Communications of the ACM
Technique For Letting Brain Talk to Computers Now Tunes in Speech
Washington University in St. Louis researchers are studying a brain computing interface they developed that can be used to analyze the frequency of brain wave activity, enabling them to make finer distinctions about what the brain is doing.
The research, led by Washington's Eric C. Leuthardt, involves applying the technique to detect when patients say or think of four specific sounds, including "oo" as in few, "e" as in see, "a" as in say, and "a" as in hat. When scientists identified the brainwave patterns that represented these sounds and programmed the interface to recognize them, patients could quickly learn to control a computer cursor by thinking or saying the appropriate sound.
"This is one of the earliest examples, to a very, very small extent, of what is called 'reading minds' — detecting what people are saying to themselves in their internal dialogue," Leuthardt says.
The researchers' next task is to find ways to distinguish what they call higher levels of conceptual information. "We want to see if we can not just detect when you're saying dog, tree, tool, or some other word, but also learn what the pure idea of that looks like in your mind," Leuthardt says.
From Washington University in St. Louis
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