DARPA Working on Spidey Sense for Soldiers

anti-human 1 writes to tell us Wired is reporting that DARPA is developing a new optics system to help soldiers identify threats earlier. "The most far-reaching component of the binocs has nothing to do with the optics: it's Darpa's aspirations to integrate EEG electrodes that monitor the wearer's neural signals, cueing soldiers to recognize targets faster than the unaided brain could on its own. The idea is that EEG can spot 'neural signatures' for target detection before the conscious mind becomes aware of a potential threat or target. [...] In other words, like Spiderman's 'spider sense', a soldier could be alerted to danger that his or her brain had sensed, but not yet had time to process."

Comments

Ever hear of the "Sixth Sense"

[nexuspal]

I was reading a military close quarters combat manual and they made reference to a "sixth sense". It stated explicitly NOT to look directly at the enemy before you walk up to them and kill them silently one way or another. You are supposed to look at the ground by their feet and not think about them before you "off" them. It is amazing to me how many people do not believe that we have a sixth sense, the ability to know someone is looking at you even though they are not in your field of vision. I have yet to see science explain this...

Re:Ever hear of the "Sixth Sense"

[geek]

I remember studies from the late 90's about human perception, specifically in regards to insects. Ever notice a small spider out of the corner of your eye while watching TV? Ever wake up from a DEAD sleep to find a spider hanging over you? It was proposed that humans developed a "sixth sense" like this during our evolution to protect us from smaller and more deadly creatures such as poisonous snakes and spiders. The idea is that we percieve more around us than we are consciously aware of and our subconscious has the ability to red flag certain things and awake our consciousness to it. Speaking from personal experience, I have woken out of a dead sleep and found a spider over me, several times. I thought to myself "what a coincidence", but after hearing about the studies, whenever they were, I can't find them now, I realize it's very possible we have a sort of sixth sense in the non literal meaning of the words.

My guess is that this type of perception is what they are alluding to. The "gut instinct" of it.

Re:Ever hear of the "Sixth Sense"

[vertinox]

It is amazing to me how many people do not believe that we have a sixth sense, the ability to know someone is looking at you even though they are not in your field of vision.

Try this today.

1. Get in a car and drive until you reach a red stop light.
2. Look at other person.
3. Watch them instantly look back at you.

Or in reverse

1. Get in a car and drive until you reach a red stop light.
2. Don't look at other person until you feel them looking.
3. Look at them quickly and watch them turn their head away.

One of those things that always bothered me is that you can usually tell when another person is looking at you while driving.

Re:Ever hear of the "Sixth Sense"

[BWJones]

OK, so this is just more mil-speak bullshit. I've heard more generals and colonels talk about science issues on which they have no concept just to hear themselves speak. There has been more bad science done in the name of the military than I would like to admit and this is marketing speak designed around that.

*If* you are going to kill someone, particularly someone who can/will fight back, then you damn well better be prepared to pay attention to what you are doing. The whole reason that one is admonished to not think about them is that you may hesitate at what the Corps at least used to call the "Moment of truth", that moment at which you can make the decision to take a human life. Believe it or not, most human beings will hesitate at taking another persons life, so basic training programs spend an inordinate amount of time slowly accommodating soldiers to the concept through the use of paper circle targets, followed by silhouette targets, followed by more natural human looking targets. For other more specialized disciplines, there is even a more complex psychological process that soldiers go through to "glorify" the moment of a killing, "looking for the pink mist" if you will.

Any "sixth sense" is simply a more acute awareness of your surroundings through kinesthetic space, smell, hearing, etc.... We don't see higher mathematical dimensions like amphibians or fishes do and we don't have lateral lines like fishes do. However, there is nothing that says we cannot develop artificial supplements to our senses.

Re:Ever hear of the "Sixth Sense"

[Brigadier]

This has more to do with empathy. Picture your enemy is a 14 y/o iraqi girl with an AK. looking her in the eyes will cause you to connect, question and pause. all of which can be fatal under threatening conditions.

Re:Ever hear of the "Sixth Sense"

[dave562]

I will completely agree that proper body mechanics will help you generate better jin, which is the manifestation of qi when your body is the conduit. When I talk about "phenomena" level things, I'm talking about healers who can do the laying hands on type of stuff that some people swear only happened during the times of Jesus, and can only be done by people who are directly descendent from God. On the subject of sixth sense, I tend to believe that such a sixth sense can be encouraged through meditation and awareness practices. When you're calm and peaceful and centered, and have tuned your awareness to remaining in that kind of state, it isn't so far fetched that you'd be more likely to become aware of others who are in an opposite, hostile kind of state.

When you look at the bigger picture, it comes down to manifested intent. The mind needs to manifest intent before the body can carry out that intent. On the subject of healers and people who can manipulate other people's energy levels, they are able to manifest their own internal energy externally (through the palms usually). I've felt it personally (it feels like a tingling sensation, like when your arm wakes up after going numb from sleeping on it). Is it really so hard to believe that we as human beings might subconsciously manifest intent in such a way that others can pick up on?

To use an analogy that might not hold much water here, take talking to a girl who you're interested in as an example. When you're just being friendly and truly enjoying the conversation, she'll be open and friendly. Once you start trying to manuveur the conversation towards getting laid, she'll pick up on it.

Re:1 step closer

[tritonman]

This kind of stuff scares me. How can you tell if someone is thinking about killing you or wishes that you were dead? Sometimes I wish someone was dead, but I wouldn't go kill him or tell someone to kill him. Pretty soon if you disagree with someone, you will be taken as a threat and executed as some sort of preemtive strike.

How is this better?

[Tofystedeth]

So if I understand it right from the article, our brain is constantly sending out danger signals that we ignore. This technology will then sense those danger signals and beep or flash red or something? So now we have another danger signal that needs to follow all the same routing. Does this cause a feedback loop? If there is something dangerous enough that our brain can recognize it would we not maybe notice it before the machine reading our brain? It sounds like we have a lot of these danger signals. Is every piece of trash blowing by in our peripheral vision going to set this thing off?

Altered Carbon

[AmiMoJo]

Anyone who has read Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan will recognise this. In the book, cloned bodies have improved reflexes, reaction times, even better responses to pain. Fall over a ledge, your augmented brain has a reflex action to grab something, which is faster and more accurate than normal.

In the book, ordinary people with enough money can get the tech. If you meet someone who has better tech than you, they can almost certainly take you down with little effort. Every move you make, they see first and move faster to counter.

This is stupid and useless...

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no way to alert the brain to something that hasn't been consciously realized yet but flagged unconsciously any faster than the brain would already do it without actually altering the brain. The alert would have to pass through the same or similar processing pathways as the initial sensory input which caused the alert signals that would be measured by an EEG. Even if the EEG and associated external equipment produced results instantaneously it would only get in the way of the brain's natural function.
This could be used for something like automatic targeting where a computer would already have begun targeting (for weapons fire or for detailed radar or optical scanning) something of interest before an operator or pilot knew he/she was interested in it.

Re:tinfoil, please

[nexuspal]

Is a dog knowing its owner is coming home explainable by science as well? I'd like to see you put that into scientific terms.. Maybe the dog smells the owner 30 miles away? More to life than meets the eye, being close minded is what you are doing here... And yes, it is wildly complicated, a dog knowing an owner is coming home with no cues AT ALL (that science can explain AT THIS TIME). The owner leaves for home at a completely random time, and there's the dog waiting at the door when the owner is still miles off.