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Scientists Build Mind-Reading Computer

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the strangely-all-the-male-results-looked-like-the-word-sex dept.

An anonymous reader writes to tell us that researchers from Carnegie Mellon University have developed what they are calling a "mind reading computer." Using a panel of nine volunteers, the team built a "profile" of 58 test words based on brain scans taken while the volunteers were directed to think about the meaning of each test word. "'If I show you the brain images for two words, the main thing you notice is that they look pretty much alike. If you look at them for a while you might see subtle differences,' explains Tom Mitchell of the Machine Learning Department, which lead the study. 'We believe we have identified a number of the basic building blocks that the brain uses to represent meaning. These building blocks could be used to predict patterns for any concrete noun,' added Mitchell."

5 of 108 comments (clear)

  1. And so it begins.. by multipartmixed · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ..THIS is the basis for yet-another-trek-related-invention: the Universal Translator.

    I always knew it had to work this way.

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    Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
    1. Re:And so it begins.. by the_humeister · · Score: 4, Interesting

      That's an interesting idea. Do different words that mean the same in different languages light up the same areas of the brain when a person thinks about it? Would a Spanish person who is told to think of "coche", have a similar brain scan of an English person told to think of "car"?

    2. Re:And so it begins.. by locallyunscene · · Score: 3, Interesting

      This reminds me of a psyche 101 exercise where students were asked to draw a map of the town in which the college resided. Upperclassmen drew far more detailed maps than freshmen. I suspect the upperclassmen would have thought of very different things(past experiences) compared to freshmen also, and that's within a very small subset of people. I doubt very much that this machine could "read your mind" primed with someone else's input, but it could be invaluable in determining how the brain works and what similarities do exist across regions/ages/cultures if any.

  2. What about Pron? by brunokummel · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I know it sounds funny but i would like to see the brain activity for pornografic pictures, since it already known that "bad words" are stored in a different area of the brain than regular words... it would be kind of interesting if "bad images (or nice depending on the person)" got also stored on different areas....

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  3. Call me when it translates... by icebike · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Quoting article:
    "We believe we have identified a number of the basic building blocks that the brain uses to represent meaning. These building blocks could be used to predict patterns for any concrete noun..."

    The implications of building blocks would suggest that the french word for "Desk" (bureau) would elicit the same response as the english word for "Desk", instead of some governmental unit.

    That would be useful, (once we get cheap portable MRI hats).

    However I doubt these building blocks are anywhere near that generic due to the excess emotional baggage that people associate with words. I suppose it might be able to detect the presence of such baggage even if it could not decipher it.

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