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From: OWENSJ@VTVM1.BITNET (John Owens)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: IEF007ACA: WRONG THOUGHT OR PRE-VOCALIZATION
Message-ID: <8711121821.AA11066@bu-cs.BU.EDU>
Date: Thu, 12-Nov-87 10:43:54 EST
Article-I.D.: bu-cs.8711121821.AA11066
Posted: Thu Nov 12 10:43:54 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 14-Nov-87 20:05:41 EST
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Organization: The ARPA Internet
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>From: Michael Travers <mt@MEDIA-LAB.MEDIA.MIT.EDU>
>To: viv-core@MEDIA-LAB.MEDIA.MIT.EDU, prog-d@MEDIA-LAB.MEDIA.MIT.EDU
>Subject: interesting but scary interface technology
>Through the analysis of electromyographic (EMG) signals of the covert
>oral behavior phenomenon [McGuigan and Winstead, 1974], [Thorsheim,
>McGuigan, and Davis, 1975], produced while a subject speaks or thinks
>preassigned syllables, it is anticipated that unique, reproduceable
>digital patterns may be identified.

I remember reading a science fiction story several years ago (in
Year's Best S.F. 1955 or something like that) in which "Big Brother"
used such a recognition device to read the thoughts of the main
character without her knowing it.  The story concerned a woman
who navigated a ship through hyperspace (or somesuch) by psychic
means.  In the course of doing this, she fell in love with another
psychic navigator, and they created their own private world (which
was part of the navigation process, but took on special meaning for
them).  When she found out that they (I don't remember who "they"
were) had been monitoring her thoughts and invading the privacy
of their communications, she was crushed.  Anyway, at the time I
thought that reading thoughts by detecting "subvocalizations" was
purely an invention of the author, but perhaps not.  Does anyone
remember the story and the year so we can compare it to the
papers referenced above?  Maybe the researchers got their idea
from this storybe