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

Brain implant translates paralyzed man's thoughts into text with 94% accuracy

sciencealert.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 222 posts

Re: Brain implant translates paralyzed man's thoughts into text with 94% accuracy

#201

Post by gonehome »

LocalH wrote: post #199
gonehome wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My skepticism probably comes in part from an anti-religion, anti-mystic reflex. There’s a lot of woo around this stuff so it often puts me on guard. Obviously nobody is claiming psychic powers here, but I wouldn’t expect brains to operate that differently - so it’s surprising to me.

>but I wouldn’t expect brains to operate that differently Everyone's neurotransmitter balance is different. Of course that will cause brains to sometimes operate wildly differently.

Sure, but there are 4 billion years of selective pressure behind us that make us a lot more alike than different. Maybe this runs at a higher level in the 'brain software stack' that has more variation, but it seems like it'd be a more common lower level type of thing.

Ultimately this is just a hunch though about what I suspect is more likely, I can obviously be wrong.

Re: Brain implant translates paralyzed man's thoughts into text with 94% accuracy

#202

Post by thyselius »

progman32 wrote: post #170
mywittyname wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In one of Feynman's books, he discusses and experiment that he did with people keeping time in their heads (count 30 seconds) while simultaneously reading a passage of a book. Some people had absolutely no issue with doing this, but many people found it impossible. When he asked people how they kept track of how much time had passed, he found that people who pictured a number in their heads were able to keep time and…

Just tried it on this thread. I speak the time to myself and had no problem reading this comment and formulating a reply while keeping time.

Did the same and couldn't keep the time. I can feel the 1 second beat, but I forget what second I'm at after a few seconds

Re: Brain implant translates paralyzed man's thoughts into text with 94% accuracy

#203

Post by spiffytech »

cookingrobot wrote: post #185
CapmCrackaWaka wrote: post #88

Interesting that the user has to think of specific letters to spell out a word. I guess the 26 distinct English letters are much easier to parse and separate than the untold thousands of words, especially when those words could be used in different contexts. I bet the next step wouldn't be to even parse words to make a sentence. It seems to me the next low hanging fruit would be to enable this machine to parse common…

Note that this doesn’t work by detecting his “imagined” letters. It’s detecting him trying to move his paralyzed hand through the motion of drawing the letters on paper. By measuring the motor cortex activity it seems to be looking at something closer to an “output” of the brain rather than an internal representation. So detecting imagined letters or words or ideas seems like a different problem than this achievement…

Does this mean it's plausible to detect sign language instead of handwriting? I'd expect the WPM to be much higher there.

Re: Brain implant translates paralyzed man's thoughts into text with 94% accuracy

#204

Post by wpietri »

gonehome wrote: post #197
wpietri wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My introspection is quite good on this; I've been doing meditation on and off for decades. Sorry, but I don't have an internal narrator. Instead, the meditative interruptions that come with words are generally imagined discussions with other people or things to write about. Like you, I had a hard time believing people were different in this. The whole idea of an internal narrator seemed absurd to me. Why would anybod…

Imagined discussion is what I'm talking about. It's not narration like "I'm picking up the coffee mug now, I'm clicking the button now" - it's silent speech with oneself. Often it's trying to predict what will happen or thinking about things with language. It's not that every action must be stated by some narrator, but that a narrator exists to discuss things with oneself. Without language and semantic meaning tied t…

For me there are significant periods without words or images. I also almost never "discuss things with oneself". I understand that people do that, but for many years I just thought it was metaphor occasionally made real in film and books. The sort of storytelling convention that is made fun of here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CahNAauFgys

I get that you have a hard time understanding thinking without words because that's your main experience. But please understand that it's different for other people.

And not just people. Animals can be very thoughtful. Watch documentaries, for example, of animal cognition and problem-solving. From crows to chimps, an awful lot of thinking happens, just not in words.

Re: Brain implant translates paralyzed man's thoughts into text with 94% accuracy

#205

Post by te0006 »

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #130
andrem wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well here is one other random sample who has to turn the inner voice on when necessary :) Instead of a voice I have a constant song playing in my head when I am not focused. The song changes multiple times per week but if I am on idle I have a song. When I speak the song turns off, but no voice comes on, unless I consciously prepare my words. Now when typing this comment, I have a voice (which is my own voice) say th…

I also have a song playing in my head most of the time (even while reading but not writing , like you). I’m a hobbyist musician; maybe that’s part of it. But I also have an inner voice . I think the music stops when the voice starts, not sure. For the last week I’ve had “right down the line” by Gerry Raferty (70s pop song) playing.

This repetetive inner soundtrack thimg can be really annoying sometimes, hampering or even killing concentration on "real thoughts". Any pro tips on how to turn that off? Best approach I found is bulldozing it over with a really powerful but not too beautiful/memorable song. The famous "rickrolling" piece seems to work OK for this. (I.e. not by actually hearing it, just by intentionally "playing it internally".)

Re: Brain implant translates paralyzed man's thoughts into text with 94% accuracy

#206

Post by 0xFreebie »

GOONIMMUNE wrote: post #10

> In tests, the man was able to achieve writing speeds of 90 characters per minute (about 18 words per minute), with approximately 94 percent accuracy (and up to 99 percent accuracy with autocorrect enabled). I'd be interested in knowing how this metric changes over time as the user gains more experience with the BCI device. The article mentions that researchers recorded his neural activity while he was thinking abou…

Long ago, the accuracy would decline as scar tissue formed around implanted electrodes. Not sure if that's changed in recent years as techniques improved.

Re: Brain implant translates paralyzed man's thoughts into text with 94% accuracy

#207

Post by maximus-decimus »

foxfluff wrote: post #133
charcircuit wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That HMD only had a FoV of 45 degrees. The current technology which is production ready is optics using pancake lenses. For an example look at Huawei's VR glasses or HTC's Vive Flow.

Yea, I actually consider the smaller FOV a feature. Doesn't necessarily have to be 45 degrees, but I'm not interested in covering my entire field of view. I want a monitor for work, not for games and movies. Immersion doesn't matter, but the comfort of not needing to cup my eyes sure does.

The whole point of VR is immersion. It's literally called Virtual Reality.

What you seem to want is just a screen strapped to your head with some lenses to make it look further. Why do you want that exactly? Portability? Space saving?

Re: Brain implant translates paralyzed man's thoughts into text with 94% accuracy

#208

Post by [deleted] »

desmosxxx wrote: post #85
mimimi31 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly there are people like myself who don't have an inner monologue (some people supposedly even have a constant dialogue with themselves) at all. The only time I experience something like an inner voice is when reading. My normal thoughts are more abstract I guess, I'm just sort of aware of what I want to do, how I feel etc. It's hard to describe.

I've always been a bit perplexed by the claim of not having an inner monologue, but after reading the replies to your comment I wonder if I'm closer to not having an inner monologue than having one. I thought it was about not being able to summon an inner voice at all. Regardless, it's fascinating to read peoples descriptions and see that it lies on a spectrum. I definitely experience it when reading & writing carefu…

[deleted]

Re: Brain implant translates paralyzed man's thoughts into text with 94% accuracy

#209

Post by idrios »

0xFreebie wrote: post #206
GOONIMMUNE wrote: post #10

> In tests, the man was able to achieve writing speeds of 90 characters per minute (about 18 words per minute), with approximately 94 percent accuracy (and up to 99 percent accuracy with autocorrect enabled). I'd be interested in knowing how this metric changes over time as the user gains more experience with the BCI device. The article mentions that researchers recorded his neural activity while he was thinking abou…

Long ago, the accuracy would decline as scar tissue formed around implanted electrodes. Not sure if that's changed in recent years as techniques improved.

How long ago is long ago? 7 years ago I took a course on the then-current state of the art for neural interfacing, and this was nowhere near a solved problem then. There was research going into emulating sea cucumbers, so the electrode could be stiff enough to penetrate the brain but then soften to avoid the build up of scar tissue. I think that research is still ongoing.

Re: Brain implant translates paralyzed man's thoughts into text with 94% accuracy

#210

Post by gonehome »

wpietri wrote: post #204
gonehome wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagined discussion is what I'm talking about. It's not narration like "I'm picking up the coffee mug now, I'm clicking the button now" - it's silent speech with oneself. Often it's trying to predict what will happen or thinking about things with language. It's not that every action must be stated by some narrator, but that a narrator exists to discuss things with oneself. Without language and semantic meaning tied t…

For me there are significant periods without words or images. I also almost never "discuss things with oneself". I understand that people do that, but for many years I just thought it was metaphor occasionally made real in film and books. The sort of storytelling convention that is made fun of here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CahNAauFgys I get that you have a hard time understanding thinking without words becaus…

The animals example is a good one, thanks for the thoughtful response.
Post reply on HN