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Researchers Teach Subliminally; Matrix Learning One Step Closer

Posted by samzenpus on from the I-know-kung-fu dept.

An anonymous reader writes "For the first time ever, scientists from Boston University and ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories in Kyoto, Japan have managed to use functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, or fMRI to decode the process of learning. As the research stands to date, it isn't capable of much. Rather than working with skills like juggling, the researchers relied on images so they could tie into the vision part of the brain, the part that they have managed to partially decode. Nevertheless, they demonstrated that information could be taught using neurofeedback techniques. And it was effective even when people didn't know they were learning."

5 of 103 comments (clear)

  1. Citation needed by anton.karl · · Score: 5, Informative

    This story really needs a link to an original paper.

    1. Re:Citation needed by zlel · · Score: 4, Informative

      is it http://www.sciencemag.org/content/334/6061/1413.full ? "Our results indicate that the adult early visual cortex is so plastic that mere repetition of the activity pattern corresponding to a specific feature in the cortex is sufficient to cause VPL of a specific orientation, even without stimulus presentation, conscious awareness of the meaning of the neural patterns that participants induced, or knowledge of the intention of the experiment. How is the present research on VPL distinguished from previous approaches? Unit recording and brain imaging studies have successfully revealed the correlation between VPL and neural activity changes (1–8). However, these correlation studies cannot clarify cause-and-effect relationships. The studies that examined the effect of a lesion (15) or transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) (16, 17) to a brain region on VPL have shown whether the examined region plays some role in VPL. However, these studies cannot clarify how particular activity patterns in the region are related to VPL. In contrast, the present decoded fMRI neurofeedback method allowed us to induce specific neural activity patterns in V1/V2, which caused VPL. "

    2. Re:Citation needed by cp.tar · · Score: 4, Informative

      Getting rid of memories is something that’s already being done, primarily with trauma victims, especially veterans.
      It is actually really simple: since the act of recollection pulls the memory from long-term storage and then processes it back through short- and mid-term storage, patients are given drugs that inhibit passing from short-term to mid-term storage. (My mother was also given those after waking up from a coma; even though she was conscious, she remembers almost nothing. Which is good, given that just being plugged in to all those machines is very painful and causes a tormenting feeling of thirst even though you are properly hydrated. A week of those memories would leave serious consequences.)
      Anyway, people come to a psychiatrist, drink a pill, and talk about their traumatic experiences, which are then slowly erased from their memories.
      It is not always the preferred method; after all, we learn from bad experiences, and it wouldn’t do to erase them all. We’d only make the same mistakes again.

      --
      Ignore this signature. By order.
  2. Does anyone even remember The Matrix anymore? by TFoo · · Score: 4, Informative

    seriously: my wife teaches high schoolers, she made a comment about The Matrix and got a whole room of stares in response. 1999 was 12 years ago...

    1. Re:Does anyone even remember The Matrix anymore? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      It's too bad they never made a sequel.

      I'll have to disagree. Twice.

      I'll have to whoosh: http://xkcd.com/566/