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

1 step closer

[Vexor]

Now if I could just get this web shooter to work.....

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"

[LighterShadeOfBlack]

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. - Of course you shouldn't be looking directly at them. You should be looking at the path between you and them. If you walk up to someone while staring directly ahead you're more likely to stand on something loudly or trip or generally fuck up your silent approach. As for thinking about them, well it's generally not a good idea to concentrate too much on someone you're about to kill. The more you think about them the more real and human they become.

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... - I've yet to see anyone come up with a reliable and objective experiment that provided any evidence of a "sixth sense". Science can't explain something that hasn't been empirically observed.

Re:Ever hear of the "Sixth Sense"

[nuzak]

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...

Science doesn't have to explain it. That part comes after proving that it actually exists.

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"

[0racle]

I thought to myself "what a coincidence"

If you're like most people, that wasn't your first thought.

Re:Ever hear of the "Sixth Sense"

[morgan_greywolf]

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...
- I've yet to see anyone come up with a reliable and objective experiment that provided any evidence of a "sixth sense". Science can't explain something that hasn't been empirically observed.

Okay, here's one:

Pick someone, anyone, out of a crowd, on the highway (not recommended if you are driving), etc., from who you are out of their field of view. Stare at them intensely for a few seconds. Direct a strong emotion towards them if you can -- hate, fear, rage, etc. I guarantee you that most of them will look back at you nervously. It may not work for everyone because some people are less aware of their '6th sense' than others.

Re:Ever hear of the "Sixth Sense"

[LighterShadeOfBlack]

Okay, here's one:

Pick someone, anyone, out of a crowd, on the highway (not recommended if you are driving), etc., from who you are out of their field of view. Stare at them intensely for a few seconds. Direct a strong emotion towards them if you can -- hate, fear, rage, etc. I guarantee you that most of them will look back at you nervously. It may not work for everyone because some people are less aware of their '6th sense' than others. - I'll bet a million simoleans that this experiment will find that the number of people who are "aware of their 6th sense" happens to directly correspond to the number of people who would simply by chance turn around and wonder "WTF is that guy looking at?". Funny that. It may seem to the casual starer that more people turn and look at them, but it's simply a case of them subconsciously dismissing the people who don't turn but explicitly noticing the people who do. You might want to look into selection bias for more info on the topic.

Re:Ever hear of the "Sixth Sense"

[BWJones]

Could someone please explain this to me? I've never heard of either concept before.

Humans see principally in three "channels", red, green and blue due to the opsins in your photoreceptors. There is some evidence that some women are tetrachromats however. At any rate, these three opsins give us color discrimination in three mathematical dimensions. However, fish and amphibian eyes are much more complicated than ours. For example, the turtle likely sees in at least seven channels of vision, perceiving a world we could never hope to imagine and here is another fact: In the zebrafish, despite their retinas being much more complex and sophisticated than ours, can repair their retinas from damage whereas we are currently screwed if our retinas go bad.

IAAVS (I am a vision scientist), and neuroscientist.

Re:Ever hear of the "Sixth Sense"

[God'sDuck]

And even if it were confirmed, there would be a better-than-reasonable chance that some primitive part of our brain processes input coming from peripheral vision, and sorts it for input that might correspond to potential threats -- like "pairs of eyes directed directly at our tasty flesh."

Re:Ever hear of the "Sixth Sense"

[mike2R]

Pick someone, anyone, out of a crowd, on the highway (not recommended if you are driving), etc., from who you are out of their field of view. Stare at them intensely for a few seconds. Direct a strong emotion towards them if you can -- hate, fear, rage, etc. I guarantee you that most of them will look back at you nervously. It may not work for everyone because some people are less aware of their '6th sense' than others.

Then get scientific evidence for it: Make absolutely sure that the observer cannot affect the environment of the subject in any way, and record the results.

All sorts of EMP studies have been tried, and there is still no evidence for it. Given how easy it would be to get evidence if it did work, I think the only conclusion has to be that it doesn't.

My own opinion of this sort of anecdotal evidence is that 1) it is very startling when someone who you are sure cannot see you looking at them turns and looks at you (hence we tend to remember it as important event), 2) it's not very remarkable when people don't turn when you are looking at them (so we tend to forget it), and 3) our brains very very good at making connections between tiny bits of sensory data and the possibility that someone is looking at us (so in our everyday lives we are likely to see a bias towards people noticing us watching them).

Re:Ever hear of the "Sixth Sense"

[Anonymous Coward]

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

If 14 year old girls that you have apparently freed from the oppression of a ruthless dictator are your enemy, then something has already gone very, very wrong

Edgy Perception?

[bitRAKE]

I get the same effect from too much coffee.

Well for starters...

[StressGuy]

The web-shooter goes in your wrist, not your

{no....I just can't bring myself to finish that one.....}

And yet soldiers don't want this crap

[lawaetf1]

For the life of me I can't find the article but there was a recent publication about how soldiers don't like all this high-tech gear. And I can imagine why. Outside of body armor (and soldiers say there's such a thing as too much) and good communication a lot of this junk is over-hyped whiteboard warrior stuff that gobbles up billions of dollars of DoD R&D.

Within the article:

"It's unclear what the final system will look like." but "Darpa says it expects to have prototypes in the hands of soldiers in three years."

Sure. It's like the Popular Science covers of the 1960s "Flying cars tomorrow! Pick your model today!"

If we really want to helps soldiers brains, help them come back from a bogus war with fewer instances of PTSD and other psychological damage.

Almost like forcing "DSI"...

[StressGuy]

Also called "Dysfunction of Sensory Integration". It's a neurological condition where the brain has difficulty putting certain sensory signals "in the background". Say, for example, you put on a wristwatch this morning. Eventually your brain goes "OK...wrist watch...left arm...I get it", and you stop becomming constantly aware of the watch. You know it's there, the nerves in your arm can still detect it, but the brain pushes it into the background because it does not need to keep reminding you it's there.

A tactile DSI, would always feel like they just put that watch on, it can be quite irritating after a while. Tactile DSIs often do things like cut tags off of thier clothing and take other such steps to minimize the sensory overload they are exposed to.

I'm an auditory DSI, I have a hard time blocking out background noise and often times, it competes with what I should be paying attention to. My work-around is to wear wireless full-coverage headphones that pipe in soft classical music. Thus, I reduce the distractions to a single source that is easy to manage.

These days however, I have an office so I can also just close my door.

Based upon my experience, I say this won't work like they hope it will.

They never admit defeat

[mangu]

Shouldn't someone try this experiment already and either kill the myth or find out it is not that much of a myth?

When people want to believe in something extraordinary there's no way an experiment, no matter how well performed, will convince them of the contrary. They will always assume the experiment itself was faulty in some way.

It seems that for some people the need to believe in something is so strong it overrides reason.