The ability to read minds has always found a place in the pages of science fiction materials. But now, a new research suggests that nothing is impossible! Neuroscientists at the University of Glasgow have claimed that they have discovered a way to recognize the information-type contained in certain vision-related brain waves.
According to Philippe Schyns, the study author, "It's a bit like unlocking a scrambled television channel. Before, we could detect the signal but couldn't watch the content; now we can." Researchers applied EEG or electroencephalography to observe the patterns of electrical activity in terms of amplitude, phase and frequency. The observations were made when the brain was engaged in several activities.
There were six volunteers who took part in the study. They were shown images of human faces which portrayed various emotions- surprise, delight, sadness and so on. The volunteers were asked to identify the emotions. Again, some of the images were kept partially covered so that volunteers could only get to see some of the features like eyes or mouth.
Researchers observed that "beta" waves, with a frequency of 12 Hz carried some information about the eyes whereas the "theta" waves with a frequency of 4 Hz carried the information about mouth. It was also found that the timing of the brainwave and not the amplitude that can serve as the basis for the encoding of the information.
Schyns explained, "How the brain encodes the visual information that enables us to recognize faces and scenes has long been a mystery. While we are able to detect EEG activity in certain areas of the brain when particular tasks are performed, we've not known what information is being carried in those brainwaves."
The researcher made it clear that the researchers had actually found a way to decode the brainwaves so as to recognize the messages. He also suggested that the study may exert some influence on the formation of brain-computer interfaces.
