Cyberpunk, Spirituality and Technology - The Voidspace Blogspot

Between the lines

The pair showed patterns of parallel lines in 1 of 8 orientations to four volunteers. By focussing on brain regions involved in visual perception they were able to recognise which orientation the subjects were observing.

Each line orientation corresponded to a different pattern of brain activity, although the patterns were different in each person. What is more, when two sets of lines were superimposed and the subjects were asked to focus on one set, the researchers could work out which one they were thinking of from the brain images.

In a separate study, also published in Nature Neuroscience, John-Dylan Haynes and Geraint Rees at University College London, UK, showed two patterns in quick succession to 6 volunteers. The first appeared for just 15 milliseconds - too quick to be consciously perceived by the viewer.

But by viewing MRI images of the brain, the researchers were able to say which image had been flashed in front of the subjects. The information was perceived in the brain even if the volunteers were not consciously aware of it.

The study probed the part of the visual cortex that detects a visual stimulus, but does not perceive it. "It encodes what we don't see," Haynes says. He thinks that, further along the visual pathway, brain regions consciously take note that there has been a stimulus. But this does not happen for the "invisible" stimulus.

Virtual Life

So although the brain patterns caused by individual stimulus are different per person - they are consistent in the same person. This means if you know the responses of the individual, you can tell what they're looking at. There are two questions that spring to mind.

1. Is it just an autonomic response in the visual cortex - in other words, is it just a 'reflex response' of the visual part of the brain - or is it actually linked to consciousness and perception ?
2. By creating the response in that part of the brain (whether through ultrasonics or electrical waves or whatever) - would you experience the corresponding perceptions ? (Would you thinking you were seeing the object ?)

Whatever the answers to those two questions, it's certainly another step forward in harmonising man and machine. A computer ought to be able to tell what you are looking at and adjust what it's displaying. Bizarre.