Mind reading — almost a reality

Mind reading is one of the most common subjects for a variety of fiction. With this ability, the hero (or villain), if we ignore the problems that occur to him the moral and social character, usually gets along with her strength, power, money, a lot of useful things in life. And it is not surprising that research in this area has traditionally attracted the acute attention of the public and meet the active support from all sides.

Great interest on this background, it is the work of a group of scientists from located in Berlin Center Bernstein. The study, conducted under the leadership of Dr. John-Dylan Haynes (John-Dylan Haynes) in the laboratory of the max Planck Institute Leipzig, is not mentioned without the epithet "revolutionary."

For a long time taking College magnetic resonance device for scanning and collecting 21 volunteers from among students, Haynes during a series of experiments have searched that area of the brain that is most actively manifests itself in the moments when a person stands in front of some choice. It turned out that every other experiment she is in a prefrontal bark.

The researchers then set out to find in this area small areas being responsible for certain intentions at a specific example. Subjects were asked to decide what they will do with the two numbers, add or subtract, in just a few seconds before they appeared on screen. The purpose of the experiment, just in case, to people was not possible.

In the end, though, the success of the experience is markedly different from person to person, on average managed to achieve that in 71% of cases, scientists knew of the intention to make the action even before it occurs. It should be noted that with each new measurement, the prediction accuracy slightly increased, as the software package was adapted to the peculiarities of a particular subject.

The whole theory of such forecasts is based on the identification of signatures ("fingerprints" on the cerebral cortex) that correspond to a particular choice in different situations. That is, the way to improve the accuracy of predictions here, such as: to improve the recognizability of signatures, to reduce the required time of the survey and to accumulate a large enough database of results to offset the impact of the functioning of the brain of a particular person.

Of course, to speak about the practical application of this method to predicting complex human behavior is far too early. For example, to find out whether someone is a threat to the passengers of an airliner long it will be possible, only removing his shoes and after x-ray his Luggage. But there are also pluses: the followers of the theory of a global conspiracy is too early to put on the head of the pan or hood of foil to a World government couldn't read their thoughts.