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"Brainput" Boosts Your Brain Power By Offloading Multitasking To a Computer
MrSeb writes "A group of American researchers from MIT, Indiana University, and Tufts University, led by Erin Treacy Solovey, have developed Brainput — a system that can detect when your brain is trying to multitask, and offload some of that workload to a computer. Using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), which is basically a portable, poor man's version of fMRI, Brainput measures the activity of your brain. This data is analyzed, and if Brainput detects that you're multitasking, the software kicks in and helps you out. In the case of the Brainput research paper (PDF), Solovey and her team set up a maze with two remotely controlled robots. The operator, equipped with fNIRS headgear, has to navigate both robots through the maze simultaneously, constantly switching back and forth between them. When Brainput detects that the driver is multitasking, it tells the robots to use their own sensors to help with navigation. Overall, with Brainput turned on, operator performance improved — and yet they didn't generally notice that the robots were partially autonomous. Moving forward, Solovey wants to investigate other cognitive states that can be reliably detected using fNIRS. Imagine a computer that increases the size of buttons and text when you're tired, or a video game that slows down when you're stressed. Your Xbox might detect that you're in the mood for fighting games, and change its splash screen accordingly. Eventually, computer interfaces might completely remold themselves to your mental state."
If this comes to pass I can just see the 'splash' screen of just about every male on the planet, and it sure as *hell* ain't gonna be a 'fighting game'.
The hard part was finding an experiment where they could use the phrase "offload some of that workload to a computer" without a needing cogitative brain interface for the experiment.
blog.sam.liddicott.com
Citation needed.
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It is my understanding that the idea we use only 10% of our brain is a myth.
Considering how much more capable even an average person's brain is than any computer we can build today, this is a bit silly.
The average person is also "more capable" than a tanker truck, but I know which one I'd prefer if I needed to move 5,000 gallons of liquid across the state.
Enhancing the brain by waking some of the ~90% which is unused would almost certainly yield more practical results.
Which 90% would that be?
Consider the numerous, very complicated instructions the brain is able to run just to walk, ride a bike, or breathe. If we can gain conscious control over that kind of functionality, we'd be formidable.
If you gained conscious control over that particular functionality, you'd probably die in short order. Especially if you were trying to multitask.
There are a lot of things that the brain does very well. There are a lot of things the brain presently does better than any computer -- but that list is getting shorter every day. More to the point, computer capabilities are improving much faster than human capabilities. TFA suggests one way to take advantage of this.
Which 90% would that be?
The Second 90%. The Third and Fourth 90% are still theoretical.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
The "We use ~10% of our brain" statement is true for any specific moment in time.
A fraction of a second later you'll be using a different 10% though.
So over a period of time, you'll use most of your brain.
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Our pattern recognition abilities are still better than computers, although the gap is closing. Much of our pattern recognition capabilities are not conscious but can be utilized anyway.
I think most people mean the 90% we "don't use" is part of our mind that is not conscious. That's pretty accurate in a way.
There's a good BBC Horizon episode called "Out of
Control" How Big is the Unconscious Mind? It gives some awesome examples of harnessing the power of our unconscious mind.
One intriguing example is using a person wired up to measure brain response to identify objects of interest to the military in satelite imagery. These are very high resolution images and take a long time to analyze using normal means. But you can use the pattern recognition powers of the unconscious mind to speed up the process without compromising accuracy. One image is cut up into many smaller images and these are then shown in rapid sucession to the analyst. Some images trigger neural patterns which are associated with interest, object recognition and so on. These images are then set aside and further analyzed using traditional methods including brute force human scanning of the images. Accuracy stays good and output is increased.
Cool huh?
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Oh yeh ... a weird thing about breathing is that it's the only autonomic function that is fully wired with somatic nervous control too. Our breath works unconsciously but unlike other autonomic functions like heartbeat and so on it can be consciously controlled without lots of practice. This can be used to practicle advantage. By using the breath as an object of attention during meditation and by consciously controlling our breathing we can help to reprogram the autonomic functions of our bodies. This happens because both sets of nerves are firing together (the somatic and the autonomic) so the autonomic system is trained too.