CBS News (01/04/09) Stahl, Lesley
Carnegie Mellon University neuroscientist Marcel Just and colleague Tom Mitchell have combined functional MRI’s (fMRI’s) ability to observe a brain in action with computer science’s ability to process massive amounts of data to see if it is possible to identify what occurs in the brain when people think specific thoughts. The researchers asked subjects to think about 10 objects, five tools, and five dwellings. The subjects’ brain activity was recorded and analyzed for each object. The researchers were able to identify what object they were thinking about from their brain activation patterns. Similarly, researchers at the Bernstein Center in Berlin are working to use brain scans to identify people’s intentions. Bernstein Center research subjects were asked to make a simple decision, whether to add or subtract two numbers, which they would be shown later. Researcher John Dylan-Haynes says he could read directly from the activity in a small part of the brain that controls intentions what the subjects intended to do. Haynes also is working on a system that would be able to tell where people have been. One experiment involves having subjects navigate through a virtual world, and then showing them images of places they have seen and places they have not seen. FMRI scanning already is being used to try to understand what consumers want to buy and how to best sell those products as part of a new field called neuromarketing.
View full article here: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/12/31/60minutes/main4694713.shtml
Tags: Computer Science and Engineering News
This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 14th, 2009 at 5:48 am and is filed under Computer Science and Engineering News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.