MIND READING TYPEWRITER

A typewriter that reads minds

The prototype of a “mental typewriter” that can decode human thoughts was presented at the CeBit fair in Hanover, Germany.

PRAVEENA SHIVRAM

15 March 2006

When it was casually mentioned to someone that a typewriter which can read minds had been invented, that someone was not so comfortable. Well, it is not literally a typewriter, so don't go imagining a little box like structure, with a ribbon and black keys in front. It is in fact an ordinary computer screen, with letters on it, and much like old science fiction movies where a cap with myriad wires sprouting out of it is connected to the computer, this one too is a similar contraption. As the human brain thinks, the letters on the screen eventually form sentences, and viola! The mind is read. Yes, it is as easy as that, which explains the discomfort of that someone.

This invention, titled the "mental typewriter" made its public appearance recently at the CeBit high-tech fair in Hanover, Germany. Invented by neurology specialists from Berlin's Charite Hospital, in association with scientists from Germany's Fraunhofer Institute, the idea behind the invention was to help patients, who are suffering from any kind of injury or disease, to be able to communicate again. As long as the patients’ brain is unaffected, this mind typewriter can act as the necessary catalysts in the communication processes.

Two people, as volunteers, demonstrated the invention at the fair. Wearing leather caps that resembled a shower cap, with wires linked to the computer, the two subjects were absolutely still, and as their imagination took shape in their heads, it came alive on the screen for the audience present at the fair. The letters, based on the process of elimination, began to form sentences, and slowly, it all began to make sense.

One of the brains (pun unintended) behind the project, Klaus-Robert Mueller of the Fraunhofer Institute, told AFP in an interview, "They imagined they were putting a ball in their left hand or the right, or that they were moving a door with one of their feet or shooting a goal," Mueller explained. And as each movement was imagined, the cursor on the screen made the relevant changes to the letter, as and when the information was transferred. The process, though time consuming, works to a T.

The explanation, in technical terms, is that the cap is fitted with sensors, similar to an EEG machine, and the sensors decode the information and measure the activity that takes place in the brain. The decoded signals are then, through the myriad wires, sent out to the computer, which in turn understands the information and feeds in into the system, enabling the letters to become legible and simple sentences.

It was, without doubt, a combined effort of both the doctors and the scientists. "While it was the role of the doctors to apply their physiological knowledge of which movement provokes which reaction in which part of the brain, it was the role of the computer scientists to convert that information into algorithms," said neurology professor Gabriel Curio of the Charite Hospital.

Curio further added in an earlier interview, "Patients don't need much training to learn to use the system. It's not the man, but the machine that has to learn."

Moreover, going by their reports, the computer needs only fifteen to twenty minutes to adapt to each person and create a personal profile.

Mueller further added in the interview, "The important thing is to just relax and concentrate on a specific movement".

Curio said, "The mental typewriter can allow those with various forms of paralysis, where the brain is intact but trapped in a body that no longer reacts, to regain their liberty."

Even as the invention sounds exciting, and may perhaps help hospitals and affected families, Mueller believes that for this prototype presented at the fair which took five year to complete, it would be naïve to expect it in the markets any time soon. Moreover, the invention is not infallible yet. "It would be good if we could do it without contact at all. But that is technologically very difficult," he said.

While it may not be a comforting thought to know that one’s mind can be so easily read, from a medical perspective, this invention is certainly a breakthrough.