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DARPA Investing In Electric Brain Stimulation To Train Snipers Quickly
New submitter Morganth writes "According to New Scientist, researchers at DARPA are investing efforts in transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) machines to cut the time it takes to train snipers. From the article: 'a 2-milliamp current will run through the part of the brain associated with object recognition — an important skill when visually combing a scene for assailants.' The story also gives a nice explanation on the psychology of 'flow' — the state that experts tend to enter (e.g. programmers, tennis players, pianists) when focusing on their work." We covered similar research done on mice to improve their memory in September.
"I know kung fu."
I am officially gone from
So combined with the earlier article about guided long range bullets this technology would be the second of three pieces to accelerate training or open up the candidate pool. Now we just need the trifecta article about some sort of stealth camouflage system.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
The brain isn't the part of the anatomy that politicians need electrodes hooked to....
I knew there would be a use for that old Electroshock Therapy machine that I picked up dirt cheap from military surplus.
If you wait long enough, wacky medical treatments become in vogue again. Like leeches, that are used for skin grafts.
My original plans of using the Electroshock Therapy machine to keep the neighborhood kids off my lawn did not go down too well with the neighbors, the police, and various other government agencies. Until they found no law against owning an Electroshock Therapy, and threatening to use it on kids on my lawn.
By then the neighbors wouldn't let their kids anywhere near my ranch anyway, so I guess it was effective after all.
Now about my plans for opening a private sniper school . . .
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
TFA doesn't mention snipers. The description is of someone firing rapidly to supress an attack.
Sniper teams (not just one person) work slowly and methodically by comparison. Identifying the target isn't done under the kind of pressure described in the article. And there's figuring the range and windage as well. Not something done at that kind of an almost instinctive level.
And then there's the issue of muscle memory. A lot of shooting (accurately) depends on eye-hand coordination and motor learning to control superfluous movements that can mess up a shot. Will this stimulation do anything for that?
Have gnu, will travel.
We figure out a way to enhance human mental acuity, and the very first thing we apply it to is training snipers. Interspecies communication? Military dolphins. Never mind nuclear physics.
If we were as good at anything as we are at killing each other and stealing each other's stuff, we might have a chance. Hell, if we were even more interested in something else -- and no, screwing doesn't count.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
Really liked this article. I've experienced "flow" to a limited degree when playing music and playing video games, it's something I'd like to be able to attain more. The only time I really enter "flow" when playing music is when I'm improvising with other musicians and I get really 'in the zone' with what I'm playing.
Gheezus H Ktoolo, heaven forfend they just burn a blunt!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff