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Japanese Scientists Claim To Reconstruct Images From Brain Data
In a world first, a research group in Kyoto Japan has succeeded in processing and displaying optically received images directly from the human brain. Here's the Japanese press release for good measure. One step closer to broadcasting your dreams? The research is due to be published today in the US scientific journal Neuron
It was a male subject and the image was Hentai.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
I have lots of cool images in my head for comics and wallpaper, however I lack the artistic talent to bring those images from my mind to paper/photoshop. Maybe soon I will be able to compensate for my lack of artistic ability.
A Berkeley group has already reported this in Nature using similar methods: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v452/n7185/abs/nature06713.html)
THEY have been able to do this for decades! Where is your tinfoil hat now? Ha!
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Years ago I was a sign language interpreter (ASL), and after a few years realized that I was thinking in ASL and "visually" instead of the usual auditory monologue... I always wondered if you use a completely different part of the brain to process the language - or if it just gets translated into language concepts before processing... I wonder how long before "telepathic" audio is available.
meh
People read blurby summaries, which don't include the results, the full reasoning, methods, etc, and then act as if it's the fault of the researchers. It's absurd, that's neither the paper nor the direct work of the researchers, it's some non-scientist working for a news source. Read the actual paper, TFA in these cases are rarely any better than TFS.
http://download.cell.com/neuron/pdf/PIIS0896627308009586.pdf
There's the PDF. It does have the very pixelated images. I haven't had time to read through it.
As always, don't complain to me if you don't happen to have a subscription, and not having a subscription is no reason to act as if the results aren't real.
Can we "keep images in our heads" at all? When I try to, it is more of a feeling than an image, and it's a fragmentary one at that. Wouldn't it make sense if our imagination worked a lot like our vision, i.e. we can only focus on small bits of the visual field at once, and so would only be able to imagine those pieces and attributes of an image pertinent to our needs or wants?
I'm free-balling here, mind. I can't seem to put coherent, complete images in my head, but others very well might.
It's right there on the Japanese press release page, you can see at the bottom of the image at the top left of the article, they have the before and after of the word "neuron". Here, I'll make it even easier for ya: http://www2.asahi.com/kansai/news/image/OSK200812100099.jpg
Dr. Walter Bishop (Cambridge) was doing this in the '70s.
No he did not.
He wrote a story about something like this. People ahve thought about doing this for years.
There is a difference in predicting something, and writing a story.
He also wrote about a bunch of stuff that never happens, and won't likely happen.
I like the mans work, but come on if he gets put any higher on a pedestal he'll be able to touch the moon.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
And imagine spending the next week try to figure out GIMP to be able to do anything with it~
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Would looking at the image your brain is generating at the same time you are generating it create a feedback loop much like holding a microphone too close to a speaker?
Dreams appear to be based on the 'noise' coming in, but a lot of interpretation is applied (and without imposed constraints of consistency or logic). A common game/prank involves people asking yes/no questions about an alleged dream, but the answers they get are based on some simple scheme like "yes if the last word in the question they ask ends in a consonant". Surprisingly detailed 'stories' get constructed... by the person asking the questions. (Here's what appears to be an online version.) Actual dreams seem to be built in an analogous way, with the subconscious 'asking questions' of the senses (which are just feeding in 'static') and weaving an experience out of them.
I'd guess that 'eavesdropping' on dreams via this means would only get the kind of swirling colors and such you 'see' when you close your eyes.
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
Maybe this image will not require a subscription, although I suspect it will.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/cache/MiamiImageURL/B6WSS-4V4113M-P-7/0?wchp=dGLbVtz-zSkzk
On the off chance it does, keep in mind this is not the full article. Critiques along the lines of "this doesn't prove anything," or "They should have done X" are premature if you haven't read the full (journal) article. If you thought of it, they probably covered that in the article you're not willing to pay for.
I'd mod you up if I could. It doesn't seem to me that when I imagine something in my head, there is actually a picture being made somewhere in my brain. It's an impression, a sense of shapes, something very fluid and ephemeral. I can, in a way, turn around three-dimensional objects "in my head", but the experience is far from looking at a video of an object turning. A simple dumb read of that kind of thing would probably be very difficult, although a person could perhaps train themselves to solidify their ideas into image form via a neural interface, much as they can ordinarily do with pen and paper, for example.
Didn't read the full article, but from the abstract
The article you linked to seems to only be able to tell which object a person saw from their fMRI. I believe it required established measurements too, IE "this part of the brain lights up when they see a face. In blind studies, that part of the brain lit up, so they must have seen a face."
Whether it required a calibration for each individual or not, no image reconstruction was done: it's not the same thing at all.
The primary visual cortex (V1) has already been shown to be retinotopic. What's being seen can be mapped directly from the cortex. It's crude and low-res, but it works.
20 years ago a researcher working with Karl Pribram at Radford University was able to detect signals from small cellular assemblies of the visual cortex that represented a particular shape being viewed without mapping the entire shape from V1.
In both these, the images were received directly from the brain. In both they were digitally processed and presented. In all three what was retrieved was not an image, but was a pattern of neural electrical activity that they had already determined represented a particular visual field. They could not (in keeping with the /. tendency to represent reality with fiction) for instance, retrieve the third frame of a series of images that had been briefly presesnted. They would have had to show the image for some time that record EEG from the appropriate areas for long enough that they could get a good correlation when showing it a second time.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
"The current accomplishment is low hanging fruit and therefore uninteresting. Surprising, really, that they found funding for such an unnecessary demonstration at all! By commercializing this technology, it would become sufficiently interesting to deserve my royal approval."
Belittling humanity's incremental advancement as if you're a third party, how's that working out for you?
I think it's tremendously exciting. Thanks for the buzzkill though, it reminds me to get off the computer and interact with people of my choosing.
I wonder if the process can be reversed, and images can be fed into the brain to create a dream sequence? Will people who really hate their reality use this as an escape and never try to wake up again?
Cool story!
Best "String" Ever!
As to writing about stuff that never happened, THIS never happened - until now. The "hyperdrive" (what Roddenberry renamed "warp drive") was never invented - yet. Roddenberry and his writers were prescient, too. I remember a world without cell phones, flat screen talking computers, self-opening doors, and space shuttles (I remember a world without space travel at all).
Wow. Your UID should have a minus sign in front of it.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
This , if true , will have HUGE implications - we'll be able to see what people THINK.
Data in V1/V2 does not constitute cognition, those areas constitute pretty much a visual map of data gathered by the eye (roughly). Its doubtful that imagined visuals are even represented in these areas. This, in other words, doesn't provide any insight into thoughts, just what people see.
I admit, though, that this is awesome. If we can read it, we theoretically could write to it, which would allow for direct neural interfaces.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
Sorry - If you don't recognize the quote and have no context, it's not funny at all.
Vonnegut (misspelled in my post above) became honorary president of the American Humanist Association after Isaac Asimov, their former president, passed on. As such, he had the somewhat awkward honor of addressing the Association at their first meeting after losing their president and had to come up with some way to say goodbye to Isaac and start his speech. (If you're unfamiliar with Humanism, it's an entirely human-based religion/philosophy. Its members are largely atheist or agnostic and practice strict scientific skepticism while shunning religious superstitions or unsupported beliefs - Heaven/Hell included. The idea that Asimov, as president of the AHA, would have any literal belief in Heaven would be ludicrous.)
According to Vonnegut, opening his speech with
Isaac's in heaven now.
not only did a great job of breaking the ice in a very awkward situation, but set the entire ball-room laughing out loud.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.