Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Novice pilot skills improved via expert-pilot brainwave patterns

kurzweilai.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 27 posts

Re: Novice pilot skills improved via expert-pilot brainwave patterns

#11

Post by nefitty »

The headline is a little confusing. Basically, these researchers measured the brainwaves of expert pilots during a flight simulation, and then stimulated (using transcranial direct current stimulation, or tDCS) the brains of novice pilots during a flight simulation to match the brainwaves measured in the experts. They found that the real tDCS-applied group showed 33% "increase in skill consistency", as compared to the sham tDCS-applied group.

The interesting bit is the tDCS use, really. As many here may know, diy tDCS has become a popular trend among lifehackers. It is thus vital to note the possible negative side effects of tDCS, as pointed out by the editor of Kurzweil AI in the comments of the blog post: "Electric brain stimulation decreases IQ scores and racial prejudice" http://www.kurzweilai.net/electric-brain-stimulation-decreas...

Re: Novice pilot skills improved via expert-pilot brainwave patterns

#12

Post by BWStearns »

cjhveal wrote: post #10

I'd have liked to have seen two control groups. One group which received the "mock brain stimulation" and another which received no brain stimulation. It may be the case that playing noise into someone's brain has a detrimental effect on performance which is less prevalent when the stimulus roughly corresponds to the activity of a healthy brain. If you drop a heavy weight onto someone's foot, they're likely to perfor…

I read the "mock brain stimulation" as meaning the headset seemed to be doing something but was doing nothing. I guess the critique of the experiment would more or less stand, though it'd be slightly rearranged. Maybe dropping weights on any part of the body improves performance?

Re: Novice pilot skills improved via expert-pilot brainwave patterns

#13

Post by neurotech1 »

eloff wrote: post #7

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, not a study with a sample size of 32, including the control group. I remain super skeptical that the statistically significant result actually implies a real result (and the smaller the study, the lower the chances.)

IMHO This article is interesting but slightly misleading. Its known from other research that certain tasks are easier in a certain "brain state" which tDCS could stimulate.

A classic example would be that a Blue Angels pilot goes through the entire display routine, in their heads before they strap into the cockpit. [0] If the pilots didn't mentally prepare to fly precisely, even a highly experienced pilot couldn't achieve that level of performance. Its likely that the brain activity between different flights, and between different flight leaders, would be somewhat consistent.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBIXmkpO6H4&feature=youtu.be...

Re: Novice pilot skills improved via expert-pilot brainwave patterns

#17

Post by pygy_ »

BWStearns wrote: post #12
cjhveal wrote: post #10

I'd have liked to have seen two control groups. One group which received the "mock brain stimulation" and another which received no brain stimulation. It may be the case that playing noise into someone's brain has a detrimental effect on performance which is less prevalent when the stimulus roughly corresponds to the activity of a healthy brain. If you drop a heavy weight onto someone's foot, they're likely to perfor…

I read the "mock brain stimulation" as meaning the headset seemed to be doing something but was doing nothing. I guess the critique of the experiment would more or less stand, though it'd be slightly rearranged. Maybe dropping weights on any part of the body improves performance?

It's "sham stimulation" (that's the technical term used in research) and, in the case of direct current stimulation, it means what you described. The current used for tDCS is too low to be perceived, so no current is an acceptable placebo.

Re: Novice pilot skills improved via expert-pilot brainwave patterns

#18

Post by cpncrunch »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #2

That is without a doubt the freakiest thing I have read this week. (Tl:dr - they recorded trans-cranial currents in motor and working memory areas of experts landing a plane and replayed that or a control into novice pilots heads. The novices perfeomed 33% better.)

Where does it say they performed 33% better? The only mention of 33% is:

"the reduced variance reached statistical significance in >33% of individual N-back trials comparing DLPFC stim with DLPFC sham"

which means something completely different. I think this study might be terribly overblown.

Re: Novice pilot skills improved via expert-pilot brainwave patterns

#19

Post by cpncrunch »

eloff wrote: post #7

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, not a study with a sample size of 32, including the control group. I remain super skeptical that the statistically significant result actually implies a real result (and the smaller the study, the lower the chances.)

It just says "the reduced variance reached statistical significance in >33% of individual N-back trials comparing DLPFC stim with DLPFC sham" which I think isn't quite the same as having a statistically significant overall result. If you look at the results the sham group is better in quite a few of the graphs.

I get the impression that the study results weren't quite as impressive as they had hoped, and they have added some spin to make it look better.

Re: Novice pilot skills improved via expert-pilot brainwave patterns

#20

Post by Laaw »

eloff wrote: post #7

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, not a study with a sample size of 32, including the control group. I remain super skeptical that the statistically significant result actually implies a real result (and the smaller the study, the lower the chances.)

Small sample sizes don't mean low confidence, why do people constantly make that mistake?

What you should be asking about are confidence intervals and reproducibility.

Post reply on HN