Photo by Prokino
Scientists believe that the technology could be very promising for locked-in patients -- that is, paralyzed individuals who are fully aware of their surroundings but can move nothing other than their eyes, such as the subject of the 2007 film "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly."
According to the companies that sell the game, it can provide significant benefits to players. They cite a study "conducted by London's prestigious Imperial College demonstrated that EEG feedback can improve academic performance and creativity."
Electrifying Audiences
The distinctions between science, art and slapstick are often vague, especially when people do things like artist Adi Hoesle, who produces "EEG sculptures" or sells colorful swirls on a canvas while claiming that they are images of his thoughts. One of his works is titled: "I'm so surprised by the red in my head." Meanwhile, an orchestra in which some of the instruments are brain-controlled is performing in small theaters around Europe. Its musicians wear gimmicky, brightly colored EEG caps on stage.
Such theatrical effects are part of a long tradition, a sort of colorful flipside of science. For example, when so-called "natural philosophers" were studying electricity around 1750, they developed parlor games, such as producing sparks when a couple kissed. They also hoped to use therapeutic bursts of electricity to help lame people walk again. Their audiences were -- literally -- electrified.
Even a company like Mattel, known mainly for its Barbie Doll products, has now discovered the allure of brain control. The new system Mattel is introducing at computer trade shows is called "Mindflex." According to the company's fact sheet: "A true mental marathon, Mindflex exercises the brain in an entirely new way as players learn to continuously control their brain activity."
So, you ask, how does it work? To train the brain, the user puts on a headband with sensors at the temples and a cable connected to something that looks like a mini miniature golf course. Then the user tries to master the first task: balancing a small ball above an air current, causing it to levitate and making it pass through a plastic ring.
A cluster of curious onlookers has formed at the trade show. The players are doing their best not to get nervous, collect their thoughts and concentrate on the ball. Sure enough, the more they are able to descend into mental nothingness, the higher the ball hovers in the air.
Mattel refuses to divulge how the device works. Experts assume that the headband -- like the sensors used in Mindball -- measures alpha waves that pulse through the cerebral cortex at about 10 times a second when a person relaxes.
In any event, playing these thought-controlled games produces an indescribable sensation. It's as if you were using a new muscle that you had only heard about but never experienced -- the organ underneath the top of the skull. Astonished audiences must have felt a similar sensation in the 18th century, when a kiss produced a spark.
It took another 200 years before it was discovered that what was once a cheap party trick could have many other uses and that the science on which it is based keeps the Internet, the stock markets, the global economy -- and thoughts -- running today.[rc]
Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan
© SPIEGEL ONLINE
August 27, 2009
GERMANY: Eavesdropping on Dreams
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BERLIN, Germany / Spiegel International / August 27, 2009
Playing With Your Head
The Dawning Age of Mind-Reading Machines
By Hilmar Schmundt
Part 2: Eavesdropping on Dreams
Completely locked-in patients, on the other hand, can't even blink. All they can still control is their neurons.
The prospect of getting a glimpse of those thoughts is by no means hopeless. Birbaumer has already demonstrated that the brain waves of locked-in patients respond to various pieces of music, familiar faces and grammatical errors.
The BCI experts now believe that their technology is on the verge of a major breakthrough. Their successes are indeed astonishing, but they still have a long way to go before realizing their ambitions. Last fall, Japanese researchers reported in the journal Neuron that -- with the help of a technology known as functional magnetic resonance tomography -- they had observed the brain processing certain images. This promptly led them to speculate that one day it might even be possible to eavesdrop on the "illusions and dreams" of the brain.
In an atmosphere in which everything seems possible, though, there is a great temptation to hope that the power of thought can somehow make the pitfalls of technology magically disappear. But we still haven't reach a point yet where we can control things with thoughts alone. For example, for many years now, the American firm Emotiv has advertised a system that allows paralyzed people to control their wheelchairs. But neither emotions nor thoughts are involved. Instead, Emotiv's technology is based primarily on signals produced by facial muscles. It has everything to do with smiling and blinking -- and nothing to do with controlling with your thoughts.
But what happens if the day comes when we actually are able to drive cars -- or even fly fighter jets -- using our thoughts alone? The US Department of Defense finds this vision so promising that it has already invested $4 million (€2.8 million) to develop a certain kind of telepathy. The goal of the project -- dubbed "Silent Talk" -- is to enable soldiers to communicate with each other "on the battlefield without the use of vocalized speech through analyis of neural signals."
Opinions vary on how much of this research is science and how much is science fiction. A report by the MITRE Corporation, a consulting firm headquartered in Virginia, derisively describes brain control as a crude technology. According to the report, the problem is "in part due to the early stage of development of the associated technologies, and in part due to limited understanding of the central nervous system." The report soberly concludes that "the possibility for using such brain control in a military scenario is not readily apparent."
Even the prophets of the new era cannot deny that many systems are highly prone to error. In most cases, the detection rate is around 70 percent. In addition to the cable cap, the conductive gel and a computer, users also need a great deal of patience. Another problem is that about 30 percent of subjects have proven to be "EEG-illiterate." In other words, their brains remain impervious to the machines.
All too often, exorbitant promises are associated with this visionary technology. For example, in the game "Mindball," two players wearing EEG headbands compete by becoming as relaxed as possible. The player who is better able to relax his brain -- and thereby occasion uniform vibrations -- can drive a ball the farthest onto his opponent's side of the game table.
Photo by Prokino
Scientists believe that the technology could be very promising for locked-in patients -- that is, paralyzed individuals who are fully aware of their surroundings but can move nothing other than their eyes, such as the subject of the 2007 film "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly."
According to the companies that sell the game, it can provide significant benefits to players. They cite a study "conducted by London's prestigious Imperial College demonstrated that EEG feedback can improve academic performance and creativity."
Electrifying Audiences
The distinctions between science, art and slapstick are often vague, especially when people do things like artist Adi Hoesle, who produces "EEG sculptures" or sells colorful swirls on a canvas while claiming that they are images of his thoughts. One of his works is titled: "I'm so surprised by the red in my head." Meanwhile, an orchestra in which some of the instruments are brain-controlled is performing in small theaters around Europe. Its musicians wear gimmicky, brightly colored EEG caps on stage.
Such theatrical effects are part of a long tradition, a sort of colorful flipside of science. For example, when so-called "natural philosophers" were studying electricity around 1750, they developed parlor games, such as producing sparks when a couple kissed. They also hoped to use therapeutic bursts of electricity to help lame people walk again. Their audiences were -- literally -- electrified.
Even a company like Mattel, known mainly for its Barbie Doll products, has now discovered the allure of brain control. The new system Mattel is introducing at computer trade shows is called "Mindflex." According to the company's fact sheet: "A true mental marathon, Mindflex exercises the brain in an entirely new way as players learn to continuously control their brain activity."
So, you ask, how does it work? To train the brain, the user puts on a headband with sensors at the temples and a cable connected to something that looks like a mini miniature golf course. Then the user tries to master the first task: balancing a small ball above an air current, causing it to levitate and making it pass through a plastic ring.
A cluster of curious onlookers has formed at the trade show. The players are doing their best not to get nervous, collect their thoughts and concentrate on the ball. Sure enough, the more they are able to descend into mental nothingness, the higher the ball hovers in the air.
Mattel refuses to divulge how the device works. Experts assume that the headband -- like the sensors used in Mindball -- measures alpha waves that pulse through the cerebral cortex at about 10 times a second when a person relaxes.
In any event, playing these thought-controlled games produces an indescribable sensation. It's as if you were using a new muscle that you had only heard about but never experienced -- the organ underneath the top of the skull. Astonished audiences must have felt a similar sensation in the 18th century, when a kiss produced a spark.
It took another 200 years before it was discovered that what was once a cheap party trick could have many other uses and that the science on which it is based keeps the Internet, the stock markets, the global economy -- and thoughts -- running today.[rc]
Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan
© SPIEGEL ONLINE
Photo by Prokino
Scientists believe that the technology could be very promising for locked-in patients -- that is, paralyzed individuals who are fully aware of their surroundings but can move nothing other than their eyes, such as the subject of the 2007 film "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly."
According to the companies that sell the game, it can provide significant benefits to players. They cite a study "conducted by London's prestigious Imperial College demonstrated that EEG feedback can improve academic performance and creativity."
Electrifying Audiences
The distinctions between science, art and slapstick are often vague, especially when people do things like artist Adi Hoesle, who produces "EEG sculptures" or sells colorful swirls on a canvas while claiming that they are images of his thoughts. One of his works is titled: "I'm so surprised by the red in my head." Meanwhile, an orchestra in which some of the instruments are brain-controlled is performing in small theaters around Europe. Its musicians wear gimmicky, brightly colored EEG caps on stage.
Such theatrical effects are part of a long tradition, a sort of colorful flipside of science. For example, when so-called "natural philosophers" were studying electricity around 1750, they developed parlor games, such as producing sparks when a couple kissed. They also hoped to use therapeutic bursts of electricity to help lame people walk again. Their audiences were -- literally -- electrified.
Even a company like Mattel, known mainly for its Barbie Doll products, has now discovered the allure of brain control. The new system Mattel is introducing at computer trade shows is called "Mindflex." According to the company's fact sheet: "A true mental marathon, Mindflex exercises the brain in an entirely new way as players learn to continuously control their brain activity."
So, you ask, how does it work? To train the brain, the user puts on a headband with sensors at the temples and a cable connected to something that looks like a mini miniature golf course. Then the user tries to master the first task: balancing a small ball above an air current, causing it to levitate and making it pass through a plastic ring.
A cluster of curious onlookers has formed at the trade show. The players are doing their best not to get nervous, collect their thoughts and concentrate on the ball. Sure enough, the more they are able to descend into mental nothingness, the higher the ball hovers in the air.
Mattel refuses to divulge how the device works. Experts assume that the headband -- like the sensors used in Mindball -- measures alpha waves that pulse through the cerebral cortex at about 10 times a second when a person relaxes.
In any event, playing these thought-controlled games produces an indescribable sensation. It's as if you were using a new muscle that you had only heard about but never experienced -- the organ underneath the top of the skull. Astonished audiences must have felt a similar sensation in the 18th century, when a kiss produced a spark.
It took another 200 years before it was discovered that what was once a cheap party trick could have many other uses and that the science on which it is based keeps the Internet, the stock markets, the global economy -- and thoughts -- running today.[rc]
Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan
© SPIEGEL ONLINE
