American scientists were able to get two people to read each other's thoughts at a distance.
The participants in the experiment successfully played the question-answer game: one of them asked a series of questions, and then guessed exactly what object the other was thinking about. The research results are presented in the journal PLoS One.
The experiment was carried out in two dark rooms located at a distance of one and a half kilometers from each other. At the beginning, the first participant (the respondent) was shown a picture with the image of an object, which he had to guess.
Then the second participant chose from the proposed questions ("Is this a tree? Yes or no?" And so on) by clicking on them with the mouse. Questions were sent over the Internet to the respondent, on whose head an encelographic helmet was put on. The answers were given in this way: the participant in the experiment looked at one of two LEDs attached to the monitor, blinking at different frequencies.
Photo: University of Washington
The responses received were recorded by an electroencephalograph and sent back via the Internet to the questioner - and sent directly to his brain, using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and through a magnetic coil installed above his head.
TMS stimulated the visual area of the cerebral cortex, and when answering “yes,” the questioner saw phosphenes (points, shapes and other visual sensations that a person experiences without exposure to light on the eye). Answers “no” did not generate any reaction and the questioner continued to speculate.
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Five pairs of participants played 20 rounds of the game (ten real and ten control ones, with TMS discreetly disabled). Three questions could be asked to solve each object.
The participants in the experiment successfully recognized the hidden object in 72 percent of the games (in the control rounds - only 18 percent). Scientists explain the incorrect answers by the inconsistency of the respondents, equipment malfunctions or incorrect focusing (on both LEDs instead of one).
“This seems to be the most difficult experience of direct contact between two brains ever conducted on humans,” said project leader neurophysiologist Andrea Stocco.
Having received a grant in the amount of one million dollars, the Stokko group implements a variety of projects. For example, scientists are trying to transmit the "mood of the brain" from one person to another: for example, an absent-minded student receives a signal from a diligent student, and his brain automatically begins to concentrate on the lecture.
“Evolution has spent a tremendous amount of time for humans and other animals to learn to extract information from their brains and communicate it to other creatures - through speech, behavior, and so on. But this process is impossible without signal conversion. We are trying to unfold it: open the box and transmit signals directly from the brain to the brain, with minimal transformation,”Stokko said.
