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Robot Makes People Feel Like a Ghost Is Nearby

Posted by Soulskill on from the g-g-g-g-ghost?!?! dept.

sciencehabit writes: In 2006, cognitive neuroscientist Olaf Blanke of the University of Geneva in Switzerland was testing a patient's brain functions before her epilepsy surgery when he noticed something strange. Every time he electrically stimulated the region of her brain responsible for integrating different sensory signals from the body, the patient would look behind her back as if a person was there, even when she knew full well that no one was actually present. Now, with the help of robots, Blanke and colleagues have not only found a neurological explanation for this illusion, but also tricked healthy people into sensing "ghosts," they report online in Current Biology (abstract). The study could help explain why schizophrenia patients sometimes hallucinate that aliens control their movements.

25 of 140 comments (clear)

  1. What they don't tell you ... by pollarda · · Score: 5, Funny

    What the article doesn't say is the effect is easily counteracted by the patient wearing a tin foil hat.

    Don't leave home without it.

    1. Re:What they don't tell you ... by i+kan+reed · · Score: 3, Informative

      It's science news in that we've isolated a repeatable brain interaction electrical with a specific known effect.

      That's a big deal, because it can begin to allow use to attribute direct cause to some human behaviors. Which has potential therapeutic applications, and maybe even someday can allow us to start the previously impossible task of improving on the human brain.

  2. In spite of this and other similar phenomena... by i+kan+reed · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Dualists are still staggeringly common.

    Why are so many people so adamant about the notion that consciousness can't come from the physical brain?

    1. Re:In spite of this and other similar phenomena... by Thanshin · · Score: 4, Funny

      Why are so many people so adamant about the notion that consciousness can't come from the physical brain?

      Because people are stupid.

      (If you're amazed by how many questions are answered by that statement, you might not have a functioning TV.)

    2. Re:In spite of this and other similar phenomena... by Charliemopps · · Score: 5, Funny

      Dualists are still staggeringly common.

      Why are so many people so adamant about the notion that consciousness can't come from the physical brain?

      Personally, I withhold judgment on spirituality. As silly as some religion sounds, reality is even sillier. What the catholic church has to say isn't half as crazy as what's coming out of CERN these days.

    3. Re:In spite of this and other similar phenomena... by i+kan+reed · · Score: 2

      It's not about how silly things sound, it's about how directly contrary to observable reality Cartesian Dualism is. I'm pretty flexible about people believing things for no reason, hell I do too, but dualism at this point, is, like creationism, plain old science denial.

    4. Re:In spite of this and other similar phenomena... by BringsApples · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Why are so many people so adamant about the notion that consciousness can't come from the physical brain?

      I might be able to answer that for you, if you can explain to me what you understand consciousness to be.

      --
      Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
    5. Re:In spite of this and other similar phenomena... by Charliemopps · · Score: 5, Interesting

      It's not about how silly things sound, it's about how directly contrary to observable reality Cartesian Dualism is. I'm pretty flexible about people believing things for no reason, hell I do too, but dualism at this point, is, like creationism, plain old science denial.

      Sorry... but you've got 2 old guys claiming some crazy stuff that makes no logical sense as far as the layman is concerned. They both claim to have rock solid proof. None of witch makes any sense. Neither you, nor I, can test any of it. I, like you, chose to believe that quantum physics is real. But to lambaste the religious side for being stupid? I'm sorry, I'm just not there.

      I have faith that physicists have done their work well, and are impartial and not lying to me. But my mother that attends church feels the same way about her pastor. I do not have enough time left in my life to turn around and learn the skills I'd need to actually verify what scientist have told me, nor the money to buy the equipment. So I therefor am going on faith, just like my mother. It would be the hight of hypocrisy for me to scold her for doing the exact same thing I'm doing.

      I'm not saying you should dump this science nonsense and start going to church. I'm saying you should get off your high horse and let people believe what they want to.

    6. Re:In spite of this and other similar phenomena... by i+kan+reed · · Score: 2

      I don't feel the need to ascribe a cohesive likelihood of non-dishonesty to faith. I understand and appreciate that some of what is published scientifically is dishonest, but with the more direct understanding that the greater frameworks of academic publishing and the scientific method have ways of isolating and identifying those lies, and that the fundamentals of any field are within my personal ability to retest and examine.

      Ascribing that to faith brushes aside the cautious thought that goes into the system for identifying scientific truths as equal to preaching from a pulpit.

    7. Re:In spite of this and other similar phenomena... by penguinoid · · Score: 2

      Dualists are still staggeringly common.

      Why are so many people so adamant about the notion that consciousness can't come from the physical brain?

      Noooo! Answer me this Mr Smartypants: If spirits don't exist, how come activating this spirit detection equipment allows you to sense them? This research proves that spirits exist, and soon it will be scientifically proven that God exists and is exactly as described in the Bible.

      --
      Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
    8. Re:In spite of this and other similar phenomena... by jeffmflanagan · · Score: 2

      Because it's very difficult, if not impossible to demonstrate a source for free will if souls are imaginary. I think souls and free-will are both imaginary, based on how brain injuries change a person, but most people can't handle that concept.

    9. Re:In spite of this and other similar phenomena... by jeffmflanagan · · Score: 2, Informative

      There's a big difference between having confidence in the scientific method, and having faith in some religious huckster. You're pretending that there's some kind of balance between the two sides, when ignorant rubes and educated people are not the same thing at all.

    10. Re:In spite of this and other similar phenomena... by cat_jesus · · Score: 5, Informative

      I have faith that physicists have done their work well, and are impartial and not lying to me. But my mother that attends church feels the same way about her pastor. I do not have enough time left in my life to turn around and learn the skills I'd need to actually verify what scientist have told me, nor the money to buy the equipment. So I therefor am going on faith, just like my mother. It would be the hight of hypocrisy for me to scold her for doing the exact same thing I'm doing.

      You have just committed a fallacy of equivocation. You are using two different meanings of the word faith here and trying to say that they are the same when they are not.

      For example, when I drive through a green light without looking I have "faith" that others are not going to drive through the red light and hit me. This is based off of experience and is one defintion of faith, which is a trust based on experience.

      Religious faith is different. It is a belief that is not based on proof.

      Now you may say that you are talking about faith in the individuals(scientists and preachers) which is the same as trust in the individual, but that is a little disingenuous. You are basically relying on extreme ignorance and a severe lack of curiosity in the "believer". In other words you are claiming in this case that you are ignorant of the scientific method and of the importance of evidence. You are also claiming that your mother is ignorant of these things as well as the lack of evidence of the claims of religion.

      I sincerely doubt that you and your mother are that stupid.

      Don't feel bad. Fallacies of equivocation are very easy to fall into in the English language.

    11. Re:In spite of this and other similar phenomena... by SuiteSisterMary · · Score: 2

      I have faith that physicists have done their work well, and are impartial and not lying to me.

      Faith is, at the least, 'belief without evidence.' What you actually have is 'confidence.'

      Otherwise, when presented with evidence that the physicists have not done their work well, are not impartial, or are lying to you, you'd continue to believe them, out of faith, rather than altering your opinion and reacting accordingly, which is reason.

      --
      Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
    12. Re:In spite of this and other similar phenomena... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Because success within their social group depends on shared beliefs, many of those beliefs are dependent on dualism, and being right about dualism has very few practical non-social consequences.

    13. Re:In spite of this and other similar phenomena... by i+kan+reed · · Score: 2

      Uh, who the fuck said animals aren't conscious? Not me. Human intelligence, for all intents and purposes, is just a special case of animal intelligence, and science supports that notion too.

    14. Re:In spite of this and other similar phenomena... by Bongo · · Score: 2

      Well, if they are adamant, I doubt they can back it up.

      Having said that, you might read Eben Alexander, an academic neurosurgeon, who would have also agreed that consciousness is the brain.

      But one day he fell ill with a severe case of bacterial meningitis, and whilst in a coma, he had vivid complex hallucinations.

      When he woke up, he had a problem. His brain had been ill and could not, as far as he knew as a neurosurgeon, his brain could NOT have allowed him to hallucinate anything. His complex brain was in a mush of bacteria, so how come he experienced vivid bright complex dreamscapes with music and people and valleys and thoughts? Where in his brain was that being produced, if his brain was basically shut down, as he understands it?

      So now he thinks that consciousness exists also on other levels apart from the physical here.

      If you can possibly stomach the titles of his books, at least then you can see what he is basing his views on.

      But also don't forget that the consciousess-brain link is considered a hard problem, at least by those who don't wave it off. We know that consciousness and the brain are related, neurones fire when you see shapes, but we don't know how something like sentience ever just emerges out of the brain.

      Imagine you build a robot which is as complex as a human, and has software which can respond to its environment and make social interactions and basically be as sophisticated as a human. I think this is quite possible. But here is the issue: it would not need to be sentient. If it is just a machine running a program, why does it need to be sentient? It could do everything, physically process inputs and create outputs, without any need for an observer, someone experiencing the show all the time.

      Why are you sentient? What possible advantage is there to you having an experience of existing? The machine, your body, doesn't need an "experiencer". Why aren't you just a machine responding to the environment, "in the dark" as it were. My camera does not need to be sentient to recognise faces, why do I need to be sentient?

      So the thing is that, sentience is just strange and we don't know what it is, even though it is our most basic quality.

      But anyway, all claims need high scepticism, and an open mind.

    15. Re:In spite of this and other similar phenomena... by i+kan+reed · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Ha.

      No I don't.

      Familiarity with the history of biblical archeology(how many Noah's Arks have they found now? 12?), translation(hey this version of the inerrant truth means something completely different than this version of the inerrant truth), history, and exegisis is exactly why I dismiss them.

    16. Re:In spite of this and other similar phenomena... by marcello_dl · · Score: 2

      Does a game of chess come from a number of things on a board? nope it comes from the understanding of its meaning.
      Consciousness is in the brain, and possibly in the brain only, like a game is in a PC circuitry, but a game is not electrons traveling through circuits, it is an abstraction, electrons traveling are the implementation of the game. If all people forget about the rules of a game, the game does not exist anymore, even if it is running.

      Why am I stating these obvious things? because it is pointless to link implementation details to religion, which is the possibility that reality is not the engine of all other abstractions but an abstraction itself for something else.

      In other words, consciousness is obviously a thing in the domain of meaning, so consciousness, emergent or not, links the supposed creatures with the supposed observer. Understanding of the meaning is what links the two together. According to John's gospel you could say that consciousness is a magic that comes only from God, but you could also say that consciousness is sharing the meaning the same way the creator does, and only some do that (sons of god).

      Incidentally this is why, when John 1 mentions The Word, and people think it's the scriptures, I rather get back to the greek word Logos, which describes the meaning rather than the utterance. Not an impersonal meaning, a personified one.

      --
      ---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
    17. Re:In spite of this and other similar phenomena... by narcc · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Both examples pretty clearly demonstrate the physical nature of our consciousness

      Ah, but they don't! That's the rub.

      The first example is no different than saying that damaging the yolk coil on my old TV proves that the pictures are produced entirely within the set and that all those 'radioists' are a bunch of religious fools.

      To the second, you could replace 'drug addiction' with 'need to pee'. The desire to satisfy a physical discomfort doesn't tell us anything about the nature of consciousness other than the fact that people generally prefer to be comfortable.

      Like I said before, you can reject dualism for any number of reasons, just not those.

      --
      Required reading for internet skeptics
    18. Re:In spite of this and other similar phenomena... by i+kan+reed · · Score: 2

      Inerrancy isn't literalism.

      Two distinct concepts, bro.

  3. And I would have gotten away with it, too... by Red4man · · Score: 5, Funny

    ... if it weren't for you meddling kids!!

    --
    Sock Puppets: damn_registrars=pudge_confirmer=jimmy_slimmy=raiigunner=cml4524=a_klavan=red4men=ronpaulisanidiot
  4. Huh? by Dan+East · · Score: 2

    This doesn't make much sense to me. First off, the test subject knows something else is behind them touching their back. They know there IS a "ghost" there (IE something external from themselves) that is touching their back. The test subject knows from experience that even though they are moving their hand, that motion on their back can't be because their hand is actually back there.

    When the touches are synchronized, and the motion they make with their finger results in the robot touching their back at the same time, the brain coordinates the events and automatically realizes "I just triggered this touch on my back by doing something" and they don't have that sense that something external is behind them.

    When the touch is delayed, the brain does not automatically correlate their action with the sensation on their back, and thus the robot's motions are interpreted as something external (ie a "ghost").

    What doesn't make sense to me is the synchronized motion part is really the trick here - that our brain will automatically figure out we're causing a sensation, even though the mechanics don't make sense or it's something we haven't experienced before. The fact that that or subconscious does not automatically assimilate those motions that are no longer synchronized is to be expected. There IS a ghost behind the person touching them, in the form of a robot, and if the actions are not synchronized, then our mind may not correlate those delayed motions as a result of something we did.

    As soon as those motions are no longer synchronized it gets silly to make the test subject guess how many people are behind them or whatever. Something is poking them in the back, and they don't notice that it's a delayed result of their own motions - it's quite obvious that a robot or person or something is responsible for that sensation. And so different people will make different guesses about what kind of trickery is going on behind their back based on their mental state or perception or whatever.

    Or maybe something about this experiment went WOOSH right over my head.

    --
    Better known as 318230.
    1. Re:Huh? by nine-times · · Score: 2

      What doesn't make sense to me is the synchronized motion part is really the trick here - that our brain will automatically figure out we're causing a sensation, even though the mechanics don't make sense or it's something we haven't experienced before.

      I think I understand what they're trying to demonstrate, but the experiment is structured in a way that's not obvious. It starts from the idea that some people who have hallucinations of "ghosts" and other such things have damage in their brain, in an area that coordinates different sensations to determine cause. So it's like, if you were to flick yourself in the leg, you would feel one hand flicking, hear a brief "thud" noise from the impact, and feel an impact on your leg, and there's a part of your brain that would somehow collect all those things and go, "These were all the same event. Nothing to worry about. Nothing to be concerned about."

      So when they're synchronizing the motion that people are making to the motion of the robot, they're allowing that part of the brain to function normally. The test subject pokes their finger forward, and they get poked in the back. Their brain goes, "Oh, you did this to yourself somehow. Nothing to worry about."

      But when they have the robot act on a delay, they're simulating what it would be like if that part of your brain was damaged. You're still in control of the robot, and so you're still poking yourself, but because it's on a delay, that part of your brain that coordinates those things goes, "Whoa, you did *not* do that. Something else is going on here." It's not that they literally believe there's a ghost poking them, but the point is that the experience is disturbing.

      And because it is disturbing in a way that's similar to "ghost" or "alien" experiences that people have when that part of their brain is damaged, these researchers think that it explains what's going on with those experiences/hallucinations. The brain is failing to coordinate sensations, and so the brain is attributing experiences of motion/sensation to an alien force of some kind. ("alien force" not necessarily meaning space-aliens, but just "foreign to oneself")

    2. Re:Huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      What doesn't make sense to me is the synchronized motion part is really the trick here - that our brain will automatically figure out we're causing a sensation, even though the mechanics don't make sense or it's something we haven't experienced before. The fact that that or subconscious does not automatically assimilate those motions that are no longer synchronized is to be expected. There IS a ghost behind the person touching them, in the form of a robot

      Maybe I'm wrong, but I think this sentence is very important here (emphasis mine):

      If the back-poking was in sync with the participants’ finger movements, they felt as if they were touching their backs with their own fingers

      When the robot finger at the back of a healthy person is in sync with their own finger they can't tell a robot is there, it literaly feels like they're poking themselves directly in the back. Sensation 1 (from their finger) perfectly matched up with sensation 2 (the robot at their back), so the rest of the brain thinks "I'm poking myself directly in the back with my own finger".

      When the robot is out of sync, however, sensation 1 isn't matched up with sensation 2. The part of the brain in healthy people which normally matches sensations thinks "these aren't in sync, therefore they don't stem from the same source, so something which isn't me is touching me!".

      In people where this brain region is damaged their sensations maybe aren't going to sync at times, so maybe their own behaviour then triggers the sensation of a second person being present. Because the damaged brain doesn't realise two things are synced and therefore all down to themselves, the brain interprets it as a "second person". Suddenly an intrusive thought which a normal person would put down to their own brain seems to be coming from someone else directly into their brain, hence a schizophrenics' sensation that they're being mind controlled.