Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!apple!agate!headcrash.Berkeley.EDU!clw
From: clw@headcrash.Berkeley.EDU (Nobody you know)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: Computer Interfaces
Message-ID: <1990Jan18.001102.3363@agate.berkeley.edu>
Date: 18 Jan 90 00:11:02 GMT
References: <21686@unix.cis.pitt.edu>
Sender: usenet@agate.berkeley.edu (USENET Administrator;;;;ZU44)
Reply-To: clw@headcrash.Berkeley.EDU (Nobody you know)
Organization: ucb
Lines: 25

In article <21686@unix.cis.pitt.edu> scratch@unix.cis.pitt.edu (Steven J Owens) writes:
>
>	Here's a rough outline of what I have in mind:  Years and years ago
>I remember seeing films in high school and later on TV about biofeedback
>training involving hooking an EEG up to a computer, thence to a toy electric
>train.  The subject would sit there with the EEG and think "stop" and the
>train would stop.  He would think "go" and the train would go.
>
>	Since this is possible, why isn't it being explored as a possible
>replacement for the keyboard?  Voice is imperfect, keyboard and touchscreen
>are slow, why not an EEG?

	The subject of the experiment described above was not thinking
'stop' or 'go', he was changing the frequency of his brainwaves from
beta waves to alpha waves.  This is a change of brain-state, not thought
content.  The detection technology is closely equivalent to detecting
a change in sound from a high tone to a lower tone.
	I have not heard that a means has been developed to unambiguously
distiguish between thoughts, even general catagories of thoughts.  Should
a means to do that be developed, it could conceivably be refined into an
interface.  The detection of one's integrated brainwave would be less useful,
since one has much more control over one's voice, and vocal control is
faster, more reliable, cheaper, and easier to use, imperfect as it is...

	--clw@ocf