Slashdot Mirror
'Hyperscans' Show How Brains Sync As People Interact (scientificamerican.com)
"A growing cadre of neuroscientists is using sophisticated technology -- and some very complicated math -- to capture what happens in one brain, two brains, or even 12 or 15 at a time when their owners are engaged in eye contact, storytelling, joint attention focused on a topic or object, or any other activity that requires social give and take," reports Scientific American. "Although the field of interactive social neuroscience is in its infancy, the hope remains that identifying the neural underpinnings of real social exchange will change our basic understanding of communication and ultimately improve education or inform treatment of the many psychiatric disorders that involve social impairments." Here's an excerpt from the report: [T]he first study to successfully monitor two brains at the same time took place nearly 20 years ago. Physicist Read Montague, now at Virginia Tech, and his colleagues put two people in separate functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machines and observed their brain activity as they engaged in a simple competitive game in which one player (the sender) transmitted a signal about whether he or she had just seen the color red or green and the other player (the receiver) had to decide if the sender was telling the truth or lying. Correct guesses resulted in rewards. Montague called the technique hyperscanning, and his work proved it was possible to observe two brains at once.
Initially, Montague's lead was followed mostly by other neuroeconomists rather than social neuroscientists. But the term hyperscanning is now applied to any brain imaging research that involves more than one person. Today the techniques that fit the bill include electroencephalography (EEG), magnetoencephalography and functional near-infrared spectroscopy. Use of these varied techniques, many of them quite new, has broadened the range of possible experiments and made hyperscanning less cumbersome and, as a consequence, much more popular. The report also mentions a study from earlier this year that "used hyperscanning to show that eye contact prepares the social brain to empathize by activating the same areas of each person's brain simultaneously: the cerebellum, which helps predict the sensory consequences of actions, and the limbic mirror system, a set of brain areas that become active both when we move any part of the body (including the eyes) and when we observe someone else's movements."
Initially, Montague's lead was followed mostly by other neuroeconomists rather than social neuroscientists. But the term hyperscanning is now applied to any brain imaging research that involves more than one person. Today the techniques that fit the bill include electroencephalography (EEG), magnetoencephalography and functional near-infrared spectroscopy. Use of these varied techniques, many of them quite new, has broadened the range of possible experiments and made hyperscanning less cumbersome and, as a consequence, much more popular. The report also mentions a study from earlier this year that "used hyperscanning to show that eye contact prepares the social brain to empathize by activating the same areas of each person's brain simultaneously: the cerebellum, which helps predict the sensory consequences of actions, and the limbic mirror system, a set of brain areas that become active both when we move any part of the body (including the eyes) and when we observe someone else's movements."
2049: At long last, after decades of hyperscans and analysis, scientists acknowledge that we still have no understanding of what happens to brains in committees.
I deny that I have not avoided attaining the opposite of that which I do not want.
2024
With the "leak" of 80 million Hyperscans, the Party knows how to interact with people effectively on an individual level.
The stolen, leaked, or just scraped social media info provided the context to supplement the interaction. This provided insights beyond the individual, providing geographic, class based, racial based, and down to the neighborhood preferential messages.
When talking to a group, the Party adjusted the message utilizing the aggregate data as needed, it's about who and where and how - it defines the best message.
But being up close is what scores points and gets on the news.
Do I shake someone's hand (are they comfortable with that?) or just politely say "Hello" with a gesture?
Do I kiss the baby, hug the baby, brush her forehead, or just say "That's a beautiful baby"?
Do I go for a hug (photo op) or just wink and ensure the person that the oil industry will be growing?
The augmented reality, powered by an AI, combined all of the factors, letting the Candidates speak to and interact with both groups and individuals in the most persuasive way.
The Party won the elections easily.
BlameBillCosby.com
They won't use the knowledge to improve education. They will use it to get us to buy things. Who are they kidding?
E Proelio Veritas.
Dungeons and Dragons has helped many a nerd or nerdette learn to communicate more effectively with members of their peer group
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.