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Machines can read your thoughts now
By siliconindia
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Saturday, 05 January 2008, 00:07 IST
London: Coming are days of machines that can read human's thoughts and can reveal his or her most private feelings. Scientists have developed such a machine. Some American researchers from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh are the master brains behind the new finding. They have found that with the aid of a sophisticated scanner and computer programme, it is possible to understand how the brain lights up when thinking about different subjects.
Using an advanced form of MRI scanner, they analyzed how the brain reacted to 10 drawings of tools and buildings. They then used a computer programme to work out whether a person was thinking about a tool or a building.
"We hope to progress to identify the thoughts associated not just with pictures but also with words and eventually sentences," said Dr Svetlana Shinkareva, one of the researchers.
The device's possibilities can be extended and the team envisages a time when it will be used to conduct infallible lie detector tests, while the accurate interpretation of a person's intentions could allow police to arrest criminals before they break the law.
The researchers' analysis was found to be 97 percent accurate. Despite being limited to picking up the thoughts behind just 10 pictures, the researchers are confident that they will soon be able to identify entire sentences.
The study, published in the journal Plos One, also showed that different people think about the same thing in the same way. "This part of the study establishes, as never before, that there is a commonality in how different people's brains represent the same subject," the study, reported in the Daily Mail of Britain, said.
