- Device accurately guesses what number from 0-9 people are thinking of
- Technology could be used to create a ‘telepathic typewriter’
- This could one-day help handicapped people who struggle to speak
- Last year scientists developed a device to reproduce speech from brain recordings to help those with motor disease
A device that reads people’s minds through their brainwaves has been created by scientists.
It could lead to an ‘easily-operated’ machine that links up to smartphones in the next five years, the researchers said.
The breakthrough could one-day help handicapped people who struggle to speak to communicate again, such as those who have suffered a stroke.
It could be used as a ‘telepathic typewriter’ that automatically notes down what we are thinking.
A device that reads people’s minds through their brainwaves has been created by scientists. It could lead to an ‘easily-operated’ machine that links up to smartphones in the next five years. This image shows the collection of ‘EEG’ brainwave data by the researchers during their study
The technology, from researchers at Japan’s Toyohashi University of Technology, can recognise the numbers 0 to 9 with 90 per cent accuracy using brain waves.
Study participants uttered the numbers and the robot guessed in real-time based on real-time readings of an electroencephalogram (EEG) brain scan.
The mind-reading device was also able to recognise 18 types of Japanese symbols from EEG signals with a 60 per cent accuracy rate.
This, the researchers say, shows the possibility of an EEG-activated typewriter in the near future.
‘Up until now, speech-decoding from EEG signals has had difficulty in collecting enough data to allow the use of powerful algorithms based on “deep learning” or other types of machine learning,’ reads a university statement.
‘The research group has developed a different research-framework that can achieve high performance with a small training data-set.
‘The group aim to develop a “Brain Computer Interface” that recognises utterances without voicing, or speech imagery.
‘This technology may enable handicapped people, who have lost the ability of voice-communication, to obtain the ability once again.’
‘Furthermore, the research group plans to develop a device that can be easily operated with fewer electrodes and connected to smartphones within the next five years.’
Brain scans showing the shift in brain activity when test subjects spoke a syllable or number. The device can read these shifts and guess what the person was thinking. The breakthrough could eventually help handicapped people who struggle to speak to communicate again
These scans show how the activated brain region differs according to the syllable or number spoken by the test subjects. The mind-reading device could one-day be used as a ‘telepathic typewriter’ that autonatically writes down what people are thinking
Last year scientists at UC Berkley successfully managed to playback a word that someone was thinking by monitoring their brain activity.
While there still remains a long way to go, they said the research could help victims of stroke and others with speech paralysis.
The team were studying how hearing words, speaking out loud and imagining words involves brain areas that overlap.
‘Now, the challenge is to reproduce comprehensible speech from direct brain recordings done while a person imagines a word they would like to say,’ lead author Professor Robert Knight said at the time.
Professor Knight said the goal of the device is to help people affected by motor disease such as paralysis and Lou Gehrig’s Disease.
‘There are many neurological disorders that limit speech despite patients being fully aware of what they want to say,’ Professor Knight said.
‘We want to develop an implantable device that decodes the signals that occur in the brain when we think about a word, then turn these signals into a sound file that can be reproduced by a speech device.’
A mind-reaching machine that can translate thoughts into speech is coming closer to reality. The research has been ongoing for several years, and recently, scientists successfully managed to playback a word that someone is thinking by monitoring their brain activity
Using electrodes placed on the surface of the language areas of the brain of awake patients, scientists monitored the pattern of electrical responses of brain cells during perceived speech. The scientists then created a computer model that could match spoken sounds to these signals
Such a novel device would communicate people’s intended thoughts via an electronic speaker or writing device, but the team still has a lot more research to conduct.
They were able to reproduce a word a person has just heard on a machine by monitoring temporal lobe activity in a neurosurgical setting.
Using electrodes placed on the surface of the language areas of the brain of awake patients, they monitored the pattern of electrical responses of brain cells during perceived speech.
The scientists then created a computer model that could match spoken sounds to these signals.
‘We recorded electrical signals directly from the human language areas when a person heard words,’ Professor Knight said.
‘We then decoded these electrical signals and were able to turn them into sound files that reflected what the person heard, with remarkable accuracy.’
Remarkably, the team was then able to decode speech when a person thinks of a specific word, from direct brain recordings.
‘The new techniques and mathematical processing of the brain signals got us closer to the details we need to extract the signals that are relevant for reproducing speech,’ Professor Knight said.