The future is now: Researchers Developed Computer Modeling capable of Reading Words in People’s Thoughts

By utilizing a new and very efficient computer modeling technology, researches have been able to reconstruct words of which patients have been thinking of by reading their brain waves.

BBC reported (here) that scientists were able to do so by gathering the electrical signals directly from the brain of the patient; after this, they used a computer model to reconstruct the sounds of words that the patients were thinking of.

This is an important step in the world of medicine as well, since if proven successful, it can be applied as a way to help locked-in and comatose patients to communicate. To obtain consistent results, the researchers implanted a specific number of electrodes directly into the participants’ brains in the same area, so as to be sure the results were real and verifiable in all cases.

Brian Pasley of the University of California, Berkeley was the leader of the project. Pasley and a team of researchers focused on the STG (the superior temporal gyrus), an area of the brain said to carry a big load of electrical signals; it is part of the hearing apparatus and it is an important part of the “higher-order” brain regions which are in charge of our making sense of the sounds we hear.

The experiment conducted by Pasley and his team was centered on 15 patients who were undergoing surgery for either epilepsy or tumors; while they were undergoing surgery, a tape played in the background a number of words or phrases recited by numerous speakers.

After registering their brain activity, the team then applied the results to a computer modeling system in order to map out which parts of the brain were generating certain brain waves in response to the different frequencies of sound played.

By analyzing the results, the team was then able to guess the words the participants were thinking of by analyzing the brain waves they generated whilst thinking of them. Using the same computer model they managed to also reconstruct some of the words by actually converting brain waves into sound.

If you’re interested in reading more on the subject, feel free to access it in the Public Library of Science here .