Posted on 03/12/2009 1:31:45 PM PDT by Free ThinkerNY
A mind-reading experiment by British scientists has shown that a persons thoughts can be decoded from a brain scan, offering new insights into the formation of memory.
Researchers can tell where a person is standing in a virtual reality room purely by looking at patterns of activity in the brain, the study at University College London has found.
The findings indicate that it is possible to read at least a small part of peoples minds using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), and open a new window on the way the brain learns and constructs memories.
With this kind of research, we are approaching the realm of mind-reading, said Eleanor Maguire, a leader of the study.
Her colleague Demis Hassabis said: You can predict where someone is standing by reading the patterns in their brain activity. You can track what is purely an internal thought.
While the research could shed light on disorders that involve changes to brain structure or memory loss, such as amnesia, dementia and stroke, it does not suggest that MRI mind-reading could soon be used to detect lies or reveal thoughts without their consent.
The procedure works only with the co-operation of its subjects, who must repeat the virtual reality game again and again in the scanner to calibrate the computer algorithm that matches brain activity to particular thoughts. It can also detect only very simple thoughts.
We can rest easy in terms of issues surrounding mind-reading, Professor Maguire said. While technically we were able to predict somebodys spatial memory from their brain activity, there was nothing intrusive about what we did.
This analysis technique requires the person to be co-operative with us, to train the algorithm we use on many instances of a particular memory.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
That’s nothing. Liberals have been doing that for decades.
“it is possible to read at least a small part of peoples minds”
This has been a military objective of the major powers for 60 years.
You can be sure if this is what’s public, the cutting edge is 100x more....
What am I thinking?
Resistance is futile.
They won’t come into my mind. I have my tin foil hat!
/sarc.
Oboy, oboy, go for walk...wag tail...wag tail, chase cat....fetch stick.....mark firehydrant....hump good looking neighbors leg.....
Sorry, I was playing with your screen-names' attributes.;-)
That is right! Now what am I thinking, and what does a man do standing up, a woman sitting down and me on three legs?
“It’s the StaPuft Marshmallow Man.”
LOL!
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