Researchers Teach Subliminally; Matrix Learning One Step Closer

An anonymous reader writes "For the first time ever, scientists from Boston University and ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories in Kyoto, Japan have managed to use functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, or fMRI to decode the process of learning. As the research stands to date, it isn't capable of much. Rather than working with skills like juggling, the researchers relied on images so they could tie into the vision part of the brain, the part that they have managed to partially decode. Nevertheless, they demonstrated that information could be taught using neurofeedback techniques. And it was effective even when people didn't know they were learning."

Re:The sorry state of science reporting

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagining doing something and actually doing it physically is close to the same thing as far as learning and the brain is concerned. Yes, that means that you can get better at, say, basket ball by sitting in your couch imagining playing basket ball - the rate of learning is nearly the same as actually playing basket ball. Presumably your assumptions of how basket ball works will get out of sync with reality after a while, so you will need to actually go play for real too every once in a while. So there is ridiculous on the face of it about improving your juggling in an fMRI machine without actually doing anything physically, though I didn't RTFA so I don't know if that is what they did.

Not to rain on the parade...

[Zeroblitzt]

But couldn't this be a terrible thing? And it was effective even when people didn't know they were learning. Translation: It will eventually fall into the hands of someone not-so-nice (politician, corporation, etc.), and suddenly we will "learn" that they are good, or we should buy their product, or elect them to be our leader, etc.