Brain Chip Decodes Thoughts: Researchers Crack the Code
- A microchip can convert thought-based sentences into text,enabling people with paralysis to communicate with others.
- If a person is unable to speak due to a stroke or paralysis, a so-called brain-computer interface (BCI) can help. It connects the brain directly to technical devices...
- Until now, researchers assumed that a distinction had to be made between intentionally formulated thoughts and so-called "inner speech" - the thoughts that arise when listening or reading...
A microchip can convert thought-based sentences into text,enabling people with paralysis to communicate with others. Until now, researchers assumed that unintentional thoughts remained hidden. But a study is now challenging that assumption.
If a person is unable to speak due to a stroke or paralysis, a so-called brain-computer interface (BCI) can help. It connects the brain directly to technical devices that read brain signals and convert them into commands – for example, to control a computer or move a prosthesis. In this way, it can also decode thoughts and translate them into text.
Until now, researchers assumed that a distinction had to be made between intentionally formulated thoughts and so-called ”inner speech” – the thoughts that arise when listening or reading silently. According to previous understanding, bcis could only decode consciously thought, already sentance-formed content.
A study is challenging this assumption: it shows that both forms arise in the same neuronal space – and that inner speech can also be decoded even when the test subject is not instructed to speak internally.
Scientists at Stanford University in the USA were able to decode unintentional thoughts from four subjects with an accuracy of 74 percent. The results of the study were published in Cell.