• Name

Synthetic Telepathy 

• What is the item

Silent communication from one individual to another via computers that read and transmit thoughts.

• What Horizon is it on

Fifth Horizon

• Explanation of the item 

Scientists at the University of California, Irvine are researching synthetic telepathy, on a grant from the Army.

UC Irvine describes the project:

"The project involves basic research needed to make possible a brain-computer interface for decoding thought and communicating it to an intended target. Applications are to situations in which it is either impossible or inappropriate to communicate using visual means or by audible speech; the long-term aim is to provide a significant advance in Army communication capabilities in such situations. Non-invasive brain-imaging technologies like electroencephalography (EEG) offer a potential way for dispersed team members to communicate their thoughts. A Soldier thinks a message to be transmitted. A system for automatic imagined speech recognition decodes EEG recordings of brain activity during the thought message. A second system infers simultaneously the intended target of the communication from EEG signals. Message and target information are then combined to communicate the message as intended."  http://cnslab.ss.uci.edu/muri/research.html 

Potential applications of synthetic telepathy range from military (silent communication between soldiers), to medical (communication from patients with ALS or Lou Gehrig's Disease), to video games, to recreational communication. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27162401

• Photos (if available)

Brain areas involved in speech processing

(after Hickok and Poeppel, 2004). A ventral

processing stream (the what pathway) maps

sound and meaning. Activity in the superior  

temporal sulcus and the posterior inferior

temporal lobe (pITL) interfaces sound-based

speech representations in the superior

temporal gyrus and widely-distributed

conceptual representations. A dorsal

processing stream (the where, how or do

pathway) involves activity in cortex at the

junction of parietal and temporal lobes in the

sylvian fissure (Spt), which projects to frontal

cortical areas that generate articulatory codes:

posterior inferior frontal and dorsal premotor

sites (pIF/dPM).

http://cnslab.ss.uci.edu/muri/research.html 

• Issues

• Sources

http://cnslab.ss.uci.edu/muri/research.html

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27162401 

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