From medical applications like helping dermatologists diagnose skin cancer to teaching robots to get a better grip on the world around them, deep learning neural networks can carry out some pretty impressive tasks. Could mind reading be among them?
Mind-reading speller allows vegetative-state patients to communicate
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0I7h6Uucnc[/youtube]
The first real-time brain-scanning speller will allow people in an apparent vegetative state (unable to speak or move) to communicate, according to Maastricht University scientists. (video)
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Is Yawning Uncontrollable and Contagious?
Hanging out with Steve Platek will make you yawn. He’ll get you thinking about yawning, reading about yawning, and sooner or later, your mouth’s gaping. You can’t help it. “My favorite way to induce a yawn,” Platek says, “is a video clip of a good yawner paired with yawn audio.” Platek, a cognitive neuroscientist at Drexel University, alternately describes yawning as “a primitive unconscious mechanism” or something that’s “sweet,” “totally cool” or “awesome.” And he’s finally figuring out why it’s contagious.
Scientists (and everybody else) have known for decades that yawns are contagious, but they’ve never known why. Some think it’s an unconscious mirror effect – someone yawns, you yawn in response almost like a reflex. But Platek says he thinks it has to do with empathy. The way he sees it, the more empathetic you are, the more likely it is that you’ll identify with a yawner and experience a yawn yourself. In a recent study, Platek looked at contagious yawning in people with “high empathy,” “low empathy” and everything in between. He found that higher empathy meant more yawn-susceptible and lower empathy meant more yawn-immune.
But that wasn’t proof enough. So Platek put volunteers in M.R.I. machines and made them yawn again and again to pinpoint the areas of the brain involved. When their brains lighted up in the exact regions of the brain involved in empathy, Platek remembers thinking, “Wow, this is so cool!”
Some yawning researchers – of which there are few – have identified many types of yawns. There’s the contagious yawn, the I’m-tired yawn and the I-just-woke-up yawn. There’s the threat yawn, which is the my-teeth-are-bigger-than-yours yawn that’s so popular with primates. (“People do it, too,” says Platek, “but unfortunately, we don’t have scary teeth anymore.”) There’s also the sexual yawn. (One scientist claims that yawns are used in seduction.)
At some point, you have to wonder: why study yawning? It’s quirky, interesting, but not important, right? Wrong, says Platek. Nearly every species on the planet yawns: insects, fish, birds, reptiles, mammals. “Yawning is such a primitive neurological function,” Platek says, “it’s a window into what happened during the evolution of the brain.”
The good thing about yawning is that it’s not boring. “Scientists like me usually go to conferences and give talks about technical mumbo jumbo,” Platek says. “The audience always yawns, and we’re up there thinking, Oh, man, they’re so bored! But when I give a talk about yawning and they yawn, I think: Sweet! They’re paying attention!”
Several years ago, I took a remarkable psychology class from a professor whose interest in the field seemed to be motivated, at least in part, by a desire to unearth new tricks for beguiling the opposite sex. Ethical implications aside, his lectures were generously garnished with anecdotes that held his wide-eyed freshmen audience in rapt attention. Among the tips he shared was a psychologically based method for casually gauging just who might be checking you out in a crowded place: yawning. The theory goes that if you yawn, anyone who’s surreptitiously watching you won’t be able to resist yawning too, giving themselves away (and marking them as a susceptible target for wooing). (Pics) Continue reading… “Is Yawning Uncontrollable and Contagious?”
Brain Scan Can Catch Liars in the Act
Brain imaging might be able to tell you if someone is a liar
It might be possible to decide soon whether a criminal has reformed or the risk of his relapse is too high with the help of brain imaging, which scientists say can be used in the justice system.
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Bullies May Enjoy Inflicting Pain Study Shows
A study was done on aggressive teenagers and shows that they may actually enjoy inflicting pain on others.
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