Non-Invasive Computer Control Through Brainwaves

mikael writes "An article on the BBC website is reporting that U.S. scientists have managed to develop a 'thinking cap' which allows a computer to receive commands from the electrical activity of a person's brain alone. Comprised of 64 electrodes, this cap allowed two users to control a cursor through pure thought alone, rather than through eye movements or other physical gestures." Unlike some previous efforts, this one doesn't require anything to be implanted in your brain.

Comments

Mental power

[Dancin_Santa]

I'll probably get modded down for this, but I can't be the only one who sees the connection between this ability and psychic "vibrations".

If we are able to detect and monitor energy waves that are emitted from our brains merely by thinking about things, how much more difficult is it to believe that there are people who are physically tuned to be able to "pick up" those brain waves?

People who oppose paranormal research are always claiming that they want quantifiable, reproducible data. Well, here it is.

Re:Mental power

[LadyVirharper]

Reminds me of Anne McCaffrey's Tower & Hive/Pegasus sci-fi series. In "1997", about when the book "To Ride Pegasus" was set, science "discovered" the EEG could pick up specific variations in brain waves of psychics "using their power", thus proving that psychics did exist. As this was a novel, obviously that didn't happen, but the parallels are interesting.

Re:Mental power

[Anonymous Coward]

If a space alien came down to earth and made contact with us was a being of extraordinary intelligence but lacking in the sense of sight, do you think he would have trouble understanding the concept of sight?

Wouldn't he also say, "So you are able to detect an object from some distance without being in physical contact or within aural distance of it? I don't believe it. How would the sense come to you? Would it travel through the air and into your brain where you sensed it? It doesn't seem plausible."

The problem is that the alien simply does not have the sensory organs that humans have. As such, he can't even contemplate what it is like to have that sense.

If there are humans who have some organ (perhaps a genetic mutation in the skin or retina) that most of us do not have, how would we be able to understand that without study? Dismissing it as bunk out of hand is the method of religious schemers. Scientists ought to be interested.

Re:Mental power

[bloodredsun]

Yes you are the only person and this ain't paranormal research

I'll come clean and say that I spent 4 enjoyable years studying "energy waves" from the brain, also known as EEGs (Electroencephalograph).

A MSc in Epileptology and a PhD in Clinical Neurophysiology later, my considered opionion is that there is a world of difference between "monitoring" activity in the brain and actually making sense of it. EEGs, MEGs and FMRIs can give you a world of data but the specifics you can attach to this are very limited. Even in epileptology, where EEGs have been used for over a hundred years (since 1897), the clinical power of EEGs is far less than a lay person could imagine.

To receive "useful" signals of peoples thoughts, there would have to be a series of breakthroughs in dipole modelling, brain function mapping, and a whole host of other technologies. Otherwise you are restricted to the gross/obvious signals such as alpha, beta and delta rhythms

Another point against pychic receptivity is that the receiving brain is also giving off its own signals at a far greater amplitude than the "transmitting" one; the equivalent of listening to someone whisper a foriegn language at the end of a football field in a howling gale while you bellow what ever is on your mind.

Not the first, second or third

[StateOfTheUnion]

This is not the first, second or third . . . time that someone has done this . . . nor is it the first, second, or third time that its been posted on /.

In fact, the article says: It is not the first time researchers have had this sort of success in brain-control experiments.

So even the original cited article claims that this is not new . . . I fail to understand why such "repeats" of similar "discoveries" seem to be so "newsworthy"

I remember playing with a device that connected to electrodes that one connected to the head and measured some level of brain activity when I was in high school. This connected to a PC which would draw a virtual strip chart of measured activity. We would move the stripchart pen with our mind . . . isn't this really quite similar? . . .

Re:Tactile Feedback

[Flamesplash]

You are correct, which means that to be in any way feasible for the average user it needs to be quick and accurate. There's a HCI technique called Fitt's law which measures the amount of movement required to perform actions with an interface, the lower the number the better and you could conclude that high numbers lead to RSI et al.

So something that removed the need to make many fine grained movement, which we are good at but maybe shouldn't do to the excess that computers require, would be a good thing

Similar stuff at WorldExpo 2000

[grungeman]

At the WorldExpo 2000 in Hannover/Germany, the Swedish booth showed something similar. Two contestants were wearing tin foil hats that measured their brain activity. The higher the brain activity, the lower the score, so the goal was to be more relaxed than the opponent.

The great thing was that the most ambitious people had no chance, because their brain was too active in wanting the victory. Pretty cool, watching two guys relaxing the hell out of each other.

impressive

[meatspray]

So they have calculations to read the impulses and move a cursor in the desired direction. Too bad the article is a little light on details. Wonder how long before they're able to decode simple thoughts, perhaps letters or even words. It's understandably a pretty long jump.

If they could pick up the Medulla Oblongata's output and pass it along to electrodes the diaphram of a tetrapalegic, or from motor control to their arms to allow gross movement.

Imagine typing at 400 words per minute. Of course this tech might suffer from the same class of problems as speech recognition but there's certainly hope.

Would be interesting to be around to see the day that they fully understand what comes out and how to put stuff in to a brain. Those will be exciting. (and potentially dangerous times)

reverse-racial memory

[10000000000000000000]

This gets me thinking of reverse-racial-memory - remember Arthur C Clarke's Childhoods end? Where people from the past "remember" events from the future. why not? after all, we only percive time as moving in one direction - it doesn't make a lot of sense that the highest dimension of time (classic Einstein - let's leave the other 7 out of this for now) is limited to the kind of directionality as the first.
For ages people have imagined psycic abilities and wizards and the like.
well, I think it is no coincidence that in this modern day we have computer "wizards" who use strange languages to concoct magical creations. Even the tomes which they use look like magical texts - big bulky and indecipherable to the uninitiated.
then this skull cap (a wizards hat?). doesn't it just seem right? controlling a computer with mere though? I know every one of us has at one time just wanted to say "computer! wikipedia precipitation!" and have the computer - our daemon - respond immideiately.
Telekenisis would simply be a memory of generations to come who work inside virtual worlds where they need not physically manipulate objects, but use mere thought.
if this is true, perhaps one day, in the distant distant future, what has sprung from this mortal coil of mankind will ressurect us and this is the heaven and afterlife so vehemently taught and imagined for so long.
after all, if 2 million years from now they get the technology to bring us all back, and if they are anything like your average consciable geek they will probably say, "well, it seems like a nice idea - let's bring everyone back why no?"
or maybe not.

Commercialize It! NOW!

[puzzled]

This looks like it isn't very complex nor very expensive - 64 electrical sensors in a cap and a PCI card with 64 inputs for A to D conversion- looks like less than $500 in volume, perhaps only $200.

You can do infinite numbers of fun things, first one that comes to mind is a brain wave visualization plugin for XMMS.

Lets hope someone picks this up and runs with it.

This is not at all new

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a company called Cybermind that has sold this device for awhile and there used to be one that you could purchase from the maker (or some association) of 3dtop that would also do that. I think it was about 1200$US.

The basic premise of these were that they would play music and depending on the how you thought it would change the style. I know it's not exactly the same but it was the default app that came with the device. I think a lot of doctors use this type of device to help people with stress problems.

I think it was Cybermind that also sold an add-on for a playstation though it's been many years since I've checked so I treat that info as non-checked.

I saw a demo on Discovery as well that showed the Cybermind device in use on a full blown flight simulator. Another demo I saw on some channel was some university in the US that showed an older person moving a square around on the screen. I don't remember why they chose an older person.

I wonder what the changes in the future generations of humans will be when control with their mind will become something normal and learned before puberty. From what I've read, I understand that for language, any language you learn before puberty gets placed into this one glump in the brain, no matter how many languages you learn. Learn any new languages after that and the brain creates a new glump beside it.

I wonder if Basic (learned at 11) is part of my original Glump and C (learned at 15) is a separate one... and if it's the reason that I can't find a better word for it than glump :)

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Anonymous Coward? maybe.... Lazy bastard for not getting my login info on this unused computer? surely.

Re:this could boost use of animal labor in factori

[mikael]

Back in the 1980's,a research project was funded to determine the best way for rescue helicopters to find survivors wearing orange life-belts floating in the North Sea. Several proposals for advanced optical systems were proposed; these included infra-red cameras and laser scanning. The other system was based on bio-technology: A handful of pigeons were kept in enclosed containers on each side of the helicopter. The containers were warmed by an electrical heater, and had a window kept clean by a windscreen wiper. Each pigeon was trained to peck an alarm button whenever they saw any red or orange dots; The maintenance costs were simple; grain and water.

open source EEG

[Anonymous Coward]

At openeeg.sourceforge.net they're working on hardware designs for cheap, safe electroencephalographs, and open source software to use the input.