JOhn-Dylan Haynes, director of the Berlin Advanced Neuroimaging Center, is a bit like the main mind reader among brain researchers. He was one of the first to use machine learning algorithms to identify patterns in magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) images. There should be a better understanding of the thinking and decision-making process. In their book, he and co-author Matthias Eckoldt summarized about 15 years of research in the field. The subtitle promises a lot: “How do our ideas come about, and how you read them.”
This idea is not new. About a hundred years ago, when Professor Jenenser Hans Berger developed an electroencephalogram (EEG), people thought that they would soon be able to write letters to themselves with “brain writing”. Then, in the 1950s and 1960s, great progress was made in the field of brain electrical stimulation.inside cold war This is accompanied by thoughts of mind reading and mind control. For some people, this is a curse, while others see it as a blessing, for example in the fight against crime. The author is now playing a similar idea: Can the terrorist attack on September 11 be prevented by mind control at the airport?
Restrictions are quickly forgotten
Most of the content in this book conveys scientific principles: How does fMRI work? What is pattern recognition? What is a brain-computer interface? How to conduct related experiments? In particular, Haynes’ own research was discussed. Many illustrations clarify abstract concepts, and comics loosen scientific questions. In this sense, this book is really successful and suitable for readers.
Research must be limited to experimentally feasible and ethically reasonable limits. But Haynes quickly forgot about these restrictions after explaining his data. This is also very clear in the new book. For example, the self-experiment of a TV reporter has its own chapter titled “Computer Cracking the Code of Thought.” The lady brought ten photos-people, animals, sights and objects-and she checked them on a magnetic resonance tomography scanner. As is usual in this type of experiment, the algorithm learns in the first stage to distinguish the measured data. In the second stage, the image is viewed again, but the algorithm must now determine what the object is seeing. Conclusion: The computer has achieved a “100% hit rate for identifying journalists’ thoughts”.
The formation of the myth about free will
Nothing was “cracked” here, and no ideas were read. For example, the importance of the fact that the Brandenburg Gate was seen was given to the brain by the experimenter alone, not the computer. As long as the data patterns of the first and second phases are similar enough, reporters can see, think of, or do something completely different. “Brainless brain research” is called by psychology professor Scott Lilienfeld (Scott Lilienfeld) as a critic of brain imaging research and its exaggeration.
