Yes. How could one aquire language if thought wasn't there already? Consider the rare feral children adults who have grown up without acquiring language - do you think they're "dark inside"? Or even more fascinating, Helen Keller, who acquired language late enough to have memories that pre-dated that acquisition.

Consult any Zen master for further instruction - that which the Japanese call "mushin" ("no-mind") might be thought of as "thinking without words". (Of course, there is a difference between transcending linguistic thought, and never acquiring it in the first place.)

But in thinking of mushin as thinking without words, you are thinking with words, and thus getting away from the actual phenomenon. Thus Zen Master Seung Sahn's observation "open mouth, already a mistake".

Man is a thinking reed but his great works are when he is not calculating and thinking. "Childlikeness" has to be restored with long years of training in the art of self-forgetfulness. When this is attained, man thinks yet he does not think. He thinks like the showers coming down from the sky; he thinks like the waves rolling on the ocean; he thinks like the stars illuminating the nightly heavens; he thinks like the green foliage shooting forth in the relaxing spring breeze. Indeed, he is the showers, the ocean, the stars, the foliage. -- D.T. Suzuki