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Brain Scan Can Predict Math Mistakes
itwbennett writes "Computer Science Ph.D. candidate Federico Cirett says that he can predict with 80 percent accuracy when someone is about to make a mistake on a math question. Using an EEG machine, Cirett can identify the patterns in a volunteer's thinking that are likely to result in an error 20 seconds or so before it's made. 'If we can detect when they are going to fail, maybe we can change the text or switch the question to give them another one at a different level of difficulty, but also to keep them engaged,' Cirett said. 'Brain wave data is the nearest thing we have to really know when the students are having problems.' He will present a paper on his findings at the User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization conference in July."
The first thing I can think of to do with this is figure out how to trigger it and then proceed to get the problem correct, just to screw with everyone.
William of Ockham had no beard. The most likely explanation is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.
Wouldn't it be better to wait and see if they do fail (which can be detected with 100% accuracy without EEG) and adapt the question then? Who could stay engaged when questions are changing while they are working on them?
A patronizing system that tells you that you've already failed before you've actually done so that gives you amateurish problems so it can see you succeed.
I hope it comes with a robot arm that tears the test paper out from under your pen, pats you on the head and give you a first grade replacement problem. Bonus for cheering with a nonenthusiastic voice whenever you pass a problem.
I am going to guess that Federico Cirett didn't go to UF.
Fascinating research, but I am not a fan of his suggested application. The last thing I want as a test taker is to have a computer dumb down the test (with presumed accompanying grade reduction) to help me relax and feel good about myself.
'Brain wave data is the nearest thing we have to really know when the students are having problems.
Most people have been raised with the notion that it's more important to appear competent than be competent. There's several college-themed cartoons out there about that express hatred for "The Question Guy"... and most people are acutely aware that asking questions on material is a great way to earn the irritation and ostracism of your peers, who feel they have better things to do than get an education and really just want to go through the motions and get out.
This is another technology that's trying to solve a social problem, and like every attempt in that regard, it will fail, be impractical, and people will try to defeat it -- because they don't see the point and they don't want to appear incompetent. In 20 years, we'll be getting coached on how to have the right brain wave patterns for getting through the airport unmolested, how to cheat on your final and not get detected by the brain wave readers, etc.
The problem is in our social values and attitudes. It's systemic and institutional. No technology can fix that, however advanced.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
There should be a system like that for posting on the internet... "Error Code 427 - there is a 80% probability you're posting bullshit. Your post was discarded."
I wish I had something like this to wear on a wrist to check my thinking.
Years ago, back in the dark ages (80s), I was taking a thermo exam. We were given data and we had to derive an equation from said data. Anyway, after pondering it, deriving the equation, checking it once, checking it twice and seeing that it was nice, I turned in my exam.
'D' on the Final
Why?
Forgot to divide by '2' and that screwed up everything else. That ended any dreams of a science or engineering career - thermo was absolutely required and it had to be a 'C' or better.
I went to 'B' school instead, became a programmer (only job I could get. The bond traders wanted nothing to do with me.), and now I'm a long term unemployed loser.
So, what's the moral of my story?
I don't have a fucking clue. And I guess I failed at story telling too.
Wait here's something:
Kids, learn to concentrate. Learn to give 100% of your attention to the present moment. Ignore folks who want "multitaskers" and ignore the media that insists on dividing your attention - pretty much anything electronic. Video games? Not from what I've seen. Yeah it requires attention, but it does so with a lot of variation.
Anyway, never mind. I'm a loser.
Carry on.
This could be useful for programmers. It may be possible to detect some programming errors while programming.
Was he scanning his own brain when he made the statistical calculation for his study?
That's nothing, I had an ex-girlfriend who could predict with 100% accuracy when I was going to say or do something stupid, usually in response to her being upset.
What a depressingly (stereo)typical attitude: if the student is going to get a question wrong, change the question. I submit that a better approach is to change the student: identify the kinds of errors he/she produces and teach correct procedures for avoiding those errors.
In fact that's what I thought the purpose of a "test" was: to evaluate a student's knowledge, identify any deficiencies, and ideally inform remedial teaching as needed. I guess I'm old-fashioned.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
It's an electronic nose that smells brain farts.
Can we make a Brain Scan Scanner that detects when the Brain scan is about to make a mistake? Then perhaps a Brain Scan Scanner Scanner?
At last. It was about time the "brain fart" detector was invented.
Maybe I'm missing some subtlety here, but if the brain is *learning* math, and is applying an algorithm to calculate, one would assume that an error could only be determined externally, and there should be no internal inconsistency indicating an error.
Does this imply, however, that somewhere within the brain the correct answer is knocking about, and we can detect that the person's conscious mind is out of sync with that? In other words, the brain does the math perfectly, and "we" just fail to read our own brain properly?
Given the capabilities of some savants, I'd always wondered if that was the case and our processor-intensive abstract thinking was getting in the way. (not that I'm idealizing the condition)
I think such a technology would be very useful for the early detection of math learning disabilities. I went through grade school, middle school and high school with high grades in all subject areas with the exception of any sort of maths. It took 6 years to pass basic algebra. I was later tested and diagnosed with dyscalculia and had to give up a long dreamed career of engineering.
Such a tool would be useful to help get students the help they need early and not have them either waste time, or languish in school beating their head against a wall.
13 year old white supremacists are shitty web designers.
"If we can detect when they are going to fail, maybe we can change the text or switch the question to give them another one at a different level of difficulty, but also to keep them engaged,"
What is it with our current society that we can't accept the fact that we will fail sometimes that not all people will "get" a particular subject and within normal variations that is okay etc. I think they need to test the assertion that someone that gets a question wrong occasionally is not going to be engaged. I think it is more likely a more "squishy" reasoning "oh clearly when people are told they are wrong they'll feel bad and we don't want that". Personally it is the things I get wrong that keep my studying: once I start getting everything right I find it hard to keep working through the next 20 questions on the same topic that the prof assigned.
Q: Do you work in marketing or HR?
A: Yes
If the answer is yes, the person sucks at math.
Who stares at a math question for 20 seconds before answering?! I remember doing time trials in fifth grade and answering hundreds of questions in just one minute. Or is this some sort of psychic ability discovery? Either way, I fail to see the real-world application for this
Making mistakes is actually a good way to learn and remember information.
Usually when I first get a answer wrong and then have to work to get it correct I remember the subject much better.
Damn. If I only had this brain scan, I wouldn't have made that mistake.
I remember taking some classes where taking a test, I felt like I was on Fire, Every Question was Easy, only to realize I was completly wrong, and I got my grade back in a big surprise. Also there are tests where you are struggling, you know your missing some detail, and you are stressing and reworking to find the missing piece, so when you get your grade back you kinda know that you were going to get that.
I would expect the brain works much differently for each case.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
If I add a girlfriend, subtract her clothes, and divide her legs will the brain scan predict if I'm going to multiply?
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
I am familiar with this pattern of thinking - it is called "guessing". Guessing in math will usually fail to provide the correct answer. I am skeptical that detecting this and telling the student that they are going to make an error will actually be very helpful; people are usually aware that they are guessing.
Second class citizen of the New Gilded Age
...if the student is having problems with a question - unless the student happens to be candid enough to admit when the student is having problems with a question. Then, when the teacher would be equipped to assist the student in learning how to solve the math problem ... well, I thought that's how education works. Maybe there are some dissenting opinions about it, however.
The brain makes errors on purpose as part of training the boundaries of new pathways.
-st
The summary says the prediction is made 20 seconds in advance. But the source says it takes 20 seconds to make the prediction. That's a pretty significant difference.
From PhysOrg:
Forget nit picking over optimizing testing strategies. The real news is you can predict where someone is likely to make an error. Imagine recording all this data while someone was writing code. Eventually there is a bug detected but where is it? Well you might want to color code the code to show sections where the person was struggling with logic. That might be a place to look first. Of course it might be in some place where it never occurred to the person they should be struggling or was just a typo. But at least automatically flagging every place where the programmer was unsure of things would help with code reviews or code refactoring.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Is the goal to allow the student to get right answer, or to allow them to learn?
This is so stupid. The thinking expressed here isn't about the student, but all about the success of the brainwave machine. Stop making our world into a 1984 hell with the the invention's success defining our paths forward rather then the wholistic view on what is happening and whether this really helps or not.
For what I'd expect, the cases where they get the answer right are of no value to learning, but the cases they cannot solve are the ones where learning happens!
They know before you commit the mistake!
This Brian Scan guy shouldn't be solely responsible for pre-emptively catching all these mistakes. And what makes HIM so special to have that ability?
I mean, judging by the level of applicant to our company lately, if I were to predict they had the wrong answer 100% of the time, I would be right at least 80% of the time.
I don't think changing the question whilst I am in the middle of attempting to solve it is the best way to keep me engaged with the test.
Instead of changing the question, maybe there's a light bulb near the question that get's brighter if your reasoning is on the right track to lead to an answer. If the logic going through your head while working out the problem is wrong the bulb won't be lit up so you would know "Hey, I'm going down the wrong track here." and adjust your thinking until you get it right.
I guess the question at that point is, would it improve your thinking or just make you reliant on the bulb to get the right answers?
In addition to being a learning aid this tool may well become a diagnostic blessing. Learning when we are dealing with an information or thought process issue compared to an organic defect might follow if comparative analysis is applied to large numbers of students. There might even be dietary causes unearthed. On the down side if we can understand brain functions at this level we might also be getting close to spotting psychopaths, rapists and more with this testing. Combine that with eugenics and those ovens might start smoking again.
That sort of trivial error can happen at any time, even when people are normally attentive. Everyone has an off day, or just got dumped, or a family member died, or whatever.
This sort of thing should be caught by the code inspections, unit tests, integration tests, regression tests, etc.
Cirett said. 'Brain wave data is the nearest thing we have to really know when the students are having problems.'
Really? All this time, I thought students getting problems WRONG was a way we can know when students are having problems. Duhhhhhh....
It seems like everyone is focusing on the obvious implementation of students, but with further research, couldn't this possibly be expanded to real life professions? Say, airline pilots, or surgeons. "I'm about to amputate the left leg..." *WOOP WOOP WOOP* WRONG LEG, DINGUS.
Great.. as if helicopter parents aren't bad enough now researchers want to make it so we can replace the 'hard' questions with easy ones Johnny will get right. You learn by making mistakes, not by testing the ability to do a simpler problem.
You have been determined to fail this course; your application is therefore rejected.
And without expensive machinery. All you need is super-hard multiple-choice questions with five possible answers. ;-)
Student : 2+2 = 4 !
Computer: 2+2 = 4.9999999999999999999990000273489738479823748973
Computer: DONT FORGET IT !
Man. Given the right opportunity computers could make us all really stupid!
he will have to do better than that to get into grad school
See the real question is whether significantly less than 100% is a natural state or if it is a product of placing systems ahead of humans.
No, I don't think you understood me or my reply at all. I'm asking if close to 100% can be achived *WITHIN* the natural state of the test taker.
Say we have a situation like my friend T**s..n (with a speech impediement X and a physical deformity Y) being asked if he likes option A or B. T**s..n has no concept of A or B or even that he is X or Y. But the test sensors kick in and infer that A or B implies complete failure for T**s..n (of X and Y) and subsititues a completely different question for our special child.
Without giving too much away, T**s..n is a real kid and he does not know he is different (except that he gets teased more than the other kids and teachers have a little difficulty understanding him). So if a "standardized test" asks him if he likes 'math' more than 'english/(his language)' then the "smart test" can change that to 'marbles / tag' ... or whatever his brain needs to push him to *HIS* maximum. And continue to push him to *HIS* maximum.
I believe you're making a fundamental error
No, I don't think so. You see, if a prediction of failure can be relied upon, then a substitue situation/question can be presented in a completely different context sensitive awareness case that can challenge the recipeint upto *their maximum*.
I.e. I would like "to bring forth from within" the MAXIMUM potential from my friend T**s..n and I would fight anyone who tries to deny him that.
instead of the training for dependency and complacency that excess standardization produces.
You confuse me with someone else ...
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." -- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy