Scientists at the University of California led by Professor Jack Gallant have successfully used a functional magnetic resonance imaging scanner to extract what a person is seeing from their brainwaves.
The researchers fed videos and the scans of volunteers into a computer for correlations to be drawn. The volunteers were then shown a different video and the software was able to recreate the basic shape but not all details from brainwaves.
"At the moment when you see something and want to describe it you have to use words or draw it and it doesn't work very well. This technology might allow you to recover an eyewitness's memory of a crime," said Professor Gallant.
The software was okay with reasonably static shapes but struggled with fast moving images. There is a moderately frightening example of the original image and what the computer came up with at the source. I chose this source because it had a picture but this http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/ article goes into a bit more detail in some areas.
I doubt that the image shown in the DailyMail is real. It looks like the original with a simple blur effect applied.
Also from the source: "In one scene featuring comic actor Steve Martin in a white shirt, the computer reproduced his white torso and rough shape, but was unable to handle details of his face." - That does not sound like the image that is shown.
Additionally your brain can "fake" memories and cause you to think something happened that didnt or you bend the facts of an actual event. Which may explain the blurry pictures,which is most likely an artists impression or example of the facts reported.
Try it your self, look at a picture with details, such as a face or building, and then close your eyes and try to picture it. It will be blurred in your mind
Just imagine 100 years from now. Instead of the normal method of walking door to door. They will take you in and see what you´ve been doing the last 3 days. "Oh my, mister have you been wacking off? That´s unhealthy" :P
I want to record my dreams and analyze them a bit. This could also result into breakthroughs in our understanding of the human brain (possibly animals as well) and possibly help disabled people and also help stroke victims to faster re-learn things.
@ C.O.G. Its amazing that you´re against this considering that god can do the same time, even while you sleep. Now that is an intrusion I wouldn´t want.
" According to Dr Gallant, who has yet to publish the results of the experiment, the software was close to the mark. In one scene featuring comic actor Steve Martin in a white shirt, the computer reproduced his white torso and rough shape, but was unable to handle details of his face. " They don´t claim the picture at the source is real.
when the porn industry finds away to incorporate it. Imagine your buddy telling you a story about the chick he banged last night and he shows you a mental clip of the event.
JW: How sharp/blurry an image is a person is able to remember depends on that persons ability to recollect, which generally depends on how much concious attention the person was paying to the seen scene in the first place.
Most people have also experienced not being able to recall something at some point but remembering it later in full detail - It is not that the information was not in the persons brain the first time, just that the person was not able to recollect it at that point in time. What I am trying to say is how well a person can reproduce an event or describe an image depends on how the person is able to do it and not what´s inside the mind - it´s all there.
False memories are short-circuits between different memories ie. the person not being able to isolate the memories as individual ones.
And to respond to your assumption, no, I don´t see blurry images and actually don´t have close my eyes to remember things in my mind´s eye.
tiggyfiggy: The caption of the picture says "Image converted from brainwaves". It is also placed in a more prominent position than the sentence we both quoted - hence most people will remember the caption to be true rather than the sentence in the article because of the influence of how the information has been presented at the source.
finally become useful! I tried this technology at the World Exhibition. The computer there was able to detect colors. I had to think about blue, yellow, red, or black and white. The computer was able to read this from my brain. Pretty scary but also fascinating.
http://i206.photobucket.com/ In any event, these scientists can monitor my brain waves or even bust open my skull but all they´re gonna find is thousands of p*ssies.
As they are not reading the picture from brain waves, they are doing an A to B comparison where they cant calculate B (The brain waves) without first having the picture (A) and then basically reverse engineering it. So basically they have to already have the information they are looking for before they are able to..um find the information they are looking for...and you have to be looking at that information when it happens...
So practical uses...are pretty much nil...
So in order to prove you committed a murder, they would have to first have a video of you committing the murder, from your point of view, monitor the brain waves, and then be able to monitor the brain waves while committing the murder and compare them...
It is not hyped, i have tested this machine by myself at the world expo! They dont need to show you anything before, they can read directly what you are thinking. I was able to play "pong" with my thougts and the machine could tell 5 different colors that people had in their mind: Black, White, Red, Blue, and Yellow. This is only the improved version of the machine that i did test. I am sure it can extract images directly from the mind!
And the world exhibition in Hannover was 9 years ago, imagine how much the technology has improved since then! It is not difficult to imagine that they are able to record live video now!
As I understand it they showed the volunteers a lot of video and let the computer look at the video and the brainwaves so it could learn then they showed the volunteers a new video without giving the computer the video and asked it to spit out an image - and it did.
