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."

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[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"

[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"

[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.

Well for starters...

[StressGuy]

The web-shooter goes in your wrist, not your

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

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.