NASA Develops Tech To Hear Words Not Yet Spoken 466
alex_guy_CA writes "Yahoo News has a story about technology that comes close to reading thoughts not yet spoken, by analyzing nerve commands to the throat. 'A person using the subvocal system thinks of phrases and talks to himself so quietly it cannot be heard, but the tongue and vocal cords do receive speech signals from the brain,' said developer Chuck Jorgensen, of NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California. Jorgensen's team found that sensors under the chin and one each side of the Adam's apple pick up the brain's commands to the speech organs, allowing the subauditory, or 'silent speech' to be captured. The story indicates the method could be useful on space missions or other difficult working conditions."
sub-vocal communication (Score:5, Interesting)
Way better than text messaging.
Re:sub-vocal communication (Score:5, Informative)
Good story, good universe. I hear there's an Ender's Game movie in the works.
Re:sub-vocal communication (Score:5, Funny)
Re:sub-vocal communication (Score:4, Interesting)
In Earth, wasn't there the added complication of not letting your thoughts wander so far that the computer mistakes idle wool-gathering as command input?
It's really awkward to explain to the cops why your robotic lawnmower was chasing your annoying next door neighbor, or why your dishwasher tried to eat your girlfriend right after you two got into a big fight.
Re:sub-vocal communication (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:sub-vocal communication (Score:4, Funny)
How about interfacing with a computer?
You bet.
$EXPLETIVE means "Undo".
Joe Haldeman maybe? (Score:2)
"?
Re:sub-vocal communication (Score:5, Insightful)
Thoughtcrime, indeed.
Re:sub-vocal communication (Score:3, Informative)
This technology doesn't detect thoughts, it detects subvocalization. You don't normally subvocalize when thinking to yourself; it takes a conscious effort similar to talking out loud.
Re:sub-vocal communication (Score:2)
Re:sub-vocal communication (Score:3, Funny)
Some thoughts are better kept silent... But one really should pay attention to the body language and pheremones being broadcast if one wants the maximum "action". They don't lie near as much as the mouth.
Cheers, Gene
Re:sub-vocal communication (Score:2)
Re:sub-vocal communication (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:sub-vocal communication (Score:2, Funny)
Yeah, that would be cool!
Re:sub-vocal communication (Score:5, Informative)
Re:sub-vocal communication (Score:4, Informative)
One disadvantage is that percussive sounds (In english, the sound of a "B", "T", "D" etc.) are not picked up by most throat mikes because these sounds are made mostly by the lips, not the throat.
Techno-telepathy (Score:3, Insightful)
I for one welcome our new techno-telepathic overlords.
Seriously though, military applications abound for this. Silent communication without having to maintain line-of-sight to read code hand gestures would be just one. This could be done in short order since the set of commands it has to recognize is short.
And the Secret Service would be a natural implementation for this as it a
So sort of like... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:So sort of like... (Score:3, Funny)
> access on every machine connected to the
> Internet...
NSash, meet Nimda & Code Red.
Could be dangerous (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Could be dangerous (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Could be dangerous (Score:5, Interesting)
Humans right now are trained to keep their mouth shut even when they are thinking, or even talk exactly opposite of what they think. We yet are not used to controlling the previous level, ie subconsciously talking (ever noticed people at bus stops muttering to themselves or even smiling?)
And I think we have done this before. Imagine a non-humanoid alien landing on earth. I am sure he would be surprised that all the humans can actually balance themselves on 2 foot and even run around (They would probably think it a waste trying to balance yourself on a point while crawling is much less brain intensive). And Imagine, these beings can even balance themselves on 2 inch thick wheels around a metre above earth (bicycles).And this technique has no evolutionary basis, almost all the humans learned it within a 100 years or so. Looks like a very adaptable race to me.
Re:Could be dangerous (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Could be dangerous (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Could be dangerous (Score:3, Interesting)
There are a number of animals that use tools to complete tasks. Birds hunting for grubs with pointy sticks is a great example. I don't know if this would happen, but if you put such a bird in an enclosure with no pointy sticks but a supply of pointy stick-like objects and used one to catch a grub, there might be an argument for abstract thought. If you offered the bird different grub catching tools and it figured out how to use them, I thi
Re:Could be dangerous (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.pigeon.psy.tufts.edu [tufts.edu]
It's a concept formation and learning lab using pigeons as a test system for abstract concept formation in the absense of language. There's an entire free book on the website with articles by some of the biggest researches in the field, along with live demos and other things.
I didn't write it, but I work in the lab, and it's a great introduction to the field.
Re:Could be dangerous (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes. How could one aquire language if thought wasn't there already? Consider the rare feral children adults who have grown up without acquiring language [wikipedia.org] - do you think they're "dark inside"? Or even more fascinating, Helen Keller, who acquired language late enough to have memories that pre-dated that acquisition.
Consult any Zen master for further instruction - that which the Japanese call "mushin" ("no-mind") might be thought of as "thinking without words". (Of course, there is a difference between transcending linguistic thought, and never acquiring it in the first place.)
But in thinking of mushin as thinking without words, you are thinking with words, and thus getting away from the actual phenomenon. Thus Zen Master Seung Sahn's observation "open mouth, already a mistake" [cizny.org].
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Could be dangerous (Score:2, Insightful)
You had to think : "two, three, one, four, two, three, three, three, four, two" or so to send "idiot" to your coworkers. (They use a grid with the letters of alphabet to reduce the number of symbols the system has to recognize.)
But once they implement full word recognition
Lie to panes into the wood chain sennas (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Lie to panes into the wood chain sennas (Score:3, Insightful)
Undercover CIA Agent: Umm your epidermis is showing, allah doesn't like that!
Potential Terrorist: Oh shit? Really? How can I hi
What? (Score:5, Funny)
finally... (Score:5, Funny)
A little confused (Score:2, Insightful)
Or is it just intercepting those nerve signals which you use to inaudibly mumble to yourself with?
If the first is true, then wow, imagine just thinking to your computer and it doing it.
If the second is true then I don't really see what's so great about it
Re:A little confused (Score:4, Insightful)
No real difference (Score:2, Insightful)
I know for sure that it's always the case when you read (except for some spead-reading technics that involve just looking at the text without formulating the words) and I'm pretty sure it's true for all verbal thougths.
Re:No real difference (Score:5, Informative)
The first involves real subvocalization, meaning people that read out loud very quietly and move their lips. I don't want to offend anyone, but I find it kind of annoying when people do that. Don't know why. The number of people that do this is in my experience, a minority and occurs most often in people that are weak readers or intentionally reading very carefully. I actually will do it myself when I am following chemistry lab instructions or sometimes when I read in Spanish, a second language.
The next kind of reading is what I think is the most common. There is no subvocalization of any kind, no tongue moving inside the mouth, no vocal chord movement, but words written are mentally translated first to sound-thought and then comprehended. I'm not sure if sound-thought makes sense but it's the best description I can think of. Sound-thought is then what is actually processed and understood by the brain. This I think is most common because I believe that most people's thought process takes the form of an internal monologue. A notable exception is that I know when I do calculus, there is a lot of visualization, algebra, logic and simple math going on in my head and very little verbal thought.
The last kind of reading I think could be considered a form of speed-reading, though I have never taken any speed-reading instruction. I use this whenever I am not reading for pleasure and the passage need not be read super-carefully. I look at the words very quickly and directly process them without first converting to internal sound-thought. If the passage is divided into narrow columns, I can process a whole line at a time and scan straight down the page without any lateral eye-movement.
The level of comprehension and retention when I do this is worse than with methods one or two, but it's extremely fast. The biggest advantage for me anyway that it has over methods one and two is that I retain parts of the text visually. I have a quasi-photographic memory and when I took a course in US History for example, I was able to read names and dates off pages in visual memory because I read the text in that manner.
Now, to get a little more back on topic....
When I was in high school, I competed in quiz bowl trivia competitions like jeopardy, but the questions are only read aloud, and you can buzz in and interrupt the reader at any time before the question is finished and give an answer. Our team and other very good teams learned ways to anticipate the question.
Some teams' familiarity with the subtle structure and format of the questions gave them such a strong intuition that weak teams would swear they were cheating. You got to know individual readers and how much they will continue to read after you buzz in(sometimes finishing the word, sometimes mid-syllable.) Which brings me to my point; if you watch somebody's mouth very carefully when they speak, as they are ending a word and starting to form the next, it's easy to tell what the next letter out of their mouth will be.
A teammate of mine once rang in after a reader had read the letter "J" and then stopped. He could tell the next letter was going to be D, and there had already been several similar questions in earlier rounds asking for different information concerning the same subject that he could tell pretty certainly what the question was going to ask(questions often repeat subject but rarely answers between rounds) So he answered Holden Caulfield.
The other team wasn't pleased at all.
This skill could be practical in interrogations of criminal/terrorist suspects and is what I first thought of when I read the headline of the story. (A better headline would be Nasa develops computer processing of subvocal speech.) A suspect under a lot of stress may come close enough to giving you a name that you can tell from the shape of their mouth that it probably starts with an L rather than a T before refusing to speak any more, and that might be enough.
Re:A little confused (Score:2)
Could also make for some
As if the aliens weren't enough... (Score:5, Funny)
Benefit for Stephen Hawking? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Benefit for Stephen Hawking? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Benefit for Stephen Hawking? (Score:5, Informative)
ALS [wikipedia.org] affects the motor neurons themselves, resulting in the signals never reaching the muscles. Oversimplified it's much like a an electric motor with a broken wire: the motor might be fine, but it gets no electricity and subsequently does nothing. ALS is the same, but human muscles also suffer serious deteriouration when not being used.
In any case this technology it would be of no use, as the muscles are fine, but the nerves aren't.
Words not yet spoken? (Score:3, Insightful)
The titel got it right : Words not yet spoken (Score:3, Informative)
When you think (or read) "banana" your brain creates the same signals (but at lower magnitude) as if you would say it. Your tongue actually moves while your reading. Experiments with mute people have shown that they actually move their hands slightly, as if they were forming the words, they read, in sign-language.
This technology does not read your thoughts, but the signals send to your vocal system. As it c
Lie Detector (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Lie Detector (Score:3, Insightful)
On most people, "Did you rape [insert name here]?" will get a much different response than "What was your dog's name?" However, if you could read their sub-vocal patterns, you would be better able to tell who is practicing a lie before saying it.
Seem
Re:Lie Detector (Score:5, Insightful)
Imagine if one day, in the distant future, EVERYONE was required to have one of these, and ALL of their concious thoughts were analyzed in a Carnivore-like system. Thinking, "I'm going to bomb X embassy," even if you have no intention of doing it, could lead to investigations.
Right now, our thoughts, our minds, are one of the few safe-havens we have. No one can force us to disclose our thoughts, barring the use of some chmicals that sometimes have a truth-inducing effect (fairly rare, though, because all it really makes you do is talk a lot, but not necessarily about what your interrogators want to hear), and these are very active. They have to grab you, inject you, interrogate you, and all this takes quite a bit of time. With subvocalizers, it would be much easier.
It IS scary, even just as a lie detector, because what if I thought, "Man, that cop is hot!" while they're interrogating me. Pretty embarassing. And it could lead to a whole slew of fifth amendment issues, in the US.
I'll take the Fifth - NOT! (Score:5, Funny)
PRISONER: "..."
INTERROGATOR: "Aha! And where did you hide her body?"
Re: I'll take the Fifth - NOT! (Score:5, Funny)
> INTERROGATOR: "I'll ask you once more - Did you kill Mrs. Finkelstein?"
PRISONER: [God, what a fine set of tits!] "No."
INTERROGATOR: [Me, or Mrs. Finkelstein?] "We have the evidence."
Re:I'll take the Fifth - NOT! (Score:3, Interesting)
There must be a perceptible verification of the action. A lot of people are wary of e-voting if there is no paper confirmation of the cast ballot. For legal testimonies, there should be a
Re:I'll take the Fifth - NOT! (Score:5, Funny)
VOTER: "Ummm..."
VOTING MACHINE: "Republican. *DING* Next voter, please!"
I'm trying the device right now (Score:3, Funny)
No, these damn things simply DON'T WORK!!
We are all handicapped. (Score:2, Interesting)
Space travel is trivial in comparison.
Re:We are all handicapped. (Score:2, Insightful)
That wouldn't necessarily be a good thing. Did you ever see the ending to Brazil?
Re:We are all handicapped. (Score:2)
There's a reason why your body's telling you there is a hull breach. Ever notice that when the needle's small enough, it doesn't hurt? Minimal damage.
Inner monologue... (Score:2, Funny)
That and theme music would be great...
Useful! (Score:2, Funny)
Nevermind combining this with a microphone or whatever, combine it with an electric pulse attached to my ass so it can stop me from saying stuff that ends up getting me into trouble!
Dating (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Dating (Score:4, Funny)
Oh ye of little foresight (Score:3, Interesting)
You know, you say that, but what were to happen if everyone had these on dates?
After an adjustment period, women would get used to the idea of being told, "wow, you have nice tits" when out on a date with someone that finds them attractive. Sure, initially, many (if not most or even virtually all) women would find it less than pleasant, but they already know every guy's secretly thinking it. When every guy starts
Useful if it works... (Score:5, Interesting)
Imagine using voice commands to control your computer remotely - you're on a croweded bus, using your cell phone to connect to your house computer, telling it subvocally to turn on the airconditioning in time for when you get home, to turn on the coffee maker and download some work from the office and a movie for later. And no one hears anything, and the only thing they can see moving is your throat. What about dictating a letter on your way home, or other documents?
What about secret service agents? Or the military? No more needing to talk into their sleeves or using noisy radio to give away their position. You could have the conversation turn up on a pda screen, or have an artifical voice piped into ear phones. How cool would that be?
I'm sure there's lots more stuff you could use this for that I haven't even thought of yet, but I'm betting it is still years away.
Damn it! Just when I ran out of (Score:2)
Crap......
Better start practicing (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Better start practicing (Score:3, Insightful)
Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do...
Re:Better start practicing (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe I'm getting old, but I think it's more likely that under the current administration, I just can't enjoy the innocent thrill of thinking, "Wow, what coll technology!"
Instead my first thought is, "How soon until that theocrat Ashcroft starts using this to interrogate dissidents?"
This is perfect for rooting out hidden Muslims -- we're at war, you know --, closeted homosexuals -- Bush's newest appointee has just ruled t
Re:Better start practicing (Score:2, Offtopic)
Good idea, but Mary Had a Little Lamb probably won't cut it. Here are the [cnn.com] lyrics [columbia.edu] you're looking for:
Re:Better start practicing (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Better start practicing (Score:3, Funny)
Assassins' Redoubt, final message.
We've built the Dream Twister. I feel nauseous already...
I don't like this (Score:5, Funny)
"I'm not feeling well (I need a beer to numb my brain after working for you all day). Can I go home (pub crawling) early?"
Curses! (Score:2, Funny)
Slashdot Sensationalism (Score:2, Flamebait)
This is not new. Prosthetic hands that operate on nerve signals have been available for decades.
The reason I started reading slashdot was because it was fairly spin free. I guess I am better off reading the AIT Times. [mithuro.com] It sure has its faults, but it is spin free.
Interesting uses... (Score:5, Interesting)
Sports cheating: communicate perfectly to coach when you are not supposed to.
Croc Hunter: sneak up on animals in the wild to research, etc, and communicate with team and not startle animals.
Porn: somehow... someway...
Government: give tech 20 more years and when these signals can be picked up remotely, let FBI tap the signals without a court order because, hey, there is a War On Terror(TM) to fight.
Interrorgation: capture truth someone would have wanted/started to say but then held their tounge at the last second.
Slashdot: this tech + reconition to text + scripting = best chance at first post. Just think about BSD dying, and it's dead!
A couple implications (Score:5, Interesting)
For instance, you're more likely to simply pick a quarter off the floor than to say, "I am going to pick this quarter off the floor." Whereas, you're very likely to think the sentence, "I should buy some wine on my way home from the market" if that's part of your plans.
Seems to me that this technology could, in short order, discern the verbal sentences we fashion for ourselves as part of our daily thinking. But it won't ever pick up on the million thoughts we have each day that aren't based on words.
If this technology gets deployed, society will have to learn in short order that not every thought is legitimate. My verbalizing the thought to myself, "I am Napoleon" does not necessarily mean that I think I am Napoleon.
One last thought. If we get widespread, cheap deployment of this technology, it will have as big an effect on our lives as the World Wide Web.
Re:A couple implications (Score:3, Interesting)
Who's going to have the first 24/7 subvocal weblog?
Who, extending the webcams, is willing to put every single thought they have, enough to subvocalize, out onto the web?
SubvocalJenny
Jeff
hmmm (Score:2, Interesting)
reminds me of this toy (was it a "transformers" toy?) I had when I was a kid. you'd basically talk into this tube (without talking... just form your words) and
Re:hmmm (Score:2)
What do you think of the boss? (Score:2, Funny)
"He's alright I guess."
"Ha! That's NOT what you where GONNA say!"
;-)
The inner voice.. (Score:2, Funny)
Space applications (Score:2)
What if you do not have an adam's apple? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What if you do not have an adam's apple? (Score:2)
cellular phones ! (Score:5, Interesting)
normal speech recognition first (Score:3, Interesting)
Translation: I am making this post using Microsoft's speech recognition. It is obvious that vocalized speech recognition needs a lot of work before subvocal recognition challenges can be considered feasible.
I mean, when with full sound you can't get good dictation, the possibility of eeking it out of throat twitches are fairly low, methinks.
Hey morons - read the words that are printed.. (Score:4, Informative)
"A person using the subvocal system thinks of phrases and talks to himself so quietly it cannot be heard, but the tongue and vocal cords do receive speech signals from the brain,"
Notice the phrase "..talks to himself so quietly.."?
This is NOT the same as "thinks to himself"
i.e.you mouth the words but don't blow air through your airway so no noise is made.
it's not friggin' mind reading..unlike most of the level 5 posts seem to think.
Re:Hey morons - read the words that are printed.. (Score:3, Informative)
Ugh, dude...
You might want to read the article again.
Notice the part that says "without actual lip or facial movement"? So we have, "talking to yourself", and "no lip or facial movement". That sounds a lot like "thinking to yourself" to me.
-asoap
Seen this before (Score:5, Insightful)
So don't get too excited, all you ADD, quasi-ADD and just plain procrastinatory slashdotters -- whoever ends up using this tech won't be you.
Better not use this on Windows voice control (Score:2)
This subject line is confusing as all hell! (Score:2, Funny)
More Practical Uses (Score:4, Interesting)
Douglas Adams... (Score:2, Interesting)
It's an interesting idea, though. If the FBI/CIA/KGB/MIB get ahold of you and try to interrogate you with this, just start spouting random words, it'll garble the rest of what they're trying to make you think out loud.
interrogation (Score:2)
goon: what is your greatest fear?
me: rats! i mean...rats, i hate these questions...row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream..."Keys" to the technology (Score:3, Insightful)
IOW, "The key to this system is the entire system."
Old news (Score:5, Funny)
Solution for mute people ? (Score:5, Interesting)
Every subject they tested ... (Score:5, Funny)
Who do you want to be today? (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh god, the cheating (Score:4, Interesting)
-Iowa
Re:Oh god, the cheating (Score:3, Insightful)
Shifting to this story's context, I think the headset (or whatever gadget form this takes) will be a bit obvious for now. And I think worrying about cheating in the face of improved communication tools is fairly silly... we're so far from an invisible, ubiquitous, enc
Re:David Brin's Earth, etc. (Score:2)
Re:Ha ha! A few notes. . . (Score:3, Insightful)
Sounds like somebody needs a tinfoil hat..