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Predicting Human Errors From Brain Activity
Hugh Pickens writes "Researchers report that brain activity can be used to predict the likelihood of someone making an error about six seconds in advance, with gradual changes starting as much as 30 seconds ahead of time. The team used an imaging machine to scan the brains of a group of volunteers who performed a task in the presence of distracting information. When performing correctly the volunteers' brains showed increased levels of activity in those parts associated with cognitive effort, as would be expected. However, these areas gradually became less active before errors were made and at the same time another set of regions in the brain became more active. These regions are part of a so-called "default mode network" and show increased use when people are resting or asleep [PDF]. While imaging machines are far too big and complex to be used in workplaces to monitor the brain activity of people engaged in important tasks, the team hopes to correlate errors to changes in electrical activity in the brain with electroencephalography (EEG), using electrodes placed on the scalp. If EEG features can be found that correspond to the change in brain activity, then a hat that gives warning of an imminent mistake might one day become reality. We've previously discussed similar studies of brain activity."
I've seen some stupid research in my time, but actually believing you can predict errors in advance is like saying you can predict which leaf will fall off of a tree in the next 6 seconds.
The parent post makes a very good point. I agree with him wholeheartedly. You may be able to predict actions, but how can you predict whether an action will be an error?
Mod parent up!
And I certainly hope it never hits the market.
If you're falling asleep on the road, you're more likely to make the error of driving to one side. Similarly, if you're getting distracted by a stray thought, your concentration can suffer and are more likely to make errors in your primary task. You may not predict the exact error, but you can reasonably forecast an increased probability of error.
Why else would car insurance rates rise when you get into an accident? Um... you know, aside from evil insurance companies?
Will they ever be able to make a hat that lets slashdot users know if they will be modded '+1 funny' vs '-1 flamebait?' 6 seconds before clicking 'submit?'
-I only code in BASIC.-
My question is this: Will the knowledge that an error will occur cause the person in question to be even -more- likely to cause an error? Belief can be a dangerous thing in this case:
"You're gonna make an error."
*user has minor panic, nervousness, etc*
"See? You errored. You suck."
Makes me wonder if it would self-perpetuate if it were a self-monitored system rather than an externally monitored one - and once externally monitored, would the reaction time be sufficent to prevent the error? Sounds like some slick science on paper, but it seems like it'd fail in practical use.
"In caelum, illuc est libertas."
when the editors will err and post a dupe?
oh wait.
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
"You are about to make a mistake. Cancel or Allow?"
It sounds to me that the key finding is that they can detect when a person is distracted by monitoring their brain waves. A much more interesting finding than that distracted people make errors.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
No no, you see, he was proving that you can't predict mistakes before they happen. If someone could, why would they allow him to agree with himself? He's... taking one for the team, if you will.
The descriptions of "the error-detecting hat" look like the intent is to train the brain to stay alert and not make errors - or to refocus it when it wanders. (DING DING DING! HEY! WAKE UP! PAY ATTENTION!) The hat may be useful, but that use of the feedback may be the wrong approach.
The signature they're describing corresponds, not just to a lack of alertness, but specifically a lack of alertness because the brain is going into a resting state. Seems to me that might be because all this decision-making has made the working regions of the brain tired and the brain is trying to clear them out so they'll operate properly again. So the problem is not the lack of alertness, but the attempt to continue to make decisions during the resting cycle.
Given that, a better use of the feedback might be to tell the wearer that it's time to stop making important decisions and take a break, rather than trying to overuse a "mental muscle" that's exhausted - and perhaps train him to recognize the mental state himself so he can then dispense with the hat.
The "break times" in working days were set up when studies showed that taking breaks, despite the "work time lost", resulted in more and better work in the work time remaining. This looks like a way to optimize the process, rather than running breaks on a clock.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I have to agree with other people who've posted that this is over-reaching a little bit. This is nothing more than a correllational study: all they can say is that these systems, in this particular series of trials, showed increased activity shortly before an error took place.
The main problem as I see it is that since they can't determine causaltiy, and only conducted this experiment with a small sample population, and with a specific task, is it could have been the task itself causing the particular regions to become active after a certain period of time. I just gave the article a quick look through, but I'd be curious to see if the errors came in distinct, set intervals. It could be simply the nature of the task that caused the activity. Furthermore, what about left handed participants? What about age groups outside of the twenties (which are a particular cohort, and can be expected to have similiar results/activity as such)? It seems like they failed to counterbalance either their participants or their trials in any meaningful way.
Also, I'm not familiar with this journal or whatever it is, but I've never seen one where the methods section came last, which is a little strange. That's almost always the first thing I go to after the abstract.
Mod Points: Helping you keep your opinion to yourself.
There are activities that can be handed off to the unconscious mind. If you are doing something so often that it seems like you could do it in your sleep, well, there's no reason not to hand it off to a subprocess and think about more important stuff.
I think they are detecting abortive hand-off attempts: A training process for a different part of the brain than one's conscious mind. More complex motions or actions require more training. I think what we need isn't more concentration, but more error tolerance.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
was wearing an in-house version of this hat before he decided to release Vista. Unfortunately, the hat was running Vista.
I've noticed that before I make certain mistakes, or completely forget what I was doing, I will experience a spike in confusion. Sometimes, the ramp up the spike is slow, taking most of an hour; other times, it comes on me suddenly, taking only a minute. I feel confused and doing simple tasks are difficult. Then, it passes. Often, I will have completely forgotten what it was I was attempting to do, until much later when something reminds me.
Taking stuff apart since 1969 (TM)
I can make an EEG monitor that IS a baseball cap. By carefully measuring the angle of the visor relative to the wearer's head, as well as a few environmental factors such as precipitation, temperature and altitude, I can identify half-bred imbeciles with shocking accuracy.
I can also tell with 100% certainty that a person wearing a ballcap will make a mistake. That mistake is asking me to fix their computer.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
"Prediction" is not accurate because that implies an absolute. The activity correlates with an increased probability of making a mistake. The study relies on statistics throughout, from the analysis of the fMRI data on, and so can only deal in probabilities.
An Israeli team found that an increase in degree of synchronization of midline frontal theta EEG varied inversely with the probability of making a mistake. Such theta synchronization occurs over spans of 10 to 30 seconds. They also found that when a response occurs during the rising or falling slope of the synchronized theta (as opposed to near a peak), the person was more likely to make a mistake. The latter probably is the source of the evoked potential called the Error Related Negativity; it is the brain preparing to notice the error. The former seems to indicate a lagging in attention, which is when errors are most likely to occur. The two are related, meaning the brain "knows" when it is starting to droop and is more likely to make a mistake, and tells itself to get ready to notice a mistake if it happens.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B