Scientists Demonstrate Thought-Controlled Computer

Da Massive writes with a link to ComputerWorld coverage of a unique gadget shown at this past week's CeBit show. The company g.tec was showing off a brain/computer interface (BCI) in one corner of the trade hall. The rig, once placed on your head, detects the brain's voltage fluctuations and can respond appropriately. This requires training, where "the subject responds to commands on a computer screen, thinking 'left' and 'right' when they are instructed to do so ... Another test involves looking at a series of blinking letters, and thinking of a letter when it appears." Once the system is trained, you can think letters at the machine and 'type' via your thoughts. Likewise, by thinking directions you can move objects around onscreen. The article provides some background on the history of g.tec's BCI, and suggests possible uses for the technology in the near future.

Comments

Could lead to problems

[cyberbob2351]

Now when you think about composing a nasty hate letter to your evil ex-girlfriend, it actually happens!

Re:Could lead to problems

[digitig]

Nah -- never be able to get the thing off porn sites for long enough to do a letter.

Re:Could lead to problems

[eck011219]

This is Slashdot -- there are no ex-girlfriends (or certainly current girlfriends) to worry about.

Re:Could lead to problems

[rishistar]

Depends. Does it come with a seperate force feedback module?

Type thoughts?

[vertinox]

Once the system is trained, you can think letters at the machine and 'type' via your thoughts.

That sounds rather cool, but wouldn't thinking words be faster?

When I think when I type I think the entire words and my hands type them without spelling the words out. (Kind of like playing the piano)

Of course I suppose this requires training the computer for several thousands words, but it would be having to think the actual spelling out of words at least speed wise.

Re:Type thoughts?

[Amonnil]

I think it would take a whole lot longer to train the system to respond to the hundreds of thousands of words you might want to use, instead of the few dozen characters to spell everything out. It would probably be more likely to get words confused, as well. That being said, this technology is new, as it develops, I'm sure ways will be found to speed up communication. Things like the word-completion used in phones for texting would be an obvious start. For now, I'm impressed that it's possible to hunt-and-peck with a mental keyboard.

Re:Type thoughts?

[linguizic]

If we knew where each phoneme was stored in the brain and we could stimulate the computer via activity in this area all we would have to do is think about speaking the word. But things like allophones and the ranges of phonemes in different dialects would throw this off. No matter how dumb people may think southern speech is, it is actually hardwired into their nervous system via language acquisition and would have to be accounted for physiologically. It would probably be easier to have the nodes hooked up to the part of our brains that's responsible for controlling our fingers when we type, the amount of variability found in dialects gets reduced quite a bit just by removing the vocal element of language, even if you're Cletus.

Re:Type thoughts?

[blank axolotl]

The signal is too weak to be able to differentialte between 1,000s of possible word 'brain patterns'.
It can differentiate the 26 letter 'brain patterns' with effort:

The system today is also quite slow -- even a trained system can "read" only 18 characters per minute, or three or four words.

What I think might be cool to try is placing a pack of electrodes in a nerve leading to a non-essential muscle somewhere. I would guess you can get a much more reliable signal that way (if you set it up right), and maybe a more complex signal if that nerve carries multiple signals (eg one for each muscle in a pack of muscles). It would have much greater medical consequences than this brain-cap idea, though..

Re:Type thoughts?

[CastrTroy]

Wouldn't it make a lot of sense if you could just train it once, and then take your profile with you on a USB key? That way you wouldn't have to train the work computer, the home computer, the new laptop, the computer in the internet cafe, or any of the other computers you deal with on a daily basis.

Re:Type thoughts?

[linguizic]

Inter-dialectal differences probably pale in comparison to interpersonal differences.

If we are looking at the phones themselves then this can't be the case. The phones are where dialectical differences are at their greatest. With the exception of people who have had damage done to their brains, the "neurogeography" of the brain is pretty uniform.

In this context I believe there are two ways we can speak of phonemes. There is the linguistic unit in whatever metaphysical incarnation whatever the dominant theory gives it, and there is the conscious knowledge of the sounds of speech--without which we would not be able to learn to read and write. It is the knowledge of speech sounds that arises after metalinguistic awareness is reached. I guess a better name for this unit would be "metaphone". Where this knowledge is stored would be directly or indirectly linked to all the neurological aspects of the phoneme that correlates with the metaphone. I believe this would be the route to go if we want to go the phoneme route because it too would reduce variation as the result of the way we are currently , but it would still be as slow as thinking out A - B - C - D- E, etc. So here we are again at phonemes being not the way to go.

I never completely bought OT, though that might be the result of who taught it to me, and the text she chose to teach from. I'm hard pressed to say that realized forms are the product of garbage going down the chute and getting sieved into grammatical constructions. If this is an unfair generalization please feel free to make a better generalization and make me a better informed individual on this matter.

I would love to keep going but now I have to put my children to bed.

Re:Type thoughts?

[dosquatch]

Exactly, human beings don't think in letters. We think words, concepts, even ideas at a time.

That may be, but I have some serious misgivings about my computer having unrestricted access to my mind. Oh, sure, it sounds great at first, but the first time it catches me daydreaming about the printer in the field from Office Space, and suddenly my resume' would start listing my real hobbies...

Re:Type thoughts?

[c_fel]

I think it would take a whole lot longer to train the system to respond to the hundreds of thousands of words you might want to use, instead of the few dozen characters to spell everything out.

Moreover, this system surely use some type of neural network to identify a character from the actual voltage signals. As these signal are very noisy and have a relatively high frequency range, it must take a quite big network to obtain something good from it.
Now, if you want to discriminate hundreds of thousands of words instead of some characters, you need a much bigger network ; and the time needed to learn is exponential to the size of the network. So I don't think it could be feasible at this time to get a system that could learn how to read words : it would need years to learn !

Re:Type thoughts?

[zsau]

If we are looking at the phones themselves then this can't be the case.

Um... I know that most parts are in the same general area between people, but I was of the impression that there are still differences: The parts of my brain which are responsible for control of my left hand/tongue/etc will be in basically the same place, but might be relatively larger/smaller than for you. Am I wrong on this? Otherwise surely we'd need to have brains that are exactly the same.

there is the conscious knowledge of the sounds of speech--without which we would not be able to learn to read and write.

This I am even more dubious of. People have a conscious knowledge of syllables and rhythm, and we who've learnt to read and write and analyse phonetically and so forth have a conscious knowledge of the sounds of speech—but I remain unconvinced that knowledge of them is at all relevant to literacy and even to speech. For instance, I'm informed there's a Swedish dialect which distinguishes open and close e (Standard Swedish doesn't), but there's no indication of this in the orthography: Although speakers of this dialect produce and use this distinction, they're unaware of it. (I had a similar difficulty learning the distinction between voiced and voiceless th.)

Now subconciously there's obviously some means of recording the distinction, but again, I don't really know that phonemes enter into it...

I never completely bought OT, though that might be the result of who taught it to me, and the text she chose to teach from. I'm hard pressed to say that realized forms are the product of garbage going down the chute and getting sieved into grammatical constructions. If this is an unfair generalization please feel free to make a better generalization and make me a better informed individual on this matter.

Umm... Your analogy is apt. I don't know what I could say to change your opinion; you might make more concrete objections. For best results, present a viable alternative, if you know of one :)

I would love to keep going but now I have to put my children to bed.

On the internet, no-one cares (or knows) if you take half an hour (or half a day) longer to reply :)

This could make for a cool video game controller.

[BitterOak]

How long before someone patents the idea of using this for a video game controller? Imagine how cool it would be for your kids and their friends to sit in front of the TV wearing helmets and playing a video game without using their hands!

But...

[rbochan]

Do you have to think in Russian?

Re:But...

[Tx]

Which segues nicely into the obligatory joke...

In Soviet Russia, the computers thoughts control YOU!

Ok, I'll go now.

A little pricey

[Anonymous Coward]

Starting at 26,000 US, this might appeal to PS3 buyers, but most will find this too pricey.

Already have one

[SmlFreshwaterBuffalo]

I SEX typed SEX this SEX using SEX my SEX own SEX BCI-controlled SEX computer. SEX It SEX really SEX works SEX great!

Re:Already have one

[Anonymous Coward]

You're totally a woman, aren't you?

Re:Already have one

[Lordpidey]

No, but CHEATER, I am, YOU LOOKED AT HER, its quite I'M JEALOUS the interesting YOU MUST BE CHEATING technology. I'm sure DOES THIS MAKE ME LOOK FAT that this will transform the world.

Re:This could make for a cool video game controlle

[cyberbob2351]

Simpsons did it

Minor Problem

[dduardo]

*Fred temporarily switches to root in order to edit an /etc file. John comes by to talk.

John: Hey Fred, have you heard that new indie band called R.M. SPACE STAR ENTER?
Fred: What? No! Why did you make me think that?! Now all my files are being deleted!

Re:Minor Problem

[Loconut1389]

funny joke aside- when you're not typing and someone talks to you, do you accidentally type what you're saying/thinking? That's not to say we don't accidentally type things we're saying if we're already typing-- but I think the way this works is, it would be a separate 'extension' of ourselves- just like we 'think' about moving our fingers to type- this would be thinking the letters into the computer.

Re:Minor Problem

[loconet]

Or better yet.. Fred's terminal beeps to the sound of ..

Fred@mindreader:/etc$ viAh shit, here comes that idiot John. What the fuck does he want again, I really don't care about his disturbing fascination with obscure indie bands, why don't they transfer his pompous ass to accounting.....ah crap
bash: viAh: command not found
Fred@mindreader:/etc$
John: What is that on your screen? ...

And now, much as the gods tried to prevent this...

[sugapablo]

Stephen Hawking will now take over the world!

Beware those of you who dared park in handicap spaces!

Results of thought-transcription demo!

[argent]

Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all.

Miniluv anyone?

[logixoul]

/tinfoil hat on
Now that a machine can translate thoughts into words, how long before it's used in interrogations? What about sensitivity becoming good enough to work from a few meters? Inconspicuous guy passes by. Next thing you know, you love big brother.

Re:This could make for a cool video game controlle

[ryblo_f]

Everything old is new again?

Re:Just what we need

[logixoul]

Other way round ;)

Re:Just what we need

[iminplaya]

See? It's working already. That's what they want you to think.

What?

[Bwana Geek]

This is in no way new technology. Neurofeedback has been studied since the twenties. I studied this about 10 years ago, and my professor was active in the field, so I got to learn about all kinds of cool stuff they were doing. Basically (probably starting around the 70s or 80s), researchers could wire you up to an EEG biofeedback machine and put you in front of a monitor with several bars or other graphics on it. They would then tell you something like, "Make the third bar grow higher." This would be done by, for example, increasing your brain's beta waves, but you had to figure out on your own how to do that by concentrating until the screen did what you wanted it to do. For children, they made it into a game: A plane is flying along the horizon and you need to make it rise and fall to avoid obstacles. Some very cool stuff with fantastic real world applications: Teaching epileptics how to alter teir brain wave patterns to stop a seizure before it starts, methods of fighting depression without drugs, etc. the list goes on.

It's fascinating stuff, and definitely recommended reading if you can find any material on it.

Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is my screen blank?

Cosmic Truth

[BRUTICUS]

Is there some kind of cosmic constant that depicts if ever there is anything interesting in the news no photograph or video of the subject should be made viewable?

Serioously.. WHERES THE VIDEO?

While you're at it I want the pictures of the frozen Mammoth and the gigantic Ape creature too.

Thanxabunch

Re:Nothing so new about that... [url correction]

[QuickFox]

Don't worry, you're not lame. Posts can't be edited on Slashdot.

Re:OMFG

[(Robo_Bro)]

Too lazy? You mean both your hands are busy...

faster and easier to wiggle a finger

[HuguesT]

Current research papers put a EEG-based BCI throughput limit at about 30bpm. This is bits per minute. 18bpm has actually been achieved. This is because it is rather hard to alter one's beta waves : one need to concentrate for about 2s or more to make a change (flip a bit) reliably. EEG is what the linked article talks about.

With this kind of throughput one can compose no more than a couple of sentences a day. Clearly this is not going to replace typing for most people anytime soon. Even if one is severely impaired by some brain damage (e.g. a stroke) even a little bit of retained mobility is better. There was for instance this man who manage to write a whole book (the diving bell and the butterfly) through his fluttering eyelid.

However different techniques are being developed. The best in terms of throughput and quality of data make use of f-MRI and other advanced techniques, or are very invasive (actual electrodes in the brain), and clearly this is not going to be possible as a usable tool for most people anytime soon either.

Check back in a few years. Right now BCI is definitely pie-in-the-sky, although it does sound cool.

Medical purposes

[sabernet]

Very awesome news for quadriplegics or those suffering full blown paralysis.

Not Quite....

[ThePopeLayton]

I saw this exact device in action at the Annual Society for Neuroscience meeting last October in Atlanta Georgia. I spent about an hour talking to the group that were displaying the device. It uses EEG technology to detect voltage potentials across the skin (caused by inputs into layer 4 of the cortex). The tech who explained the device to me told me that current EEG analysis is not good enough to detect what a person is thinking about, rather it can detect IF a person is thinking.

The device does not recognize thoughts about specific letters, rather it recognizes general thought. The person has a grid of electrodes on the scalp that are measuring the voltage. The person then looks at a computer screen that displays groups of letters.

A band like "A D T E R K" is displayed and the person is instructed to count every band that appears that contains the desired letter. So if the person wants to type an "S" then upon seeing the band "S T V W K N" they would register having seen the S and the process of counting produces a large enough EEG signal that it is logged by the computer. The computer then displays separate bands that contain no more then one letter from the first band. Bands like " T D E I M" or "S B C X Z" might appear and as the second band contains an S the person would count it and produce the EEG signal. The computer then looks for the common elements between the bands and as S is the only common element the letter S is typed.

So again the computer isn't reading specific thoughts, rather just general thinking. The subject doesn't think "K" and then K is typed rather the computer displays a K and the person confirms the choice by thinking.

This display process is very fast (about 1 band a second) but it is rather a slow process to write. It takes around 5 or 6 minutes to write a sentence. It isn't as great as the article makes it seem, but it certainly is a step in the right direction.

Re:Not Quite....

[KDan]

That doesn't actually seem like a step in the right direction. Reading "dumb" voltages is a million miles away from reading thoughts - no breakthrough at all. In fact, they've been doing this for decades through EEGs - plugging it into a computer interface doesn't make it a breakthrough. It's a very clumsy and slow way of designing a brain interface.

I'm much more interested in the invasive procedures which actually read body movement intentions - those are much more versatile than just reading "whether the user is concentrating"...

Daniel

Did you...

[TheCouchPotatoFamine]

..also have a guy bring a toy that would make a women's clothes jump five feet to the right? you know, with a warm cup of coffee?

you go, you!

Bad bad bad...

[confused one]

I don't get it... Why do people keep trying to do this!?

Isn't it obvious that once a computer can read our minds, and see how messy it really is up there, they'll have all the they need to justify taking over "to protect us from ourselves"