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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."

23 of 103 comments (clear)

  1. obligatory by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    I know kung fu.

  2. 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 Rei · · Score: 2

      I wonder if they've had any success with the opposite -- trying to get rid of memories. I bet there'd be a big market.

      --
      Aptera: Most expensive Star Trek prop ever.
    3. 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.
  3. The sorry state of science reporting by bonch · · Score: 3, Informative

    The article claims that they recorded the brain patterns of jugglers imagining the act of juggling, and then had a non-juggler imagine doing the same thing and rewarded them if they matched those brain patterns, thereby teaching them how to juggle.

    That's absurd on its face. But then the article tucks away the fact that what the study really only dealt with visual imagery. It used fMRI, which has been around for years and "decodes" the visual process of the brain. So what this study is really about is figuring out visual perceptual learning, not a physical skill like juggling. Using fMRI, they can "improve performance on visual tasks".

    It says right in the article that they have yet to test if this process works with any other type of learning. It's more likely that it may have uses in rehabilitation and memory learning, or at least provide insight into those processes. There's no Matrix learning here.

    1. Re:The sorry state of science reporting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I don't want to be rude, but everything you just said is in the summary.

    2. Re:The sorry state of science reporting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Imagining doing something and actually doing it physically is close to the same thing as far as learning and the brain is concerned. Yes, that means that you can get better at, say, basket ball by sitting in your couch imagining playing basket ball - the rate of learning is nearly the same as actually playing basket ball. Presumably your assumptions of how basket ball works will get out of sync with reality after a while, so you will need to actually go play for real too every once in a while. So there is ridiculous on the face of it about improving your juggling in an fMRI machine without actually doing anything physically, though I didn't RTFA so I don't know if that is what they did.

    3. Re:The sorry state of science reporting by Mikkeles · · Score: 4, Funny

      It's like a wintery, only warmer.

      --
      Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.
  4. 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 walkerp1 · · Score: 5, Funny

      I blame the parents. Yes, we could push the responsibility off on educators, but cultural enlightenment should ideally start much sooner. My eight children all saw the Matrix before their fourth birthdays. I also reinforce with annual refreshers.

    2. Re:Does anyone even remember The Matrix anymore? by devilspgd · · Score: 5, Funny

      My eight children all saw the Matrix before their fourth birthdays. I also reinforce with annual refreshers.

      It's too bad they never made a sequel.

      --
      Give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day, but teach a man to phish...
    3. Re:Does anyone even remember The Matrix anymore? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      If you're not getting off it, could you at least do something useful with it?

      The garden hose is out back, and the mower in the garage. thanks.

    4. 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/

    5. Re:Does anyone even remember The Matrix anymore? by walkerp1 · · Score: 4, Funny

      It's too bad they never made a sequel.

      I'll have to disagree. Twice.

      So you're saying it's a good thing they never made two sequels?

      It's an exclusive or kind of disagreement: !too bad XOR !they never made a sequel.

  5. What? by sociocapitalist · · Score: 2

    No martial arts or helicopter flying downloads yet?

    --
    blindly antisocialist = antisocial
    1. Re:What? by tantaliz3 · · Score: 5, Funny

      I want to learn applied quantum physics. Because it's impossible to learn it the regular way...

    2. Re:What? by nickdc · · Score: 5, Funny

      Not going to work. You changed the outcome by learning it.

  6. Not to rain on the parade... by Zeroblitzt · · Score: 5, Interesting

    But couldn't this be a terrible thing? And it was effective even when people didn't know they were learning. Translation: It will eventually fall into the hands of someone not-so-nice (politician, corporation, etc.), and suddenly we will "learn" that they are good, or we should buy their product, or elect them to be our leader, etc.

    --
    Mr. America walk on by your schools that do not teach Mr. America walk on by the minds that won't be reached
    1. Re:Not to rain on the parade... by maxwell+demon · · Score: 2

      Well, reading the actual article (which ziel gratefully provided a link for) reveals that while the participants didn't know that they were learning visual patterns, they still had to actively participate (their task was to somehow increase a green circle). I'm pretty sure you can't be put into an MRI machine without noticing it (unless you are unconscious or sleeping, but then this scheme cannot work anyway). So if you are put into an MRI, and you fear them secretly teaching you bad things, just refuse to do any mental tasks while there.

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    2. Re:Not to rain on the parade... by mcgrew · · Score: 2

      But couldn't this be a terrible thing? And it was effective even when people didn't know they were learning. Translation: It will eventually fall into the hands of someone not-so-nice (politician, corporation, etc.), and suddenly we will "learn" that they are good, or we should buy their product, or elect them to be our leader, etc.

      They already do that, no fMri needed. Where do you think all the middle and low income tea partiers come from? These poor fools have been trained to vote against their own interests! Why do you think people actually believe the idiotic idea that voting for a losing candidate is a wasted vote (someone "on the street" in a Sunday news show just yestarday said he wasn't voting for Ron Paul because a losing vote was wasted). Why do people think McDonald's tastes good? Why do people continue to buy Sony products?

      Brainwashing has been around a long, long time.

      --
      Free Martian Whores!
  7. Re:But first by durrr · · Score: 2

    And less likely to turn shopping carts and everything made of metal not bolted down around you into deadly and homing missiles.

  8. Laugh... by koan · · Score: 2

    It's called television and it's been programming people for decades.

    --
    "If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."