Have you ever felt just a tad bit telepathic? It’s a highly sought after superpower and an inherent capability that twins seem to share. For the rest of us, the power to transmit our thoughts to other people and more importantly – to know their thoughts – sounds fantastical, if not impossible. Yet, scientists state it is achievable using a brain-to-brain interface.
SCIENTISTS LINK HUMAN BRAINS TOGETHER
The technology allows a pair to play a “20 question” (Q&A) game. According to Andrea Stocco, one of the researchers behind the study, “it uses unconscious experiences through signals that are experienced visually and it requires two people to collaborate.”
The experiment, the results of which are outlined in PLOS ONE, features five pairs of participants who played 20 rounds of the game. The pairs, however, were separated from each other – nearly a mile apart.
One participant of each pair was told to wear a cap, which was connected to an electroencephalography (EEG) machine that records electrical brain activity. This person, or the “respondent,” was then shown an object on a computer screen. The second participant, or the “inquirer,” had access to a list of possible objects, along with associated questions. His or her main goal was to guess the object by sending questions through a computer to the respondent, who had to simply answer “yes” or “no” by focusing on one of two flashing LED lights attached to a monitor.
Either response, differentiated by differing flashing frequencies, generated a signal, which was sent to the inquirer through a magnetic coil behind his or her head. The “yes” response, however, was strong enough to stimulate the visual cortex and caused the inquirer to see a flash of light known as “phosphine.” This ultimately allowed him or her to determine the answer.
As part of the study, the participants had to sit in a dark room. Each game was comprised of eight objects and three questions. In the experiment, the pairs were able to guess the object 72 percent of the time compared to the 18 percent seen in control rounds.
