Mind Reading?
Every so often, a story comes a long within the field of psychology which underlines just how far we’ve still got to go.
In a study at UCLA, subjects were asked to do one of 8 different tasks – from saying whether words rhymed, to counting the number of tones they heard. So – very different, varied tasks.
Investigators using fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) – the very cutting edge of brain scanning – and then had to guess from the results of the scans which tasks the subjects were doing.
Chance alone would get 1/8 or 12.5% of guesses correct. They managed 80%. Pretty good – but let’s just remember that they were looking at tasks that were very (very) distinct. And they still got it wrong 20% of the time…
How did they do it? With machine learning math (the same kind of math that we use at Cognitive Match). And yes, it’s a bit of a good result for this field of technology. But far from perfect, and very far from mind reading.
Of course, all this means is that fMRI and the way we interpret the results from that technology could be better. Much better.
But more importantly – maybe it’s just the wrong thing to do (which is my take on it). It’s a bit like working out whether the stock market is up, based on satellite weather images. The brain just doesn’t work based on large areas of electrical activity on a scan. It’s complex, enmeshed, multi-layered, abstracted and part of a body of integrated biological mechanisms. And I hope that’s clear.
