On supporting science journalism
If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.
As a time-honored way to make decisions in Japan, adults often resort to janken, a local version of the child's game of rock, paper, scissors. Japanese scientists have developed a new twist on this tradition, a machine that can read minds and then form the "weapon" of choice on a mechanical hand--in effect, a mind-controlled robot.
The joint project by Kyoto-based Advanced Telecommunications Research (ATR) Institute International and Honda Research Institute Japan is a novel "brain-machine interface." In the ATR-Honda approach, demonstrated this past May, a subject in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine forms the rock, paper or scissors with his hand. A machine-learning algorithm analyzes the fMRI data on changes in blood flow connected with neural activity in the motor cortex. The decoded data are transmitted to the robot hand, which reproduces the choice within about seven seconds and with 85 percent accuracy.
Subscribe to Support Independent Journalism
Great science journalism requires human expertise, time, effort and creativity. And it costs money. That’s why I and the journalists here at Scientific American hope you’ll join our community.
When you subscribe, you are supporting staff and freelance journalists who are passionate about telling science stories that are true, important and compelling. Our editors and reporters are often experts in their fields, which means they understand the nuances of big discoveries and can untangle the breakthroughs from the hype. With a subscription, you are also supporting rigorous fact-checking to ensure the words we publish are precise and accurate. And you’re supporting original illustrations, graphics and photos that bring you closer to an advanced laboratory, an ice sheet in Antarctica or a space mission in orbit. You’re helping us craft other types of high-quality journalism as well: Our newsletters are carefully written, edited and curated by staffers you have or will come to know and love. Our Science Quickly podcast is based on original reporting, collaboration with editors and scientists and exacting production.
Subscriptions keep this engine running so we can continue to deliver thoughtful, rigorous and independent science journalism to you. In an era of viral misinformation, this work is crucial. If you value what we do, I hope you’ll consider joining us as a subscriber
