'60 Minutes': Thought identification Video
'60 Minutes': Thought identification Video Transcript
>> This is the technology that's transforming what once was science fiction into just plain science. It's a specialized use of MRI scanning called functional MRI; FMRI for short that makes it possible to see what's going in inside the brain while people are thinking.
>> Every time I walk into that scanner room and I see the person's brain appear on the screen, when I see those patterns it is just incredible--unthinkable.
>> Mind-reading. What do you call it?
>> Thought identification.
>> Neuroscientist, Marcel Just, and his colleague Tom Mitchell at Carnegie Mellon University did an experiment where they asked subjects to think about ten objects--five of them tools like screwdriver and hammer; and five of them dwellings like igloo and castle, then recorded and analyzed the activity in their brains for each.
>> You had them think about a screwdriver and the computer found the place in the brain where they person was thinking screwdriver?
>> Screwdriver isn't one place in the brain; it's many places in the brain. When you think of screwdriver, you think about how you hold it, how you twist it, what it looks like, what you use it for.
>> And each of those functions are in different places?
>> Correct.
>> Well Jeff says when we think screwdriver or igloo for example; neurons start firing at varying levels of intensity in different areas throughout the brain.
>> And we found that we could identify which object they were thinking about from their brain activation patterns.
>> You're reading their mind.
>> We're identifying the thought that's occurring. It's incredible, just incredible.
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