Army Details Project For Reading Intelligence Analysts' Minds

The Army has detailed a research project in which a computer has successfully read a soldier's mind, doing so by decoding brain signals. The technology is being developed to address a growing issue in the intelligence community — the glut of imagery gathered and the relative lack of people to go through it all in search of rare gems. Using computers able to "read" neural signals, intelligence officials could look at imagery at a much faster rate, with the computer reading the neural signals to pick out when something of interest has been seen.

The new development was recently detailed by the U.S. Army, which has its Research Laboratory — specifically, The MIND Lab — working on the task. The technology is able to decode, to a somewhat small degree, a solider's brain signals. This was tested by having a solider view images that fit into one of five categories as they flashed across a display. The solider silently picked a category and counted the images that belonged in it, but didn't state what category was chosen.

It took about two minutes for the computer to figure out what category the soldier had selected, doing so based on the brainwaves from the solider that resulted from the selected category being shown.

In the future, a more sophisticated version of this technology could be used to pick out targets from imagery. One method could involve cutting a large image up into small sections dubbed "chips", which would then flash across a screen quickly as the analyst watched.

This allows the analyst to see the entire image in a short period of time, while the related computer system could monitor the analyst's neural responses to see when a target has been viewed. When the neural response indicates the analyst has seen something of interest, that "chip" would be flagged for further analysis later on.

SOURCE: Army