Switched has a new home! Huffpost Tech.

Click here to visit the new home of Switched!

Hot on HuffPost Tech:

See More Stories
AOL Tech

Can Brain Scans Reveal What You've Seen?

by Caleb Johnson on September 28, 2009 at 08:25 AM

Most people view mind reading as nothing more than a cheap parlor trick, but a group of scientists hope to make the notion a reality. According to Wired, some neuroscientists from the University of California at Berkeley tracked the neural activity of test subjects who looked at an image, and then they studied the emerging patterns. Again, testers showed subjects more images, studied the results, and matched those to images from a database of more than 6 million.

Jack Gallant, one of the researchers, uses a metaphor about a magician to describe the findings. When a magician identifies the card pulled from a deck, he's seen all those cards already. That's not what Gallant and his team were doing. With their research, they have no idea what 'cards' (the images shown to the viewer) the test subject has seen. The 'magician has to figure (out the card) without ever seeing it.'


This research won't lead to any practical uses any time soon, but it's a huge step from the last mind-reading breakthrough involving words. It also might be unnerving to know that people can predict what you've seen, especially if you're trying to hide an online habit. [From: Wired]

Tags: brain, images, magic, mind reading, MindReading, neuroscience, research, science, study, top

HuffPost AOL Social News Most Popular