Scientists Build Mind-Reading Computer

An anonymous reader writes to tell us that researchers from Carnegie Mellon University have developed what they are calling a "mind reading computer." Using a panel of nine volunteers, the team built a "profile" of 58 test words based on brain scans taken while the volunteers were directed to think about the meaning of each test word. "'If I show you the brain images for two words, the main thing you notice is that they look pretty much alike. If you look at them for a while you might see subtle differences,' explains Tom Mitchell of the Machine Learning Department, which lead the study. 'We believe we have identified a number of the basic building blocks that the brain uses to represent meaning. These building blocks could be used to predict patterns for any concrete noun,' added Mitchell."

Words chosen

[Intron (870560)]

The list of words chosen were: funding, grant, tenure, award, patent, contract, ...

Slashdot already knew about this submission

[Jeremiah Cornelius (137)]

By reading his mind, before ScuttleMonkey approved it.

How do you think that subscribers get that "Mysterious Future" stuff, anyways?

Re:

[PopeRatzo (965947)]

I've got a feeling the words involved in this project were more along the lines of "Department. Defense. Homeland. Security. Surveillance."

Excellent!

[jimand (517224)]

Now that a computer can read my mind I'm waiting for the mind-reading 'puter that knows to change the mouse focus when I look at a new window. I hate looking at one window while typing in another, especially when posting to /. while I have a window open with an email to my boss. It turns out he's not interested in the goatse link.

And so it begins..

[multipart/mixed (163409)]

..THIS is the basis for yet-another-trek-related-invention: the Universal Translator.

I always knew it had to work this way.

Re:And so it begins..

[the_humeister (922869)]

That's an interesting idea. Do different words that mean the same in different languages light up the same areas of the brain when a person thinks about it? Would a Spanish person who is told to think of "coche", have a similar brain scan of an English person told to think of "car"?

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[zappepcs (820751)]

Doubtful actually, at least in all cases. In English, nova has one or two meanings that may bring different thoughts. In some Spanish speaking countries, they might be thinking 'no go' or some option for various value of go in Spanish.

Grammarians unite! Only those who understand language will be able to interpret the results of this machine.

It is quite interesting that there are parts of the brain that light up uniformly (or near it) for some processes. Puts the human brain more in the land of machine with

Re:And so it begins..

[lbgator (1208974)]

I think the GP is onto something a little different than what the parent interpreted. Language may be an unnecessary step in this experiment.

If someone is thinking "gee - I would love a hamburger" in English - would their brain scan be the same as a French guy thinking the same? If you started at some basic level (hunger, thirst, anger, love, pain) is there a common denominator in all brain activity? If there is commonality, can we hope to someday eliminate language and have comms come straight from the source?

Re:And so it begins..

[why-is-it (318134)]

Would a Spanish person who is told to think of "coche", have a similar brain scan of an English person told to think of "car"?

Agreed. I suspect that true mind reading will be impossible because everyone will have different internal representations of concepts and ideas. Even amongst individuals who speak the same language, we should not assume that everyone will have the same representation of "car", even though people may have similar levels of brain activity in the same parts of the brain when they think about one.

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[Feanturi (99866)]

And then you put a person who was born blind into the MRI and ask them to think about a car. Now what?

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[locallyunscene (1000523)]

This reminds me of a psyche 101 exercise where students were asked to draw a map of the town in which the college resided. Upperclassmen drew far more detailed maps than freshmen. I suspect the upperclassmen would have thought of very different things(past experiences) compared to freshmen also, and that's within a very small subset of people. I doubt very much that this machine could "read your mind" primed with someone else's input, but it could be invaluable in determining how the brain works and what s

Wonder...

[ShiNoKaze (1097629)]

I have to wonder all this work we do towards reading minds, what's everyone gonna think when they figure out how much we really do think about sex? Cuz damn.

Might be fun to watch the expressions on the scientists face as they realize what's going on tho. "That guy was a fluke, the next will about something else I'm sure!"

I for one welcome our new mind-reading

[davidwr (791652)]

Hold on, just got handed this printout:

"Thank you, but we already knew you were going to say that.

Sincerely,

Your new mind-reading computer overlords."

Re:I for one welcome our new mind-reading

[Eudial (590661)]

Hold on, just got handed this printout:

"Thank you, but we already knew you were going to say that.

Sincerely,

Your new mind-reading computer overlords."

You forgot to wear your tin foil hat.

What about Pron?

[brunokummel (664267)]

I know it sounds funny but i would like to see the brain activity for pornografic pictures, since it already known that "bad words" are stored in a different area of the brain than regular words... it would be kind of interesting if "bad images (or nice depending on the person)" got also stored on different areas....

Mind Reading Computer?!

[prakslash (681585)]

Yet again we see a jounalist dumbing down scientific research into tabloid fodder.

What the CMU scientists have done is some preliminary brain imaging using MRI.

Here is a better CMU link [cmu.edu] with more details and pictures. The scientists hope that this research to could have applications in the study of autism, disorders of thought such as paranoid schizophrenia, and semantic dementias such as Pick's disease. Not once did they ominously dub their research as "mind reading" as claimed by the submitter.

Oddly Enough

[eldavojohn (898314)]

It's strange, every time a researcher is assigned to go disassemble the prototype, something else comes up right when they come within range of the machine. Yesterday something kept spamming "REDRUM" across the networks broadcast address and causing bandwidth issues. Today several printers in the lab wouldn't stop printing out documents that looked like fake rebates for Newegg ...

Call me when it translates...

[icebike (68054)]

Quoting article:
"We believe we have identified a number of the basic building blocks that the brain uses to represent meaning. These building blocks could be used to predict patterns for any concrete noun..."

The implications of building blocks would suggest that the french word for "Desk" (bureau) would elicit the same response as the english word for "Desk", instead of some governmental unit.

That would be useful, (once we get cheap portable MRI hats).

However I doubt these building blocks are anywhere near that generic due to the excess emotional baggage that people associate with words. I suppose it might be able to detect the presence of such baggage even if it could not decipher it.

This could get ugly...

[rehtonAesoohC (954490)]

I forsee some lonely nerd using a video-chat application to try and talk with a woman when all of a sudden, his computer reads his mind and says to him:

"I'm reading that you're horny, Jim. Here is a selection of your favorite porn- Princess Leia doing an Ewok. Enjoy!"
Prospective Girlfriend: "You sicko! *exits the video chat*"
Jim: "Oh well... I guess I'll just enjoy this video. Thanks manputer!"

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[Shikaku (1129753)]

I remember my password by keyboard location by my fingers.

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[CastrTroy (595695)]

That's why you need real 2 factor authentication. Something you know, and something you have works well. So that even if somebody peeks over your shoulder (or into your brain), to figure out the password, they still don't have access.

Re:As dangerous as it is useful

[ceoyoyo (59147)]

Sure!

Here, would you please lie down while I slide you into this multi-tonne magnet. Thank you. Now, please lie very still and think about typing in your password, very slowly, one letter at a time. No more than one letter every ten seconds or so! Now please repeat a couple dozen times. Thank you for your cooperation.

I think it would be easier to just ask.

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[Eternauta3k (680157)]

Utter bitch? That story showed she had feelings!

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[Facegarden (967477)]

Not necessarily... If there truly are key areas that only deal with actually thinking about a noun, they should be unaffected by other brain processes like emotion, etc. One may be off daydreaming about that summer when they "experimented" with the neighbor boy in college, but the actual word "rainbow" is still sitting somewhere in his mind. ;)

I would, however, be inclined to believe that our brains are more complex than just having "areas" that have "activity" when certain things happen. Until we can map

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[multipart/mixed (163409)]

IANAD (but I watch a lot of House)

> I didn't think your brain would psyically change just
> because you were thinking one thing or another.

Your brain doesn't, but the blood flow patterns do.

Just like how your computer doesn't physically change when sitting idle or watching porn, it will use less/more power and different parts of different chips will flow more electrons in different patterns.

Oh, and you need to google up "functional MRI"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_magnetic_resonance_imaging [wikipedia.org]