Friday, May 16, 2008
Thought Data Storage
You know how sometimes you are trying to explain an idea to a friend and no matter how hard you try, your friend just doesn't get it? If only there was a way to download one's thought to an external hard drive. Then, one could upload the very thought into your friends brain, and your friend would instantly 'get it'.
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But, what if your idea was too big? Wouldn't your friend's brain need an upgrade of the tangential data you have in your own mind in order to "get it"?
"I wish my eyes were video cameras. There are so many things I have seen that cannot be described with a story." -twistori
EPOC headset is capable of detecting more than 30 expressions, actions and emotions including immersion, meditation, excitement, frustration, tension, laugh, smile, crossed eye, wink, anger, shock, horizontal eye movement, grimace, pull, push, drop, lift, rotate, as well as actions based on visualization like the ability to make things disappear. -source
Scientists extract images directly from brain
(Translated from chunichi)
Researchers from Japan’s ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories have developed new brain analysis technology that can reconstruct the images inside a person’s mind and display them on a computer monitor, it was announced on December 11. According to the researchers, further development of the technology may soon make it possible to view other people’s dreams while they sleep.
The scientists were able to reconstruct various images viewed by a person by analyzing changes in their cerebral blood flow. Using a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine, the researchers first mapped the blood flow changes that occurred in the cerebral visual cortex as subjects viewed various images held in front of their eyes. Subjects were shown 400 random 10 x 10 pixel black-and-white images for a period of 12 seconds each. While the fMRI machine monitored the changes in brain activity, a computer crunched the data and learned to associate the various changes in brain activity with the different image designs.
Then, when the test subjects were shown a completely new set of images, such as the letters N-E-U-R-O-N, the system was able to reconstruct and display what the test subjects were viewing based solely on their brain activity.
For now, the system is only able to reproduce simple black-and-white images. But Dr. Kang Cheng, a researcher from the RIKEN Brain Science Institute, suggests that improving the measurement accuracy will make it possible to reproduce images in color.
“These results are a breakthrough in terms of understanding brain activity,” says Dr. Cheng. “In as little as 10 years, advances in this field of research may make it possible to read a person’s thoughts with some degree of accuracy.”
The researchers suggest a future version of this technology could be applied in the fields of art and design — particularly if it becomes possible to quickly and accurately access images existing inside an artist’s head. The technology might also lead to new treatments for conditions such as psychiatric disorders involving hallucinations, by providing doctors a direct window into the mind of the patient.
ATR chief researcher Yukiyasu Kamitani says, “This technology can also be applied to senses other than vision. In the future, it may also become possible to read feelings and complicated emotional states.”
The research results appear in the December 11 issue of US science journal Neuron.
That'd be helpful. ;] I've wanted to do this with dreams, too. So I could watch/experience them again later.
How Id wish that will be true as well so that it will easy for us to study certain things. But who knows? it might happen....
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