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Scientists 'Read Thoughts' Using Brain Scans
Bruce_of_the_Cosmos writes "Researchers at University College London and University College Los Angeles say that the can 'read' thoughts using fMRI brain scans. While a subject's attention switched between two images, scientists could monitor activity in the visual cortex and accurately determine, among other things, which image the patient was looking at."
*Scan* WRONG! I was thinking about the implosion of a star, not explosion! HAHA
Homer: "I know you can read *my* thoughts, scientists! Meow meow meow meow. Meow meow meow meow. Meow meow meow meow. Meow meow meow meow."
I predict a hughe cash infushion in the near future for this research project from our great government in the name of anti-terrorism.
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
There's an even easier method for determining whether a guy is looking at teh porn or teh still life painting.
Unless of course he has friut fetish.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
This should make /. moderation much easier
*evil cackle*
Does anyone else get the feeling that incredible leaps forward in signal reception and processing technology have all been leading toward just such a development? Wi-Max direct to brain, anyone?
(My prediction, less than 30 years - you saw it here, folks)
Take the 90-Day Challenge! http://rwmurker.bodybyvi.com/
But it only has one button...
The Admin and the Engineer
Should that be University of California Los Angeles (UCLA)? that's what i was thinking at least.
If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the shoulders of giants.
Instructions here
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
It's Looker! It's happening! The research has begun.
I wonder how far this can go to answer the question of the mind-body problem.
Wow, even our own thoughts will not be safe.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. -Albert Einstein
But you need to science-up the description, there. This sort of thing leads to those "NASA spent millions on device that tells which picture a person is looking at by scanning their brain, Russia looked over their shoulder," space-pen jokes.
Thanks to my Tin Foil Deflector Beanie.
I dunno what the rest of you are gonna once Thought Police start patrolling though.
Alcoa stock skyrockets. Wall Street stunned.
The time course of fMRI is currently way too slow for use in neuroprosthetics. As for reading thoughts -- the studies looked at primary auditory and primary visual cortex, the two cortical areas least likely to be involved in conscious thought. The mind reading, neuroprosthetic spin is just that, spin. The really importart finding in these studies is the correlation of fMRI signals with electrical activity in the brain. fMRI measures increases in blood flow which has been suggested to be caused by increases in electrical activity in the brain - these studies provide evidence to suport this hypothesis. Scientist that study the electical signals in the brain directly (like me) have routinely critized fMRI studies because until now in was unclear how the results related to signal processing in the brain. There is still one major short coming of fMRI. Imagine that 50% of the neurons in an area of the brain increase their electrical activity while 50% equaly decrease their activity. This would result in a large change in signal processing but no change in blood flow and therefore would not show up in a fMRI scan. That said, fMRI is a powerful tool for understanding neural function, particularly in human who for some reason object to letting you stick electrodes into their brains. These new studies make in an even more useful tool.
If you hook up a schizophrenic?
Well, duh. Guess why they decided to describe this project using such language. In reality, they are probably aiming for a more general understanding of the brain. But that military grant is certainly tempting...
I can read thoughts too if i show you 2 images and look at where your eyes point I will be able to accurately determine where you were looking. This amazing new discovery can be yours for only 3 easy payments of 99.99
Visit my site @ http://www.madtorrent.com
Since the practice of releasing false statments like this is common from the government(s) and their supporters.
Israel is another evil 'agency' that releases 'newz' releases once in awhile, claiming to be able to 'see & know' all.
The reasons for their actions are simple.
They want everyone to 'think' that the governments can do these things, therebye keep us (the masses) more frightened and 'in-line'.
The bottom line; if these 'breakthroughs' were true, they would be discovered by more than some sneaky scientist in a government sponsored lab, and would have more credibility than the 'Lie Detector' which as been touted by the pigs for nearly half a century.
They are STILL not admissable in court, because it is MORE proven that it is FAR from be able to do what it says it can..
In other words, like this so called 'mind reader', 'Lie Detectors' *LIE*.
I will gladly loose all of life's battles.. in order to win the war..
My reading and practices have lead me to try many meditation methods and, after some years, I've managed to achieve the silencing of my mind. Silencing one's stream of consciousness must be only the beginning of what the advanced practioners of Zen and other eastern belief systems hint at, because, even though I can silence my mind, I most certainly have not achieved any great mystical insights. Unless what I started out with ( mmm chick on chick action... boobies!!!) is the ticket to satori.
Regardless of the scant returns I've experienced from quelling my inner monologue, I think it is a very strong attribute to have on hand to play in social situations, and, now, in situations wherein there's a possibility of being mind probed. With the quieting of the stream of consciousness comes a placidity, or, maybe the placidity allows the quietude.
For what it's worth, what I discovered is that the secret of Zen is that there is no secret. It's a state one may simply fall into, and it's more achievable by release than by concentrated effort.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
This isn't mind reading, they seem to be far from it. This is just a crude process that still has yet to show actual results. Actual mind reading devices are probably 45-60 yrs away. There needs to be many major break throughs in understand human physiology and a better understanding of how the brain works. Unless someone shows up with a whole neural map of the brain and in detail specifics what each nerve ending and so on does, than this kinda technology has some years to go. But if someone were to come out with that within the next 5 yrs, cut that time frame in half.
fMRI uses powerful magnetic fields (> 1 Tesla) to generate a signal. So your tin foil cap won't help. But on the bright side, with current technology it take a super-cooled machine weighing several tons to do the job.
I know you're pokin' around in there. Get OUT! I say, GET OUT! The head is a many splendored thing. In mine, you might find God. But I'm telling you, you're going to hurt me. I may not fit in the rainbow's collar next year. Oh, ouch, you shall make spongiform cavities--cavities of thought, not matter. You ain't no sushi worm, eh?! But the dark ones in charge sent, you, I see. They came in their 'copters to extract the essence of my life. I tell you, don't vote them in again. The radio chip is dinging now. The alarm is tripped. They know I've seen in. That YOU'VE seen in! For you too must be a bit player in this charade. One more step, and what you seek will be squished in this vice. Ouch. No, I'll buy a blower. I'll blow it out. You'll see...or rather...YOU WON'T!! Ha ha ha ha! Oh....ha ha!
The researchers know what stimuli the participant is engaged with. It would be remarkable if they didn't know and could guess what general type of stimuli (fright, romance, etc.) the participant is engaged with based on the brain's varying reactions.
For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.
I read about this.... months ago. How come its just now on Slashdot?
If you like what I've said here, and want to read more, go to http://www.krillrblog.com
My research work (and my doctoral dissertation) involved developing technology to enable exactly these studies. The basic mechanism which these studies use was published back in 1992 by three groups almost simultaneously (Harvard-MGH, U. of Minnesota and the Medical College of WI).
After almost 15 years, the workings of the brain that causes this phenomenon is still not completely understood. What happens when a region of the brain starts working towards a particular mental task, be it visual, auditory, memory, etc., is that blood supply to that part of the brain increases to such an extent that there is an oversupply of oxygen (via hemoglobin). The differing levels of oxy- and deoxy- hemoglobin have different enough magnetic properties that the change in relative amounts can be detected by a suitably equipped MRI scanner.
I've been telling this joke at parties for years when people ask me what I do - much better than saying I'm an engineer developing MRI hardware and software.
Bottom line - we've been able to do this for years. But the workings of the living brain are incredibly complex, and it'll be a little while before we get to the bottom of things. That piece on lie detectors using brain scans that came out a few months ago was based on this same technology/research. But we really don't know anywhere near enough for me to think that research was anything close to valid.
I can't even read my own mind. ... ... ... ...nope, still nothing.
computerdude33's stuff: My blog of wonder.
...to trace eyeball movement?
If it was "show two images, then guess which one the subject thinks of", that would be more interesting. Or decode contents of the image.
For now most of the "mind reading" attempts seem to receive a single bit of information...
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
The US team say their study proves brain scans do relate to brain cell electrical activity.
This is amazing news... Not!
Call me when they can tell what you are thinking given more than 2 choices. What they have stated is that when showing 2 images, they can determine which one you are looking at. It sounds like we are at the "flip of a coin" stage of modern mind reading or the "Kreskin" era as some might call it.
Article was fairly devoid of specific details on how they associate brain information with thoughts beyond vague notions of brain-area activity.
While it is true that you can get some nice readings of which areas of the brain are active, and we do know some areas of the brain associate with specific motivations and actions, to say this reads thoughts is like saying police polygraphs "detect lies".
This seems more of a tool to intimidate people into believing they won't successfully be able to lie to an interviewer. The interviewer will likely tell people to tell them something that will force the user to be protective or lie, which they will use to "train" the system to look for similar responses and call those responses a lie. Similarly, they will ask people about, for instance, terrorism, then call a part of their brain the "terrorist" spot for that person... all of which is complete psuedoscience, and I hope will remain inadmissable in court, but I know will be used by many organizations as an excuse to do various things to people based on what they decide means what in that person's brain responses.
I wish more people would be aware of polygraphs, and the deceptive practices involved in their use - but this device could bring the public misunderstanding about such things to a whole new level.
Ryan Fenton
Every time someone publishes an interesting fMRI result the press call it mind reading. This is study about binocular rivalry and being able to predict which of two rivalrous stimuli are being attended just by looking at MR signal. Lots of people are working on this sort of thing. What happens is that under certain conditions, when two stimuli are presented separately to each eye, rather than combining the images, the brain maintains both separately and "switches" between which of the two are currently being attended. You have some limited ability to control which of the two you attend to, although you kind of habituate and then spontaneously switch. It's similar to viewing a Necker cube: you can switch which faces are in front or in the back of the cube. Anyway, the coolness of this study is that they could tell which of the two stimuli were being attended just by looking at the brain data (confirmed by the subjective reports of the participants in real time). It's important to note that they don't do this in real time! The MR data take a lot of post-processing and statistical analysis before they get anything out of it.
Anyway, the novelty here is that rather than stimulus predicting what brain area should be recruited (like most MR vision studies), they say, given that this bit of brain lit up, we're going to predict what you were looking at (or in this case, attending to). This is mind-reading, but you know, only in the most academic and post-hoc sense. It's not the first time it's been done, btw. Jim Haxby has done this sort of thing with people looking at overlapping pictures of people and places.
It's cool (to scientists) without needing to sensationalize it as mind-reading. Real mind-reading is coming, don't worry. But not for decades, if not a century. And yes, the government is interested in it (they approach brain scientists about this sort of stuff all the time). Right now they want a "better" lie detector. (By which, I suppose, means one that works at all since the polygraph is bunk). But we're a long, long way off.
Thought crimes my ass.
My manager gets ahold of one of these and the poor bastard will have a heart attack!
The whole group will be up on manslaughter charges.
It's mu-metal you want for that hat. A couple of refrigerator magnets wouldn't hurt, either.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
They are able to get the signals from a human's brain in electric form. So if they get the signals from one man and transfer them to another, the second man will have the first man's thoughts transferred into his brain. Then the second may can be used as an intermediate interface for reading the first one's thoughts.
They'll receive two images.
food
bitch
the only things ever on his mind
He's intact, half lab half 'pee boo'.
I believe it is imperative that /. reclassifies all its sections now. Here are my suggestions:
- Mind control
- Amateur rocketeers
- Nigerian IT
- Tactics in software license negotiation
No Dear. I wasn't looking at that girl in the Bikini. HONEST!!! What do you mean the machine says I am Lying???
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. -Albert Einstein
...How is this new?
In other news, researchers at Imperial College London have discovered ways to control and direct the human brain for some years now.
P.E.A.R. Lab at Princeton is becoming increasingly interested, while MIT is proposing alliance...
Behold; Man
a) Breasts
b) Breasts running Linux
c) A Beowolf cluster of breasts
d) Cowboy Neal's breasts
e) Other breasts (Specify)
What?
are doing fine with only one button...
Oh well, what the hell...
The mind works in a rather non linear way - preemtively sending signals through so many weird connections: which is why we can get caught out with word games that trick our answers.
Imagine walking through the airport thinking:
This party is going to be the bomb! When do I board the airplane?
or worse:
I hope not terrorists carry bombs ontot he plane and blow us up! look at all this security, why are they looking at me! (and then you start to sweat)
You then get shot, in the head, with an elephant gun, at close range, while being rubber gloved by a man with very large hands.
Not a nice thought. Oh man check out my word of the day!!
To confirm you're not a script,
please type the word in this image: implants
random letters - if you are visually impaired, please email us at pater@slashdot.org
SWEET!
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
"These findings could be used to help develop or improve devices that help paralyzed people communicate through measurements of their brain activity."
A natural extension of that would be to enable people to control prostetic limbs with their mind.
But, I'm confused... If I had a universal mind reading machine, instead of using it to enable me to move, I would use it to frag people without lifting a finger!
http://brandonbloom.name
Why am I reminded of an episode of Coupling?
What about all those efferent projections from higher levels to primary areas? It seems quite plausible that they work to fine-tune sensory perception to the demands of a particular high-level task.
If fMRI can resolve the effects those efferents have on primary cortex ... it could be sensing
high-level activity.
Sodium pentathol aka "truth serum", and other various drugs/methods, already allows one today to determine quite well what one is thinking / knows.
Technology may eventually the authorities, or whoever, to get an idea as to what one is looking at / possibly thinking of at a given moment from a distance; appealing to marketers, but may be of limited usefulness to authorities, since people's thoughts can be so random / common to what others are thinking - even the most law abiding people have various deep, dark thoughts, but most don't act upon them.
In a nutshell, reading one's thoughts isn't all that useful until one acts upon them - and for many types of actions, that is impossible to trully determine for sure ahead of time due to the randomness of nature; chaos theory.
Ron
Stop reading my mind, you insensitive clod!
Missing option: breasts covered in hot grits!
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it dissolve.
It's a shame that it'll only work for three years due to the 2038 bug. :-/
http://www.2038bug.com/
who decide to try reading my mind. WHITE-COATED SCIENTIST 1: Okay, here we go. Let's see what we have her... Good Lord! WHITE-COATED SCIENTIST 2: Is he... is that... I can't watch any more.
There was a presentation made by Dr Oury Monchi at the IJCNN 2005 ( Internationnel Joint Conference on Neural Networks ) called "fMRI experiements and computational models of the function of the prefontal cortez and the basal ganglia : a review". If you can find the paper it is a very interesting read.
They don't LITERALLY mean reading a mind. You can't think "cat" and the scientist will say "ah, you are thinking of a cat, yes?" No one is trying to read your thoughts and know all you think or do, it's really more a matter of, as the article said, giving the person two choices and attempting to determine which of the two they are thinking of. THAT, theoretically (not prove yet, though I suspect it will be,) could be done.
Don't draw extreme conclusions too easily.
This is as much about reading thoughts as using a telescope allows you to see life on other planets. fMRI gives you a little Rorschach-like blot of areas of Blood Oxygen Level Dependent (BOLD) activation. It is a very indirect measurement of which parts of the brain are more active by measuring which parts are using oxygen at a higher rate than an increment of time before. Yeah it's cool, yeah it's fun but is it even close to reading a thought. It is much more like viewing continents from outerspace as the resolution is quite limited. Some of the newer techniques like Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) are even more interesting.
Also, this kind of 'thought reading' is hardly new. I've been doing more interesting things than this (sine wave BOLD oscillation in the motor cortex that is perfectly in synch with finger tapping) in my lab for at least a year and I got this cool stuff from people have been doing it for even longer.
-- IV
http://www.LinuxMedNews.com Revolutionizing Medical Education and Practice.
This is not the mind you are looking for!
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
This is the glimmerings of the loss of humanity. When neruo/biofeedback has reached it's peek, humanity will no longer exist. We will have real time feedback of all our brain functions displayed to us at all times through goggles. With this ability, humans will know, without a doubt, the "whys" of every thing they do. Wow.
O'Reilly has a fun title called "Mind Hacks". If you liked this thread, you might like the book. [Full disclosure: I want O'Reilly to send me free stuff, like "Mind Hacks". That's why I'm touting their title.]
I wonder though, how useful this might be on polygraph-style tests. Could you use it to tell if somebody is lying?
The title seemed a bit misleading to me. The article didn't really seem to say "we can read thoughts", but more "we can tell what image you are looking at". Hasn't this already been done?
Someone pointed out how it was similar to a polygraph. That was one examply that came to mind. As far as the images, I can see how one image would create one specific set of physiological responses while a different image would do the same. The fact they used very similar images (stripes...just different color stripes) mostly put that question to rest for me.
It did however raise a new question for me. Blue and red are at almost opposite ends of the color spectrum, having different wavelengths. Given the composition of the eye (rods and cones on the most rudimentary level) and how it works in conjunction with the brain, wouldn't a different wavelength trigger different mechanisms in the eye, thus sending different signals?
I'd like to see another test, but with more than just two images to choose from. I'd also like to see the same colors present in all the pictures. Anyway...can anyone answer some of my questions?
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
Scientists were eager to hook up the machine to a woman, with the hope that getting a glimpse of the female brain would make them millionaires. However, shortly after connecting it, the overloaded machine smoked and fizzled into nothingness. It seems the female mind will forever be unreadable by man or machine.
=p