The article “Brain Scans Let Computer Reconstruct Movie Scenes” of Dawn.com describes a recent breakthrough made at the University of California, Berkeley by a team of neuroscientists. In a paper published online Thursday by the journal Current Biology, the group revealed that they had successfully used computers to reconstruct movie clips. The videos were viewed by volunteers in MRI machines and computers then used data from their brain activity to reproduce the clips. While the reconstructed images were only blurry representations, they still mimicked shapes and movement, which is a tremendous breakthrough in the field of neuroscience. The tests were on done on the three co-authors of the report. They were required to remain motionless inside an MRI machine for several hours while the machine used a technique called functional MRI, which shows brain activity rather than anatomy. The computer that was employed had approximately 18 million one-second YouTube clips stored in it. These were then used to predict the brain activity that each of them would evoke. Then, as the subjects viewed 10 to 20 second movie clips, the computer matched their brain activity to that of the stored clips and created a blend of images. Scientists hope to improve the quality of these reconstructed clips by updating the computer with a larger number of stored moving images. Nevertheless, this is “one of the most impressive demonstrations of the scientific knowledge of how the visual system works,” noted Marcel Just, who is the director of the Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging at Carnegie Mellon University.
The implications and possible applications of this development are tremendous. As the technology improves and becomes more readily available, it may be able to help stroke victims and others who have no way to communicate by allowing people to understand their thoughts. Furthermore, some scientists speculate that it might reveal hallucinations and dreams in the future. It could also provide beneficial brain stimulation for those who experience difficulty while processing visual information. Finally, while the technology has the potential for mind-reading capability, experts note that it would only appear far in the future due to scope of information that still remains unknown about the brain.
This article had numerous strengths that made it well written and very informative. I particularly enjoyed the author’s successful integration of quotations. They included numerous quotes from a number of pertinent experts on various issues relating to the article. Furthermore, I found the author’s exploration of the technology’s possible applications to be both insightful and thought provoking. On the contrary, I felt that the author’s description of the experimentation process was slightly confusing. It was not arranged in a logical order and certain sections were redundant. In spite of that, I thoroughly enjoyed this article and learned a great deal.
AP. “Brain Scans Let Computer Reconstruct Movie Scenes.” DAWN.com. 25 Sept. 2011. Web. 25 Sept. 2011. <http://www.dawn.com/2011/09/25/brain-scans-let-computer-reconstruct-movie-scenes.html>.
On a mission to find an interesting, thought-provoking current event article, Will Dougherty was able to thoroughly explain the importance of brain scanning findings that were discussed in Dawn.com’s “Brain Scans Let Computer Reconstruct Movie Scenes”, which was published in Current Biology recently. This article discusses how researchers at the University of California, Berkley have developed a study in which MRI machines can read a person’s thought, while they are watching TV, and redirect these thoughts onto a computer. Will incorporated the key ideas that made this article compelling, such as a particular study that occurred involving Youtube videos. Will talks of how a computer stored 18 million one-second Youtube videos, which a viewer had to view so that the computer can attempt to render the viewers’ thoughts. Another point that Will successfully addressed involved medical benefits, in which the article discussed how if this technology was perfected, then stroke survivors could communicate their thoughts in the future. Thirdly, Will mentioned how this new brain scanning process could become invasive, because researchers will have the opportunity to see a person’s thoughts.
ReplyDeleteAlthough Will incorporated almost all of the valid points that this article addresses, there are a few that need to be brought up. For example, the article mentions the value of capturing dreams through this new scanning technology in the future, and how people will pay good money to review their dreams and see what they subconsciously dream about. Another point that Will did not address regarded the quality of the scanned images. For instance, the examples of the brain scans are quite blurry and almost completely unrelated to the original image. This evidence proves that although there is a connection between the brain and the computer images, it will be ages before the quality of the scans will be useful. One interesting this I found in this article was how the specific Youtube videos, including one with an elephant become blended together in a person’s mind, so that the image was hard to separate in scanning. This is interesting because it shows that the brain, although influenced by different images, connects all images together simultaneously.
Will certainly did a great job reviewing this article. It is likely the article did not simplistically explain what was going on in these experiments, but Will nailed that. While not reducing it to a boring recollection of facts and statements, he provided interesting insights and applications of this new revolution in neuroscience. The insights Will stated would excite a lot of people, as they hold incredible potential for a much more advanced future. The benefits he mentioned did not end there, either. The multitude of medical advantages, such as a way of communicating for stroke victims, and even more interesting research into the unknowns of the human brain, dreams, and hallucinations supplied a great read. Finally, I was happy to read that Will included the downsides to this new technology, as these factors wouldn’t cross everybody’s mind when reading about such a radical experiment. He wrote that the quality of the images were poor, and took quite a while to be created by the MRI. While this is a big disappointment, I was glad to see Will had taken into account both sides of this research.
ReplyDeleteWill’s article, overall, was fantastically presented, but there were some points that could have been better. He mentions that he particularly enjoyed the author’s quotations, and while I understand that this assignment is short and a lot cannot be included, it would be nice to see what these quotes said without referring back to the article. As well, there wasn’t much brought up about how this new technology would be used in current day situations. Numerous examples were given of future, more sophisticated implications, but whether or not there is any practical usage of it right now is a good question.
There were so many points in this article that I found fascinating it’s hard to pick one that I was most impressed by. Perhaps the fact that one day this may be used for “mind reading” is the most interesting.