In Brief
- A new method of data interpretation called multivariate pattern analysis has revealed that telltale patterns of brain activity correspond to specific mental states.
- Based on brain activity alone, researchers can predict which picture a volunteer is thinking of or what activity they are imagining doing—but only out of a limited list of possibilities.
- True mind reading—the ability to decode spontaneous thoughts—will require major technological advances, but the latest research is already yielding key insights into how the brain remembers and makes decisions.
As a favor to friends in my academic department, I have frequently been a guinea pig in the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner. In most of these cases, I fight valiantly against slumber as the stimuli flash on the small screen in front of me and the hypnotic, high-pitched beeps of the scanner reverberate all around. This time, though, it was different. Martin Monti, a fellow neuroscientist at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge, England, was going to read my mind. As the bed I lay on slid robotically into the giant doughnut-shaped scanner, I had a strange sensation that I was about to be seen naked—mentally, at least.
The task was simple: Monti would ask me questions—did I have any siblings, did I think England was going to win the soccer match that night, and so on. If I wanted to answer “yes,” then I would imagine myself playing tennis, activating a known set of motor regions in my brain by doing so. If I wanted to answer “no,” then I was to imagine navigating around the rooms of my home, activating an entirely different set of areas involved in scene perception. Given that each scan—and thus each of my yes or no answers—took five minutes, the conversation was not the most riveting I had ever had, but when Monti accurately guessed my response every time, it was nonetheless thrilling and unnerving in equal measure.
This article was originally published with the title The Mechanics of Mind Reading.
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6 Comments
Add CommentNo one knows, what is mind!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEveryone thinks it is mind.
So which is mind?
How is mind?
Where is mind?
This sounds to me more like cooperative MRI assisted encoded thought signaling than mind reading or independent thought interpretation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo one knows, what is computer!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEveryone thinks it is computer.
So which is computer?
How is computer?
Where is computer?
Another article in this issue depicts how brain electricity sinchronizes other cells within, a former one spoke about the possibility of influencing ethical decisions by magnetic fields, and this one deals with the subject of mind reading. Formerly, people where nominated schizophrenics when they said they got "magnetic fields" influences, that produced what psychiatrits call "insertion of thoughts"- putting alien thoughts inside the mind, "theft of thoughts"- others knowing what your'e thinking, "influence"-something having the power to impose you decisions, "irradiation of thoughts"-the person emits his/her thoughs, as someones can read them. It will be a foolish comment, but perhaps some people formerly called insane were just highly sensitive persons. The active part of this, outside the laboratory experiences the author describes, is completely unknown, if it exists at all, but a good candidate will be the possible way of distance acting with no link such as a radio wave, that the particle physicists call "quantum entanglement". If these phenomena are real, it would be good looking for the material or energy basis of them. Anybody feeling having special traits volunteering?. Followers and copies of Ted Serios please refrain!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTrue mind reading will require technological advances that allow true remote viewing so that somebody would know what you are up to. holographic informational computers tuned to receive incoming magnetic light energy signals would construct the persons mental state or life in their home. As of today, it is all fake mind reading requiring willing submissive participant trying to hiddenly reveal selective information without spoken words to experienced expectant phony psychic authority pretending to be authenic and real.
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Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI can use telepathy, you can find me under "telepathy-vinko-rajic.blogspotDOTcom" .
I can exchange voice and videos messages , smell and bad and good filings with people around ,
people can move muscles on my body from distance and much more.
People in some countries found a mad fun , they collected money and they finance some mad psycho to stalk on me
day and night. Maybe psycho can get 50 000 hours paid and earn few hundred thousand Euro but I have to spend
over 10 years in poverty because of this. Number one he use it to terrorize me all the time, I have no job
and no normal sleep, I am mad , sick and tired of this.
People in some countries( Sweden, Norway) are boycotting me , I have no human rights there , can not get job and no friends
I think they are taking part in financing this show.
I have to find a way to protect me of telepathy. Is it any medicine that could stop this?
I was thinking that some metal shield should stop brain waves.
Any idea what can I do?