Predicting Human Errors From Brain Activity 123
Hugh Pickens writes "Researchers report that brain activity can be used to predict the likelihood of someone making an error about six seconds in advance, with gradual changes starting as much as 30 seconds ahead of time. The team used an imaging machine to scan the brains of a group of volunteers who performed a task in the presence of distracting information. When performing correctly the volunteers' brains showed increased levels of activity in those parts associated with cognitive effort, as would be expected. However, these areas gradually became less active before errors were made and at the same time another set of regions in the brain became more active. These regions are part of a so-called "default mode network" and show increased use when people are resting or asleep [PDF]. While imaging machines are far too big and complex to be used in workplaces to monitor the brain activity of people engaged in important tasks, the team hopes to correlate errors to changes in electrical activity in the brain with electroencephalography (EEG), using electrodes placed on the scalp. If EEG features can be found that correspond to the change in brain activity, then a hat that gives warning of an imminent mistake might one day become reality. We've previously discussed similar studies of brain activity."
I don't believe it (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I don't believe it (Score:2, Insightful)
If you're falling asleep... (Score:3, Insightful)
Why else would car insurance rates rise when you get into an accident? Um... you know, aside from evil insurance companies?
Errors? (Score:2, Insightful)
"You're gonna make an error."
*user has minor panic, nervousness, etc*
"See? You errored. You suck."
Makes me wonder if it would self-perpetuate if it were a self-monitored system rather than an externally monitored one - and once externally monitored, would the reaction time be sufficent to prevent the error? Sounds like some slick science on paper, but it seems like it'd fail in practical use.
That's good news! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I don't believe it (Score:4, Insightful)
From TFS, it sounds like people are getting distracted and bored doing stupid mind-numbing tasks and when they do so, they make errors. As such, they have invented a bulky and expensive way to tell when you're drifting off (and that is fairly well correlated with making errors.)
Re:I don't believe it (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Errors? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I agree (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I don't believe it (Score:2, Insightful)
If some specific mental machinery leading up to that were to be shown to lead to errors, it seems plausible that errors could be predicted.