University of
Washington graduate student Jose Ceballos wears an electroencephalography
(EEG) cap that
records brain activity and sends a response to a second participant
over the
Internet.University of Washington
(September 23, 2015) Imagine a question-and-answer game played by two people who
are not in the same place and not talking to each other. Round after round, one
player asks a series of questions and accurately guesses the object the other
is thinking about.
Sci-fi? Mind-reading superpowers? Not quite.
University of Washington researchers recently used a direct
brain-to-brain connection to enable pairs of participants to play a
question-and-answer game by transmitting signals from one brain to the other
over the Internet. The experiment, detailed today in PLOS ONE, is thought to be
the first to show that two brains can be directly linked to allow one person to
guess what’s on another person’s mind.
“This is the most complex brain-to-brain experiment, I
think, that’s been done to date in humans,” said lead author Andrea Stocco, an
assistant professor of psychology and a researcher at UW’s Institute for
Learning & Brain Sciences.
“It uses conscious experiences through signals that are
experienced visually, and it requires two people to collaborate,” Stocco said.
University of
Washington postdoctoral student Caitlin Hudac wears a cap that
uses transcranial
magnetic stimulation (TMG) to deliver brain signals from the other
participant.University of Washington
Here’s how it works: The first participant, or “respondent,”
wears a cap connected to an electroencephalography (EEG) machine that records
electrical brain activity. The respondent is shown an object (for example, a
dog) on a computer screen, and the second participant, or “inquirer,” sees a list
of possible objects and associated questions. With the click of a mouse, the
inquirer sends a question and the respondent answers “yes” or “no” by focusing
on one of two flashing LED lights attached to the monitor, which flash at
different frequencies.