Scientists Can Now Officially Read Your Mind, UCLA Declares

By Dennis Romero Fri., Dec. 23 2011 at 8:08 AM

Strain Brain

Not that it takes a rocket scientist to figure out what men are thinking about 90 percent of the time.

But still, don't you find UCLA's revelation just a little scary?

The school's Laboratory of Integrative Neuroimaging Technology is boasting this week that it has pioneered "brain reading."

Yeah, they can read your mind:

Research presented at a neuroimaging workshop in Spain this month outlines the school's ability to predict ... what you're thinking.

This is so spooky.

Luckily, the work by lead author Ariana Anderson, postdoctoral fellow in the Integrative Neuroimaging Technology lab at UCLA, is very focused. It doesn't seem like they can randomly submit you to an MRI and figure out your dirty kinks just yet.

But what they did do is pretty amazing. After exposing smokers to videos that would either induce cravings or present a neutral state regarding cigarette use, researchers analyzed the MRI brain wave data. UCLA:

... Machine learning algorithms were able to anticipate changes in subjects' underlying neurocognitive structure, predicting with a high degree of accuracy (90 percent for some of the models tested) what they were watching and, as far as cravings were concerned, how they were reacting to what they viewed.

The process was compared to Google's predictive search capability, when the site guesses what you're going to search for even before you finish typing:

In essence, the algorithm was able to complete or "predict" the subjects' mental states and thought processes in much the same way that Internet search engines or texting programs on cell phones anticipate and complete a sentence or request before the user is finished typing.

Anderson:

Essentially, we were predicting and detecting what kind of videos people were watching and whether they were resisting their cravings.

Um. This doesn't apply to any kind of video, does it?

So what are we thinking now?

Yeah -- you're not so smart without those algorithms, are you?

[UCLA].

[@dennisjromero / djromero@laweekly.com / @LAWeeklyNews]

Tags:

brain scan, mind reading, MRI, research, UCLA

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Reviews Expert

unbelievable dear and think this is something hard to understand.

Roger Theman

This makes me think about the ultimate question, what about the innocent prisoners in jail. Are they going to use this technology once it becomes that good?

Tyler Santander

This is a terrible article. I don't even know where to begin... First, fMRI does not read "brain waves." You're thinking of event-related potentials with EEG. Rather, we measure a signal called BOLD, which is essentially based on the assumption that changes in blood flow and oxygenation are related to neural activity. Also, pattern classification via a statistical learning algorithm is NOT a new thing in cognitive neuroscience. The lab that I am a researcher for in has recently used an SVM (support vector machine) classifier to accurately predict psychopathy based on functional activity in a system of brain regions called the Default Mode Network. Another lab in Berkeley has also done something similar, reconstructing visual scenes from decoded fMRI BOLD signals: https://sites.google.com/site/...

It takes gathering a whole lot of data on very precise things to develop these classifiers - the key word here being precise. It's not likely that we'll be able to decode individual thought processes (i.e. internal mental dialogue) any time soon, but I suppose it's certainly an exciting future possibility.

Gideon777

This is laughable. Anyone who is real, right and true in this world, and who isn't a satanist (hard to find), is telepathic. You don't have to admit it, but it is true.

Shpongleyes88

What the hell are you talking about? Satanist's can't read minds? You sound like an uniformed religious cook.

HybridRxN

I can already predict what someones going to type before they type it.

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Karen Nelson

Reading a brain and reading a mind might be two very different things. Secondly, the algorithms only predict a response based on the stimulus. It can't predict without knowing the stimulus. No external stimulus does NOT = no thought. Come on UCLA. YOU know better!

VangNee

lol, no way dude I jsut dony buy that for a second.

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Anonymous

Dennis you need to read the whole UCLA report more carefully. They tried to read your mind, but found it empty.

Dennis Romero

Thanks. Always nice to hear from random haters who have the time to care on the eve of the holidays.

Anonymous

I don't hate you Dennis, just wish you would be a little more informative and a little less opinionated in your blogs. It would be a fresh alternative from that failure of a newspaper called the LA Times. And have a very Merry Christmas!