通过使用功能性核磁共振(fMRI)，研究人员报道说他们向着制造思想阅读机器迈出了第一步。
通过使用fMRI扫描观察受试者大脑血流来测绘大脑活动，伦敦大学学院(UCL; UK) 的科学家能够说出受试者是否正在思考，甚至在其本人不知道的情况之下。在参加实验者观察计算机屏幕上不同物体歪向右侧或者左侧的时候，UCL科学家评估视觉皮层的大脑活动。两秒中的大脑活动检测已经足以让科学家预测出志愿者正在观看的歪向一侧的物体，其准确性高达80%。
即使当这些物体被伪装让志愿者无法看见，他们的大脑活动仍然可以被用于预测这些物体是否存在，提示大脑潜意识机制能够记录这些物体。从被测试者的大脑活动中，研究人员可以比其本人更多地知道他看见了什么。这项研究结果报道在2005年4月25日的《自然神经科学》期刊之上。
UCL的研究人员Geraint Rees 说：“这是迈向能够阅读某人思想的第一步。如果我们的研究方法能够被扩大，那样只要从某人大脑活动中就可以预测某人正在想什么或者看见了什么。总体而言，这项技术能够用于诸如测谎器之类的东西，但是仍然需要更多的研究。我们必须要搞清楚哪一个区域能够预测某人在撒谎。这也许与视觉皮层不同，可能不会产生足够强烈的信号。测谎器同时必须能够在不同测试者中使用，我们目前只是根据单个测试者的大脑活动进行预测。”
这些研究人员报道他们下一步将研究大脑活动是否能够被用于预测在时间变化时候的意识改变。
Reading Minds with fMRI
By utilizing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), researchers reported that they have made the first steps towards constructing a mind-reading device.
By plotting brain activity by looking at blood flow in the study participants’ brains on fMRI scans, scientists at the University College London (UCL; UK) could tell what a person was thinking, even when the individual was not conscious of it themselves. The UCL scientists assessed brain activity in the visual cortex while the participants viewed different objects slanted to the right or left on a computer screen. One two-second measurement of brain activity was sufficient for scientists to predict with 80% accuracy which of the two slanted objects the volunteers were seeing.
Even when objects were disguised to appear invisible to the volunteer, their brain activity could still be used to predict which of the objects was present, suggesting that unconscious mechanisms in the brain were documenting the object. The researchers could tell more about what had been shown to the individuals from their brain activity then the individuals themselves. The study was published in the April 25, 2005, issue of the journal Nature Neuroscience.
“This is the first basic step to reading somebody’s mind. If our approach could be expanded upon, it might be possible to predict what someone was thinking or seeing from their brain activity alone,” said UCL researcher, Dr. Geraint Rees. “In principle, the technique could be applied to a device such as a lie detector but much more research would be needed. You would need to explore which regions of the brain might predict whether someone was lying. These could be very different to the visual cortex and might not carry strong enough signals. A lie detector would also need to generalize across subjects, whereas we were basing our predictions on the brain activity of each individual.”
The researchers reported that their next step is to explore whether brain activity can be used to forecast how consciousness changes over time.
