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Computer Program Reconstructs Heard Words From Brain Scans
sciencehabit writes "In a new study, neuroscientists connected a network of electrodes to the hearing centers of 15 patients' brains and recorded the brain activity while they listened to words like 'jazz' or 'Waldo.' They saw that each word generated its own unique pattern in the brain. So they developed two different computer programs that could reconstruct the words a patient heard just by analyzing his or her brain activity. Reconstructions from the better of the two programs were good enough that the researchers could accurately decipher the mystery word 80% to 90% percent of the time. Because there's evidence that the words we hear and the words we recall or imagine trigger similar brain processes, the study suggests scientists may one day be able to tune in to the words you're thinking."
I'm pretty sure those tin foil hats don't actually work.
Hopefully one can apply such technology to the politics soon. The program may be disoriented though, as when a word comes out from a politician mouth, the computer using the real true paths of the brain will understand the exact opposite of such word.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
Man... the 21st century is gonna be so cool!
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Based on the articles (and other articles using "mind reading" for lie detection) the apparatus would have to be calibrated to each person.
So in 20 years, when the Department of Homeland Security conducts an involuntary "health and wellness" check for your residence, it would be in your best interests to think of something "out there," such as a transexual Asian prostitute shooting ping-pong balls out of her ass.
Then you could behave like Multiple Migs and toss one off in their face.
69 dude!
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
[ For you youngsters, see Firefox. ]
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Did anybody else think that this sort of technology could really help with detecting lies?
No. I thought it would be misused {and/or fake), produce the wrong results and innocent people would pay for the crimes of others.
I also thought that it would become another tool of the burgeoning american police state and good for the Jail Industrial complex.
Nah. You'd have to implant electrodes in their skulls. What teenager would allow someone to screw metal studs into their hea....
....never mind.
Have gnu, will travel.
If you can visualize that, then you have other problems.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Brains aren't the best place to seek truth
"The ability to delude yourself may be an important survival tool" - Jane Wagner -
My concern, long-term, is quite the contrary.
If this kind of interface works, we'll rapidly be obliged to think *everything* in words, painfully.
The situation will be back to the medieval times where reading meant reading aloud -indeed the writing was intended to be read aloud. There is a very interesting moment around that time when very scarce educated people start considering reading without talking, for instance, and this is documented (in writing! ;-) by witnesses from the time, who are baffled.
Liberating our reading from the necessity of reading aloud has been something extremely important for our thinking, an importance now almost forgotten.
if we switch to a world where every thought has to be almost vocalized to be interpreted by surrounding machinery, we'll lose our "fast reading" capacity, and I fear we may lose too the capacity to think fast. Really, back to early Middle Ages...
Herve S.