MindMods CogSciTech Blog - The latest on biofeedback, consciousness, neuroscience & neurotechnology. http://www.mindmodulations.com/mindmods 2008-07-05T01:25:52+01:00 http://www.mindmodulations.com/mindmods http://www.mindmodulations.com/mindmods/images/M_images/mindmods_rss.png text/html 2008-06-13T00:17:12+01:00 http://www.mindmodulations.com/mindmods http://www.mindmodulations.com/mindmods/products/thinking-up-beautiful-music.html . By Andrew Webb Technology reporter, BBC News Researchers at Goldsmiths, University of London have developed technology to translate thoughts into musical notes. The Brain Computer Interface for Music requires electrodes to be attached to the head. They pick up electrical impulses from the brain which are passed through an electroencephalography (EEG) machine and analysed. The man behind the project, Dr Mick Grierson, demonstrated the system to BBC News. When musical notes flash the scientist stares at the display while thinking of a note he wants to play. When the same note appears it unconsciously triggers a change in his brain activity - a change registered by the computer he was plugged into. "After a while it will make a decision about which note I am thinking about and it tries to play it," he said. Dr Grierson has run trials in which 6 out of 8 notes played were the same as those being thought of. text/html 2008-06-13T00:13:45+01:00 http://www.mindmodulations.com/mindmods http://www.mindmodulations.com/mindmods/products/g-tecs-thought-control-hat.html From Engadget: http://www.engadget.com/2007/03/16/g-tecs-thought-control-hat/ (http://www.engadget.com/2007/03/16/g-tecs-thought-control-hat/) text/html 2008-06-05T13:08:03+01:00 http://www.mindmodulations.com/mindmods http://www.mindmodulations.com/mindmods/general/the-science-of-sarcasm.html From the New York Times: There was nothing very interesting in Katherine P. Rankin’s study of sarcasm — at least, nothing worth your important time. All she did was use an M.R.I. to find the place in the brain where the ability to detect sarcasm resides. But then, you probably already knew it was in the right parahippocampal gyrus. What you may not have realized is that perceiving sarcasm, the smirking put-down that buries its barb by stating the opposite, requires a nifty mental trick that lies at the heart of social relations: figuring out what others are thinking. Those who lose the ability, whether through a head injury or the frontotemporal dementias afflicting the patients in Dr. Rankin’s study, just do not get it when someone says during a hurricane, “Nice weather we’re having.” text/html 2007-12-03T18:46:12+01:00 http://www.mindmodulations.com/mindmods http://www.mindmodulations.com/mindmods/general/young-chimps-are-better-than-adults-in-numerical-memory.html Sana Inoue and Tetsuro Matsuzawa of Kyoto University showed a computer screen grid of nine numbers to six chimpanzees. The chimps were previously trained to recognize the ascending nature of the numbers. They were also shown to nine college students. When subjects touched one of the numbers, all of the others vanished. They then had to touch the squares in the order of the numbers that used to be there. When the numbers flashed for just four-tenths of a second or less, one of the chimps beat all of the college students. Here's the press release from 'Current Biology', a publication of Cell Press: Young chimps top adult humans in numerical memory Young chimpanzees have an “extraordinary” ability to remember numerals that is superior to that of human adults, researchers report in the December 4th issue of Current Biology, a publication of Cell Press. “There are still many people, including many biologists, who believe that humans are superior to chimpanzees in all cognitive functions,” said Tetsuro Matsuzawa of Kyoto University. “No one can imagine that chimpanzees—young chimpanzees at the age of five—have a better performance in a memory task than humans. Here we show for the first time that young chimpanzees have an extraordinary working memory capability for numerical recollection—better than that of human adults tested in the same apparatus, following the same procedure.” Chimpanzee memory has been extensively studied, the researchers said. The general assumption is that, as with many other cognitive functions, it is inferior to that of humans. However, some data have suggested that, in some circumstances, chimpanzee memory may indeed be superior to human memory. In the current study, the researchers tested three pairs of mother and infant chimpanzees (all of which had already learned the ascending order of Arabic numerals from 1 to 9) against university students in a memory task of numerals. One of the mothers, named Ai, was the first chimpanzee who learned to use Arabic numerals to label sets of real-life objects with the appropriate number. In the new test, the chimps or humans were briefly presented with various numerals from 1 to 9 on a touch-screen monitor. Those numbers were then replaced with blank squares, and the test subject had to remember which numeral appeared in which location and touch the squares in the appropriate order. The young chimpanzees could grasp many numerals at a glance, with no change in performance as the hold duration—the amount of time that the numbers remained on the screen—was varied, the researchers found. In general, the performance of the three young chimpanzees was better than that of their mothers. Likewise, adult humans were slower than all of the three young chimpanzees in their response. For human subjects, they showed that the percentage of correct trials also declined as a function of the hold duration—the shorter the duration became, the worse their accuracy was. Matsuzawa said the chimps’ memory ability is reminiscent of “eidetic imagery,” a special ability to retain a detailed and accurate image of a complex scene or pattern. Such a “photographic memory” is known to be present in some normal human children, and then the ability declines with the age, he added. The researchers said they believe that the young chimps’ newfound ability to top humans in the numerical memory task is “just a part of the very flexible intelligence of young chimpanzees.” ### The researchers include Sana Inoue and Tetsuro Matsuzawa, of Kyoto University, Japan. text/html 2007-11-21T21:22:21+01:00 http://www.mindmodulations.com/mindmods http://www.mindmodulations.com/mindmods/general/a-young-persons-guide-to-brainwave-music.html This is a great article from the now defunct Canadian magazine 'HorizonZero'. The zine was a multimedia web magazine about digital art and culture in Canada. This article is from issue 15 published in 2004 - but this is the first time I've seen it. This article was written by Andrew Brouse. You can check out the other issues at http://www.horizonzero.ca (http://www.horizonzero.ca) http://regen.eyetap.org (http://regen.eyetap.org) Using hardware from Thought Technology [www.thoughttechnology.com (http://www.thoughttechnology.com) and the PD interactive programming environment, [www.crca.ucsd.edu/~msp/software (http://www.crca.ucsd.edu/~msp/software) the brainwaves of the audience-performers are channelled into the creation of an interactive sonic and visual environment, where the participants' brainwave patterns create the music and lighting effects for the evening. Readers having sensations of déjà-vu are not entirely mistaken: this event was only the most recent salient example in the history of brainwave music in which diligent visionary individuals, artists and scientists, have worked together to synthesize hybrid works of art-science. Since 1965, when Alvin Lucier composed the first piece of music using human brainwaves as a generative source, brainwave music has undergone a fascinating evolution. To fully appreciate the directions this music is taking today, it is helpful to reflect upon the history of bioelectricity, brainwaves, and the context in which brainwave music has evolved. Bioelectricity Brainwaves are a form of bioelectricity , or electrical phenomena in animals or plants. The history of research into bioelectricity began around 1780 with Luigi Galvani, who discovered that he could cause muscles in a frog's leg to contract by applying an electrical current to exposed nerves. This work was followed by that of Emil Heinrich Du Bois-Reymond, considered the founder of modern electrophysiology, who in the 1840s began to measure biological currents in electric fish and later in humans via electrodes embedded directly in his own arm. In 1875 the British neurophysiologist Richard Caton succeeded in measuring brain electrical activity using electrodes implanted directly in the brain tissue of rabbits and monkeys. At the time, it was not believed to be possible to extract meaningful data by measuring more non-invasively, with electrodes placed on the human scalp. (Electrical implants directly into the brain were not widely used on humans for obvious ethical reasons.) History of Brainwaves Human brainwaves were first measured in 1924 by Hans Berger, at the time an unknown German psychiatrist. He termed these electrical measurements the electroencephalogram (EEG), which literally means brain electricity writing . Berger published his brainwave results in 1929 as Über das Elektrenkephalogramm des Menschen ( On the Electroencephalogram of Man ). The English translation did not appear until 1969. Berger is a complex and enigmatic figure in the history of medical science. He had a lifelong obsession with finding scientific proof of a causal linkage between the psychical world of human consciousness and the physiological world of neurological electrical signals. He pursued this quest in the most methodical, disciplined scientific manner possible, determined to explain observed telepathic phenomena in terms of theories of the conservation of energy. Yet Berger's belief in this hypothesis stemmed not from his research itself, but from a personal subjective experience. Berger had almost died in an accident in his youth. The very same day he received a sudden unexpected telegram from his family inquiring into his health. Berger believed that his family had received some sort of telepathic communication from him at his moment of near-death. Sonification of Brainwaves Initially, Berger's work was largely ignored. It was not until five years after his first paper was published (when E.D. Adrian and B.H.C. Mathews verified Berger's results) that his discovery began to draw attention. In their 1934 article in the journal Brain [http://brain.oupjournals.org (http://brain.oupjournals.org) , Adrian and Matthews also reported successfully audifying and listening to human brainwaves which they had recorded according to Berger's methods. This was the first example of the sonification of human brainwaves for auditory display. Music from Brainwaves If we accept that the perception of an act as art is what makes it art, then the first instance of the use of brainwaves to generate music did not occur until 1965. Alvin Lucier [http://alucier.web.wesleyan.edu/ (http://alucier.web.wesleyan.edu/) had begun working with physicist Edmond Dewan in 1964, performing experiments that used brainwaves to create sound. The next year, he was inspired to compose a piece of music using brainwaves as the sole generative source. Music for Solo Performer was presented, with encouragement from John Cage, at the Rose Art Museum of Brandeis University in 1965. Lucier performed this piece several more times over the next few years, but did not continue to use EEG in his own compositions. Spacecraft In the late 1960s, Richard Teitelbaum [http://inside.bard.edu/teitelbaum (http://inside.bard.edu/teitelbaum) was a member of the innovative Rome-based live electronic music group Musica Elettronica Viva (MEV). In performances of Spacecraft (1967) he used various biological signals including brain (EEG) and cardiac (EKG) signals as control sources for electronic synthesizers. Over the next few years, Teitelbaum continued to use EEG and other biological signals in his compositions and experiments as triggers for nascent Moog electronic synthesizers. Ecology of the Skin Then in the late 1960s, another composer, David Rosenboom [http://music.calarts.edu/~david/ (http://music.calarts.edu/~david/) , began to use EEG signals to generate music. In 1970-71 Rosenboom composed and performed Ecology of the Skin, in which ten live EEG performer-participants interactively generated immersive sonic/visual environments using custom-made electronic circuits. Around the same time, Rosenboom founded the Laboratory of Experimental Aesthetics at York University in Toronto, which encouraged pioneering collaborations between scientists and artists. For the better part of the 1970s, the laboratory undertook experimentation and research into the artistic possibilities of brainwaves and other biological signals in cybernetic biofeedback artistic systems. Many artists and musicians visited and worked at the facility during this time including John Cage, David Behrman, LaMonte Young, and Marian Zazeela. Some of the results of the work at this lab were published in the book Biofeedback and the Arts (Aesthetic Research Centre of Canada, 1976). A more recent 1990 monograph by Rosenboom, Extended Musical Interface with the Human Nervous System [ http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/LEA/MONOGRAPHS/ROSENBOOM/rosenboom.html (http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/LEA/MONOGRAPHS/ROSENBOOM/rosenboom.html) , remains the definitive theoretical document in this area. Simultaneously, Manford Eaton was also building electronic circuits to experiment with biological signals at Orcus Research in Kansas City. He initially published an article titled Biopotentials as Control Data for Spontaneous Music (Orcus) in 1968. Then, in 1971, Eaton first published his manifesto Bio-Music: Biological Feedback Experiential Music Systems (Orcus; republished in 1974 by Something Else Press), arguing for completely new biologically generated forms of music and experience. Corticalart In France, scientist Roger Lafosse was doing research into brainwave systems and proposed, along with musique concrète pioneer Pierre Henry, a sophisticated live performance system known as Corticalart (art from the cerebral cortex). In a series of free performances done in 1971, along with generated electronic sounds, one saw a television image of Henry in dark sunglasses with electrodes hanging from his head, projected so that the content of his brainwaves changed the colour of the image according to his brainwave patterns. Brain-Computer Interface Unbeknownst to these various composers, Jacques Vidal, a computer science researcher at UCLA, was working to develop the first direct brain-computer interface (BCI) using a batch-processing IBM computer. In 1973, he published Toward Direct Brain-Computer Communication (Annual Review of Biophysics and Bioengineering Vol. 2). Incidentally, the computer used in Vidal's research was one of the nodes on the nascent Arpanet, precursor to the Internet. Vidal has recently revisited this field in his speculative 1998 article Cyberspace Bionics. [www.cs.ucla.edu/~vidal/bionics.html (http://www.cs.ucla.edu/~vidal/bionics.html) Burst of Alpha Throughout most of the 1970s there was a burst of activity in brainwave music and art. Parallel to the work in Toronto, the Montréal group SONDE, along with Charles de Mestral, did some brainwave performances. At Logos in Ghent, Belgium, real-time brainwave triggered concerts were presented in 1972 and 1973. In Baltimore the Peabody Electronic Music Consort did performances. Rosenboom and others continued their work at Mills College. Toward the end of the 1970s, biofeedback and brainwave research fell into a period of quiescence due to many factors, primarily a lack of funding and of sufficiently powerful computers. Almost nothing happened in the field for about ten years. BioMuse Then in 1990 two scientists, Benjamin Knapp and Hugh Lusted, began working on a computer interface called the BioMuse. [www.biocontrol.com/biomuse.html (http://www.biocontrol.com/biomuse.html) It permitted a human to control certain computer functions via bioelectric signals including EEG and EMG (electromyogram: a measure of muscle-related bioelectricity). In 1992, Atau Tanaka [www.sensorband.com/atau/ (http://www.sensorband.com/atau/) was commissioned by Knapp and Lusted to compose and perform music using the BioMuse as a controller. Tanaka continued to use the BioMuse, primarily as an EMG controller, in live performances throughout the 1990s. In 1996, Knapp and Lusted wrote an article for Scientific American about the BioMuse called Controlling Computers with Neural Signals. [www.absoluterealtime.com/resume/SciAmBioCtl.pdf (http://www.absoluterealtime.com/resume/SciAmBioCtl.pdf) Current Work During the past five years or so there has been a renewed interest in brainwave music and a resurgence in its performance. Much of this new work is naive in the sense that the musicians are not fully cognisant of the rich history of brainwave music and research which has preceded them. There has also been something of a bifurcation between those using hobbyist biofeedback equipment or techniques and those preferring to take a more rigorous scientific approach. Nonetheless, current advances in Brain-Computer Interface technology, along with advanced digital signal processing and more sophisticated aesthetic theoretical foundations, will inevitably drive the field forward into a new era of possibilities and music not yet imagined. Below is a sampling of some of the new and promising projects currently underway. Music and Art Artist/musician Neam Cathode showed Cyber Mondrian [www.oboro.net/archive/exhib0001/neam/neam.html (http://www.oboro.net/archive/exhib0001/neam/neam.html) at Montreal's Oboro Gallery in 2001. This work incorporated Mondrian-like generated images with synthesized sound that was controlled using the Interactive Brainwave Visual Analyzer or IBVA system. [www.ibva.com (http://www.ibva.com) New York improviser David First created OPERATION: KRACPOT [http://davidfirst.com/krac.html (http://davidfirst.com/krac.html) in 2002 using brainwave entrainement and the phenomenon of the Schumann resonances [www.innerx.net/personal/tsmith/Schumann.html (http://www.innerx.net/personal/tsmith/Schumann.html) to create haunting music. Paras Kaul, the so-called Brain Wave Chick , [www.brainwavechick.com/ (http://www.brainwavechick.com/) has been using the IBVA system in her own brainwave music at George Mason University for many years. Adam Overton, a student of David Rosenboom at CalArts, has very recently performed his series of works entitled Sitting.Breathing.Series and Other Biometric Work. [ http://www.calarts.edu/~aoverton/projects/Sitting.Breathing/ (http://www.calarts.edu/~aoverton/projects/Sitting.Breathing/) Andrew Brouse, the author of this article, created his InterHarmonium [www.music.mcgill.ca/~brouse/interharmonium (http://www.music.mcgill.ca/~brouse/interharmonium) in 2001. This Internet-enabled brainwave performance system uses Max/MSP [www.cycling74.com/products/maxmsp.html (http://www.cycling74.com/products/maxmsp.html) and OpenSoundControl [http://cnmat.cnmat.berkeley.edu/OpenSoundControl/ (http://cnmat.cnmat.berkeley.edu/OpenSoundControl/) software. BCI Research Jessica Bayliss has a background in music technology, and has been working on Brain-Computer Interfaces for real-time control of computers at the Rochester Institute of Technology. [www.cs.rit.edu/~jdb/research/bci.sigproc.html (http://www.cs.rit.edu/~jdb/research/bci.sigproc.html) Eduardo Miranda runs the Neuromusic lab at the University of Plymouth, [http://neuromusic.soc.plymouth.ac.uk/neuromusic.html (http://neuromusic.soc.plymouth.ac.uk/neuromusic.html) where researchers are trying to further earlier research into brainwave music using the latest advances in Brain-Computer Interfaces. There are other active BCI research projects at universities around the world, including the University of British Columbia, [www.ece.ubc.ca/~garyb/BCI.htm (http://www.ece.ubc.ca/~garyb/BCI.htm) the Wadsworth Centre [www.bciresearch.org (http://www.bciresearch.org) in Albany, the University of Tubingen, [www.uni-tuebingen.de/uni/tci/ (http://www.uni-tuebingen.de/uni/tci/) and the University of Technology Graz. [www.dpmi.tu-graz.ac.at/bci.htm (http://www.dpmi.tu-graz.ac.at/bci.htm) Andrew Brouse is a multidisciplinary musician, composer, artist, and technologist. He has worked in the contemporary intermedia arts and music for over fifteen years. He currently lives in Montreal. text/html 2007-10-17T18:31:13+01:00 http://www.mindmodulations.com/mindmods http://www.mindmodulations.com/mindmods/general/regular-posting-to-resume.html I just wanted to drop a big note apologizing for the lack of updates to the blog - I have a lot of catching up to do. We were busy moving into our new office and finishing construction. I'll try to post any news that we may have missed during the past two weeks. Thanks! Gary @ Mind Modulations text/html 2007-09-19T14:16:48+01:00 http://www.mindmodulations.com/mindmods http://www.mindmodulations.com/mindmods/dreaming-lucid-dreaming/the-passing-of-time-in-dreams-a-study-using-lucid-d.html The following is a study used lucid dreamers to determine the subjective measurement of time in dreams - by Daniel Erlacher and Michael Schredl from Germany. Time required for motor activity in lucid dreams Daniel Erlacher - Institute for Sport and Sport Science, University of Heidelberg, Germany Michael Schredl - Sleep laboratory, Central Institute of Mental Health, Mannheim, Germany Summary The present study investigated the relationship between the required time for specific tasks (counting and performing squats) in lucid dreams and in the waking state. Five proficient lucid dreamers (26-34 years old, M = 29.8, SD = 3.0; one woman and four men) participated in this study. The results showed that the time needed for counting in a lucid dream is comparable to the time needed for counting in wakefulness, but motor activities required more time in lucid dreams than in the waking state. Introduction The relationship between subjectively estimated time in dreams and real time has intrigued scientists for centuries (cf. Hall, 1981). Maury (1861) reported a long and intense dream about the French revolution which ended with the dreamer in the guillotine and the sleeper waking up with a piece of his wooden bed top having fallen on his neck. Because of the logical line of dream action, Maury (1861) hypothesized that the dream was generated backwards by the arousing stimulus. Nowadays, the hypothesis is widely accepted that the subjectively experienced time in dreams corresponds with the actual time (overview: Schredl, 2000). This relationship was first experimentally demonstrated by Dement and Kleitman (1957). In this study, the participants were awakened in a random order either after 5 or 15 minutes of REM sleep. After awakening, participants were asked to estimate whether the elapsed sleep interval was 5 or 15 minutes. From 111 awakenings, 83 % judgments were correct. Furthermore, the elapsed time of the REM period correlated with the length of the dream report (from r=.40 to r=.71). The latter findings were replicated by Glaubman and Lewin (1977), as well as by Hobson and Stickgold (1995). Rosenlicht, Maloney, and Freiberg (1994) found only small differences between time of REM sleep and the reported length of dreams. Overall, these studies support the idea that dreams take the same amount of time the actions would take in waking. Lucid dreams might be particularly applicable to study time intervals in dreams, because lucid dreamers are able of executing prearranged tasks in their lucid dreams and mark the beginning and the end of the task with eye signals that can be measured objectively by electrooculogram (EOG) recording (cf. Erlacher, Schredl, LaBerge, 2003). The term “lucid dream” designates a dream in which the dreamer, while dreaming, is aware that she or he is dreaming and she or he can consciously influence the action in the dream (Tholey Utecht, 1997; LaBerge, 1985). In a pilot study, LaBerge (1985) showed that time intervals for counting from one to ten in lucid dreams (by counting from one-thousand-and-one to one-thousand-and-ten) are close to the time intervals for counting during wakefulness. We hypothesized, that there is no difference between the time needed for counting or performing a motor activity in a lucid dream and the time needed for the same activities performed in the waking state. more after the jump text/html 2007-09-19T12:56:20+01:00 http://www.mindmodulations.com/mindmods http://www.mindmodulations.com/mindmods/dreaming-lucid-dreaming/an-article-on-lucid-dreaming-from-the-new-york.html This was from yesterday's New York Times - an article called 'Living Your Dreams, in a Manner of Speaking'. It talks a little about the concept of lucid dreaming, but also focuses on a new movie being written and directed by Jake Paltrow called "The Good Night". Living Your Dreams, in a Manner of Speaking Established sleep researchers say lucid dreaming is occasionally reported by subjects, though it is difficult to validate scientifically. “Yes, lucid dreaming exists,” said Dr. Rodney Radtke, the medical director of the Sleep Disorders Center at Duke University. “Yes, people certainly can, within their dream, realize ‘this is just a dream’ and continue to participate.” “Do I believe that someone could potentially alter or interact with their dreams in such a way that they could change the dream? Yes,” he said. “Do I think that you could essentially design a dream — ‘Oh, I want to go to Honolulu and have this big hunk hit on me’? It’s a bit of a stretch. But I can’t say it can’t happen.” He added: “Only in New York or California do they worry about this stuff.” Stephen LaBerge, a psychophysiologist and the founder of the Lucidity Institute (lucidity.com), conducts lucid dream research and teaches people to do it. “It’s kind of fun to do the impossible,” Dr. LaBerge said. “Fly. Dream sex. That’s what everybody likes to do. There’s also the possibility of creative problem-solving, overcoming nightmares and anxieties, learning more about yourself.” A student at Stanford University, where Dr. LaBerge conducted much of his research, wrote in The Stanford Daily: “In one of my earliest experiences with lucidity, I announced to an auditorium full of people that I was their god (wasn’t I?). When they did not respond deferentially, I used telekinesis to send one of them flying across the room.” It can be particularly appealing to those who have nightmares, as it allows them to realize while still asleep that they are just dreaming. Interest in these potential real-world benefits and the otherworldly freedoms of lucid dreaming — as well as the questions it provokes about the precarious nature of reality — has spurred the invention and evolution of seemingly wacky dream aids. There are masks with lights and sounds; Orwellian devices that announce THIS IS A DREAM! in the middle of the night; and pills. At the Hawaii gathering next month, attendees will be able to check out Dr. LaBerge’s NovaDreamer, a mask meant to light up during REM sleep and cue the person entangled in the sheets that he or she is dreaming. It is based on the notion that people can make a plan while awake and then execute it in their dreams. A light or sound is meant to remind them of their goal of lucid dreaming without actually waking them up. Participants may also take part in experiments with an herbal version of a drug that impacts acetylcholine, a neurotransmitting compound that affects memory. As bizarre as these things may sound, there is a scientific rationale for cueing users during REM sleep. “REM-sleep dreams are much more visual,” said Matthew P. Walker, the director of the Sleep and Neuroimaging Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, and a former assistant professor of psychology at the Harvard Medical School. “They have a strong narrative that runs through them. They’re hallucinogenic.” There are several reasons for this, including that the lateral prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain involved in logical reasoning and working memory, becomes more inactive during REM sleep, while other areas of the brain, like the visual and emotional centers, rev up. Scientists, however, are still trying to discover the difference between the dreaming brain and the lucid-dreaming brain. The leading candidate, Dr. Walker said, is the lateral prefrontal cortex. He thinks that during REM sleep, the activity level of this logic-oriented part of the brain begins to rise back to waking levels, and when it does, an invisible switch is flipped and the sleeper gains lucidity. “In the next five years, I think somebody will demonstrate that,” he said. Lucid-dream researchers say there are myriad mental exercises a person can do during waking hours to try to become cognizant while dreaming. One technique involves performing various reality checks many times a day — such as looking at the numbers on a watch, looking away, and then looking at them again to make sure that night has not suddenly become day. The theory is that if a person does this regularly while awake, he or she will likely repeat it while dreaming and will recognize inconsistencies — if, say, the watch is melting in a Dali-esque way. Then the sleeper will think: “This looks surreal. I must be dreaming.” more after the jump text/html 2007-09-19T11:58:08+01:00 http://www.mindmodulations.com/mindmods http://www.mindmodulations.com/mindmods/unidentified-flying-objects-ufo-/video-interesting-experiment-richard-dawkins-on-the-god-ma.html Michael Persinger is a neuropsychologist at Canada's Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario. His theory is that the sensation described as having a religious experience is merely a side effect of our bicameral brain's feverish activities. He has attempted to create experiments to show that when the right hemisphere of the brain is stimulated in the cerebral region presumed to control notions of self, and then the left hemisphere is called upon to make sense of this nonexistent entity, the mind generates what is felt as a 'sensed presence.' Many of Persinger's studies detail the reactions that people have when their temporal lobes are stimulated with complex magnetic fields. Some of the subjects experience a 'sensed presence' in the form of the deity from the culture that they were raised in. They see the God (or spirits associated with their God - the Virgin Mary, Mohammed, etc) that they believe in. Others have had experiences that mimic the feeling that one would have during alien/UFO visitation - these people tend to be more agnostic. In 2003 the BBC arranged for Prof. Richard Dawkins to be a subject in one of Persinger's experiments. The results are shown in the video below: text/html 2007-09-19T11:41:12+01:00 http://www.mindmodulations.com/mindmods http://www.mindmodulations.com/mindmods/disorders/video-split-brain-behavioral-experiments.html The patient in the video had his corpus callosum removed in order to stop his seizures due to epilepsy. The procedure prevented the hemispheres from communicating with one another in any way and caused a sort of 'split consciousness'. To reduce the severity of his seizures, Joe had the bridge between his left and right cerebral hemisphers (the corpus callosum) severed. As a result, his left and right brains no longer communicate through that pathway. Here's what happens as a result: text/html 2007-09-16T17:56:33+01:00 http://www.mindmodulations.com/mindmods http://www.mindmodulations.com/mindmods/general/changing-your-brainwaves-using-auditory-binaural-beats-for.html There has been a surge of interest in binaural beats during recent years, and a number of software only products that utilize this technology have become quite popular. What are they? A binaural beat is generated from two tones. Each tone is of a slightly different pitch. One tone is presented to the left ear, and the other to the right. The two tones combine into a single tone sensed by your brain. This single tone pulse is the stimulating when entraining with binaural beats. Binaural beats are probably the most well-known stimulus used for entrainment. They have been shown to work, but other entrainment techniques are more effective. Our machines produce binaural beats and dual binaural beats. They also include other audio entrainment methods in addition to these. I've personally found the that frequency following effect of binaural beats is quite modest, but they do actually work and have an effect on brainwaves that can be shown with EEG. Here's a bit of history from Gnaural's web page, which we'll discuss in a moment. In 1839, German experimenter Heinrich Wilhelm Dove discovered that playing two tones simultaneously, one in each ear, induced the perception of a "beat frequency" when the tones were of slightly differing frequency (generally less than 100 Hz apart). What was interesting about Dove's discovery was the fact that there was no acoustic mixing of the tones. The perceived beats existed solely within the auditory system. SBaGen (http://www.uazu.net/sbagen/) is a free binaural tone generator that has been out for quite some time now. It works great, but there is a better out now called Gnaural2 (http://gnaural.sourceforge.net/). here (http://pantheon.yale.edu/%7Ebbl2/GnauralJavaApplet_signed.html) You can download Soundscapes and Gnaural Example files for Gnaural here (http://pantheon.yale.edu/%7Ebbl2/GnauralExampleFiles.html) You can even use them with the online Java Applet version. A ton of links after the jump... text/html 2007-09-16T16:36:09+01:00 http://www.mindmodulations.com/mindmods http://www.mindmodulations.com/mindmods/products/buzz-aldrin-plays-brainball-at-wireds-nextfest.html NextFest (http://wirednextfest.com/inform/event_overview.php) is Wired Magazine's (http://www.wired.com) four-day festival of innovative products and technologies. We blogged about MindBall last year, which is the commercialized version of Brainball. BrainBall is a game created by Interactive Institute. Players of the game have EEG sensors connected to their forehead with a strap. The electrodes in the strap read the players' brainwaves. Brainball is a game that goes against the conventional competitive concept, and also reinvents the relationship between man and machine. Instead of activity and adrenalin, it is passivity and calmness that mark the truly successful Brainball player. Brainball is unique amongst machines since it is not controlled by the player's rational and strategic thoughts and decisions. On the contrary, the participants are dependent on the body's own intuitive reactions to the game machine. At first glance, Brainball seems similar to a traditional two player game - two people challenge one and other and take their respective positions at each end of a table that is laid out with two goals and a little ball. The rest of the game's equipment is more special. Both players wear a strap around their forehead that contains electrodes and is wired up to a biosensor system. This system, that is used to measure the body's biological signals, is tightly fastened to the frontal lobes and registers the electrical activity in the brain - so called EEG (electro­encephalo­gram). The players brain activity is graphed in a diagram on a computer screen so that the public can easily follow the players mental processes during the match. Here's a picture of Buzz Aldrin beating Wired Magazine publisher Jay Lauf in a BrainBall match. Dave Bullock - (Thanks Dave!) (http://www.eecue.com) MindBall can be purchased here (http://www.mindball.se/product.html) text/html 2007-09-13T16:51:31+01:00 http://www.mindmodulations.com/mindmods http://www.mindmodulations.com/mindmods/extra-sensory-perception-esp-/is-remote-viewing-real-what-is-the-evid.html There are sites on the net that claim to teach the ability, there's an International Remote Viewing Association (http://www.irva.org/) that even has conferences (http://irvaconference.org/) (there's one starting on October 19th, apparently), the US government has funded research in it (http://www.fas.org/irp/program/collect/stargate.htm) (in the 1970's), we've even had customers buy our mind machines to help them with remote viewing and claim great success. I've never had any type of experiences that are anything like remote viewing - and I'm not sure that I believe that it is even possible - but I'm open to the idea. Star Gate'. (http://www.fas.org/irp/program/collect/stargate.htm) They began the program in 1970 (then called SCANATE - good thing they changed the name to something that sounded cooler) at the Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park, Ca. This program continued in different forms using both soldiers and civilians who were believed to posess natural psychic abilities for over 24 years. The remote viewing program was shut down by the CIA in 1994 because they were convinced that remote viewing was of no practical value to the intelligence community. What is a sketpic supposed to believe? (That's a trick question) There is so much controversy surrounding the people in these programs, the programs themselves, the data from the programs, etc etc etc - that there really isn't anything to go off of. Unfortunately there have been no peer reviewed studies that prove that remote viewing is a reality. darn. Research the links below and see what you think. An Assessment of the Evidence for Psychic Functioning (http://www.stat.ucdavis.edu/~utts/air2.html) - by Profressor Jessica Utts of UCDavis Critique of the PEAR Remote Viewing Experiments (http://www.tricksterbook.com/ArticlesOnline/PEARCritique.htm) - by Jessica Utts, Betty Markwick and George P. Hansen The STAR GATE Program (http://www.fas.org/irp/program/collect/stargate.htm) - From the Federation of American Scientists An Evaluation of Remote Viewing: Research and Applications (http://www.fas.org/irp/program/collect/air1995.pdf) - prepared by the American Institutes for Research (PDF) The American Institutes for Research Review of the ... STAR GATE Program: A Commentary (http://anson.ucdavis.edu/~utts/may.html) - by Edwin C. May, PhD from Cognitive Sciences Lab. The Cognitive Sciences Laboratory Web Site (http://www.lfr.org/LFR/csl/index.html) A Skeptic's Notebook - Scientific Remote Viewing (http://www.csicop.org/sb/9606/remote_viewing.html) - by Robert A. Baker This is supposedly the original remote viewing manual used by SRI International - HERE (http://www.crvmanual.com/remote-viewing-manual/1.html) Remote Viewing? Remote Chance... (http://www.bad-language.com/remote) - From Karen Stollznow, The Naked Skeptic Here is a PDF of the original remote viewing manual - COORDINATE REMOTE VIEWING, STAGES I-VI AND BEYOND FEB 1985 (http://www.remoteviewed.com/files/4.2.07/1985_CRV_manual.pdf) The Farsight Institute (http://www.farsight.org/) Remote Viewing Timeline (http://www.sc-i-r-s-ology.pair.com/rvtimeline/index.html) text/html 2007-09-13T15:21:55+01:00 http://www.mindmodulations.com/mindmods http://www.mindmodulations.com/mindmods/neuroscience-neurotransmitters-receptors/quick-neurotransmitter-refr.html What are they and how do they work? Of course everyone reading this already knows :) But it helps to have a quick reminder to refresh our memory every once in a while. Having a basic understanding about these special chemicals in our brain and how they work helps us to understand memory, learning, behavior, addiction, how drugs work, and emotions. First we'll quickly go over some of the most important neurotransmitters. Acetylcholine: The first neurotransmitter to be identified. It allows nerve cells to communicate with each other. Noradrenalin (Norephinephrine): Acts as a stress hormone and affects the parts of our brain where attention and responding actions are controlled. It is what is behind the fight-or-flight response. Dopamine: Plays an important role in motivation and reward, sleep, mood, attention, motor activity, cognition and learning. Endorphin: Helps modulate pain ("natural opiates"), cardiac, gastric and vascular function. Serotonin: Believed to help regulate anger, aggression, mood, sleep, appetite, sexuality and body temperature. GABA: One of the most abundant neurotransmitters. It is an inhibitory neurotransmitter - inhibiting all sorts of activating systems. Glutamate: Heightens sensitivity to other neurotransmitters. An excitatory neurotransmitter involved in cognitive functions like learning and memory. So... Neurons pass messages along themselves using electrical impulses, but they use neurotransmitters to pass messages to other neurons. Neurotransmitters are released from synaptic vesicles, flow across gaps between neurons called synapses and then bind with a receptor on the target neuron. How about a slideshow? text/html 2007-09-07T12:46:06+01:00 http://www.mindmodulations.com/mindmods http://www.mindmodulations.com/mindmods/products/new-eeg-system-develops-visual-images-from-brain-act.html Found on Neurofeedback on the Brain Blog (http://neurofeedback.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2007/9/5/3197992.html) here (http://brainpaint.com/gallery1/index.html) More on Bill Scott's EEG biofeedback system here (http://www.brainpaint.com/) text/html 2007-09-07T12:38:15+01:00 http://www.mindmodulations.com/mindmods http://www.mindmodulations.com/mindmods/general/researchers-use-fmri-to-determine-brain-activation-location-during-placebo-e.html From NPR (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12487035) here (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12487035) to listen to an audio recording of Wagner discussion the team's findings. text/html 2007-09-07T12:18:30+01:00 http://www.mindmodulations.com/mindmods http://www.mindmodulations.com/mindmods/general/free-access-to-a-variety-of-neuroscience-and-neurology-journals-from-sage.html Free access to: Journal of Biological Rhythms here (https://online.sagepub.com/cgi/register?registration=FTN72663) (requires registration) text/html 2007-09-07T11:57:36+01:00 http://www.mindmodulations.com/mindmods http://www.mindmodulations.com/mindmods/products/ambient-corporations-new-human-computer-interface-called-audeo-intercepts-words-when-you-thi.html A company called Ambient (http://www.theaudeo.com/) has developed a device that intercepts signals sent to the voice box from the brain via a sensor laden neck band. They claim to be able to decode these signals and match them to a pre-recorded series of words - even when the words are voiced out-loud. Theses 'words' can then be used to control things via a computer. They are currently using this system to direct a motorized wheelchair, allowing a paralysed person to navigate without moving or speaking out-loud. Ambient is developing the technology with the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago to help people with neurological problems operate computers and other electronic equipment despite their problems with muscle control. This is the first time (that I know about, anyway) that a device has been able to convert electrical impulses from the brain into actual words. This is different from traditional EEG, which measures brainwaves, as it is analyzing signals outside the brain on their way to the larynx. Audeo is currently selling a developer kit that allows researchers to develop new applications with their technology. If this works as well as they claim, the possibilities are endless. Check out the rest of this article for a video presentation of the device. text/html 2007-09-04T12:57:28+01:00 http://www.mindmodulations.com/mindmods http://www.mindmodulations.com/mindmods/general/what-is-brain-plasticity.html Discussion on brain plasticity, or neuroplasticity, has increased during the past several years. What is it and why should we be concerned about it? Our brains can migrate activity associated with specific functions to a different location as a result of neuroplasticity. This is an extremely important ability to have after a brain injury or even after normal experience (such as aging). Neuroplasticity allows the brain to re-wire itself as a response to changes in the environment. It is also what is behind the learning process and memory formation. Plasticity consists of laying out preferred pathways within the brain for circulating important information and is the brain's ability to adapt. Neuroplasticity from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroplasticity) Here is a link (http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/sundayedition_20070430_2176.mp3) to a great audio interview from CBC radio with Dr. Norman Doidge. He is the author of "The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science". text/html 2007-09-03T13:17:55+01:00 http://www.mindmodulations.com/mindmods http://www.mindmodulations.com/mindmods/stress/high-school-students-biofeedback-research-project-accepted-at-confe.html Nancy Leo, a senior at Arizona's Hamilton High School, had her science fair research project selected as one of 18 projects to be presented at the Sixth World Congress on Stress in Austria (http://www.icms.com.au/stress2007/). here (http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/story/96499) text/html 2007-09-01T10:53:37+01:00 http://www.mindmodulations.com/mindmods http://www.mindmodulations.com/mindmods/general/free-744-page-book-the-dana-guide-to-brain-h.html The DANA Foundation has decided to make their book "The Dana Guide to Brain Health: A Practical Family Reference from Medical Experts" section on brain disorders freely available online. Amazon.com: (http://www.amazon.com/Dana-Guide-Brain-Health-Practical/dp/1932594108/sr=8-2/qid=1163520801/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2/104-0198729-2864725?ie=UTF8 s=books) With contributions from over one hundred of the most prominent scientists and clinicians in the United States, The Dana Guide to Brain Health is an extensive and wholly accessible manual on the workings of the human brain. This richly illustrated volume contains a wealth of facts and advice, on simple yet effective ways to take care of our brains; the intimate connection between brain health and body health; brain development from the prenatal period through adulthood; and how we learn, remember, and imagine. The brain is far too important to be excluded any longer from our daily health concerns. The Dana Guide to Brain Health remedies this oversight with a clearly written, definitive map to our brains that reveals how we can take care of them in order to sustain a long and rich life. The browseable/searchable copy of the book can be found here (http://dana.org/brainhealth/default.aspx). I found this on Mind Hacks (http://mindhacks.com/) text/html 2007-08-31T13:14:00+01:00 http://www.mindmodulations.com/mindmods http://www.mindmodulations.com/mindmods/games/new-study-uses-biofeedback-to-predict-a-gamers-gam.html Budapest University of Technology and Economics (http://www.bme.hu/en/) are using GSR Biofeedback (Galvonic Skin Response, or skin conductance) in a study where they've shown that a gamer's actions can be predicted up to two seconds before they occur. Laufer says There are quite a few situations in life where there would be a need to provide a support for making a good decision at a good time. I have military applications (pilots) in mind, but surely we can find others as well. He also sees it being used in video games Another application I have in mind could be called a frustration game This type of game could detect when a player was going to act and change gameplay to throw off the player. This type of technology could be integrated into game controlers easily. This type of technology (GSR Biofeedback) should be used in more video games, but I'm not too sure that it would be very successful if used in a manner that would frustrate game players! It could definitely be used to help speed up a person's reaction time while playing a game. text/html 2007-08-29T21:16:44+01:00 http://www.mindmodulations.com/mindmods http://www.mindmodulations.com/mindmods/general/morrisondance-a-dance-performance-using-brainmaster-neurofee.html MorrisonDance, a dance troupe founded by choreographer Sarah Morrison, teamed up with a team of engineers from NASA's Glenn Research Center to create a performance featuring live brainwaves of dancers using the BrainMaster. This is actually from September 2005 - but just in case you missed it: (like I did!) text/html 2007-08-29T20:53:28+01:00 http://www.mindmodulations.com/mindmods http://www.mindmodulations.com/mindmods/general/video-ken-wilbur-enters-into-various-meditative-states-during-eeg-neurofee.html You may have already seen this, but it is new to me. Ken Wilbur narrates a video of his own experience using neurofeedback while navigating various meditative states. From YouTube: 'We asked Ken to do a short 10-minute commentary on these various meditative states and the corresponding brain-wave patterns that are shown on the EEG machine in the video. Ken enters four meditative states (nirvikalpa closed eyes, nirvikalpa open eyes, sahaj, and mantra-savikalpa), each of which has a very distinctive brain-wave pattern. In his commentary, Ken emphasizes that the patterns shown on this machine may or may not be typical, but they do emphasize that profound consciousness states can be evoked at will, and these show immediate correlation in brain-wave patterns.' text/html 2007-08-28T12:42:12+01:00 http://www.mindmodulations.com/mindmods http://www.mindmodulations.com/mindmods/the-function-of-consciousness/mindmods-cogscitech-consciousness-paper-post.html This paper is called "Consciousness Redux" and is something of a history of theoretical positions on the function of consciousness. It was written by George Mandler of the University of California University College London. Consciousness Redux George Mandler University of California, San Diego and University College London Copyright (C) 1993 George Mandler I start with a review of 20 years of proposals on the functions of consciousness. I then present a minimal number of functions that consciouness subserves, as well as as some remaining puzzles about its psychology. In the process I stress a psychologist's functional approach, asking what consciousness is for. The result is an attempt to place conscious processes within the usual flow of human information processing.