Mind Reading Computer

[Robin Landseadel]

Just when you thought that things couldn't get any more paranoid . . .
 From the Daily Mail:

	Psychic 'mind-reading' computer will show your thoughts on
	screen
	By DAVID DERBYSHIRE

	A mind-reading machine that can produce pictures of what a
	person is seeing or remembering has been developed by
	scientists.

	The device studies patterns of brainwave activity and turns
	them into a moving image on a computer screen.
	
	While the idea of a telepathy machine might sound like
	something from science fiction, the scientists say it could one
	day be used to solve crimes.

	In a pioneering experiment, an American team scanned the
	brain activity of two volunteers watching a video and used the
	results to recreate the images they were seeing.

	Although the results were crude, the technique was able to
	reproduce the rough shape of a man in a white shirt and a city
	skyline.

	Professor Jack Gallant, who carried out the experiment at the
	University of California, Berkeley, said: 'At the moment when
	you see something and want to describe it you have to use
	words or draw it and it doesn't work very well.

	'This technology might allow you to recover an eyewitness's
	memory of a crime.'

	The experiment is the latest in a series of studies designed to
	show how brain scans can reveal our innermost thoughts.

	Using a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner,
	normally found in hospitals, the American team scanned the
	brains of two volunteers while they watched videos.

	The results were fed into a computer which looked for links
	between colours, shapes and movements on the screen, and
	patterns of activity in the brain.

	The computer software was then given the brain scans of the
	volunteers as they watched a different video and was asked to
	recreate what they were seeing.

	According to Dr Gallant, who has yet to publish the results of the
	experiment, the software was close to the mark.

	In one scene featuring comic actor Steve Martin in a white shirt,
	the computer reproduced his white torso and rough shape, but
	was unable to handle details of his face.

	In another, the volunteers watched an image of a city skyline
	with a plane flying past.

	The software was able to recreate the skyline - but not the
	aircraft.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1224489/Psychic-plug-brain-thoughts-screen-developed.html