Mind-reading brain scanner can retrieve images from human memory

[Perspicuo]

Mind-Reading Brain Scanner Can Retrieve Images From Human Memory
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/mind-reading-brain-scanner-can-retrieve-images-human-memory-1449043

Scientists have created a mind-reading machine that allows them to reconstruct images in a person's mind using brain scans.

They believe that the technology could be used to create e-fits from someone's memory of a crime, or even create pictures of dreams.

"It is a form of mind-reading," Marvin Chun, professor of psychology, cognitive science and neurobiology at Yale University said.

Researchers Chun, Brice Kuhl of New York University and Alan Cowen of the University of California at Berkeley made the astonishing breakthrough.

They built on previous research in which scientists were able to identify whether a person was looking at a beach or city scene, an animal or a building, using brain scans.

"But they can only tell you they are viewing an animal or a building, not what animal or building," Chun said.

"This is a different level of sophistication."

They still have a long way to go, but I guess in the future, detectives will not need to play "good cop / bad cop", and instead hook you to a machine. Exciting and scary at the same time.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Oh, god, no. Please, please, please someone restrict this technology, and quickly.
DeviantArt is already heavily weighted with selfies of boobs and genitals, and chicken scratched superheroes that are indistinguishable from those cave paintings that were found to have powerful hallucinogenics in the dyes....

The internet does not need people uploading last night's dream, or a detailed picture of how they imagined torturing their math teacher this morning, or what they want to do with the weathergirl (and four chopsticks, a rotisserie chicken, and a shower curtain) tonight.

Yeeeegh!

 

[Malintent]

You misquoted the article and implied that the "sophistication" they currently have is "telling the difference between an animal or a building". The full, clearer quote is

They built on previous research in which scientists were able to identify whether a person was looking at a beach or city scene, an animal or a building, using brain scans.
But they can only tell you they are viewing an animal or a building, not what animal or building, Chun said. This is a different level of sophistication.

 

[Mageth]

I'd like to see the published paper, but for now...

Yale news article

"Working with funding from the Yale Provost’s office, Cowen and post doctoral researcher Brice Kuhl, now an assistant professor at New York University, showed six subjects 300 different “training” faces while undergoing fMRI scans. They used the data to create a sort of statistical library of how those brains responded to individual faces. They then showed the six subjects new sets of faces while they were undergoing scans. Taking that fMRI data alone, researchers used their statistical library to reconstruct the faces their subjects were viewing."

So the article/thread title "Mind-Reading Brain Scanner Can Retrieve Images From Human Memory" is a bit misleading. The images (e.g., those shown in the OP) are not exactly "retrieved" from human memory, but are reconstructed from a library of images based on the brain scans. Still impressive...

 

[doubtingt]

I'd like to see the published paper, but for now...

Yale news article

"Working with funding from the Yale Provost’s office, Cowen and post doctoral researcher Brice Kuhl, now an assistant professor at New York University, showed six subjects 300 different “training” faces while undergoing fMRI scans. They used the data to create a sort of statistical library of how those brains responded to individual faces. They then showed the six subjects new sets of faces while they were undergoing scans. Taking that fMRI data alone, researchers used their statistical library to reconstruct the faces their subjects were viewing."

So the article/thread title "Mind-Reading Brain Scanner Can Retrieve Images From Human Memory" is a bit misleading. The images (e.g., those shown in the OP) are not exactly "retrieved" from human memory, but are reconstructed from a library of images based on the brain scans. Still impressive...

Yeah, there really is nothing dealing with memory here at all. The subjects are not recalling anything. The brain images are of when then are actively looking at an image. For it to work, they have to scan your brain hundreds of times while you are looking at images they are in control of with varying features, then scan you again when looking at new images that vary along the same basic dimensions as the prior set. From this can partly reconstruct the new image you were looking at.
The brain responds in far more predictable ways when processing an observed image then when recalling a past event or having a dream. This is a very long way from being able to map internal thoughts that aren't simple perceptual responses to known external stimuli being actively presented.