viernes, 2 de noviembre de 2012

Mind-reader converts thoughts into video

Picture in your mind a scene in your life and then imagine being able to make a video of it. Apparently this seems to be closer than ever.

Self-study activity:
Watch this Skynews video and complete the blanks in the transcript.



Every day we are (1) ... to millions of images, but what do they really look like inside our brains? Now scientists in the States say this is proof of a major (2) ... . The footage on the left is taken from several Hollywood films and next to it a (3) ... of images from an online video library that best matched the blood flow activity inside the brain, monitored in this case by (4) ... scanners and you can clearly see the resemblance. The experts responsible claim they’ve created a system that could even be used to explore the minds of (5) ...  or coma patients.

That’s good news for people like Sarah. She had a (5) ... two years ago, just 18 years old. She still suffers from aphasia, so she struggles with speech and writing and any communication was a real problem for her after it happened.

If I can’t speak then it hurts (to) talk, you know, if you’re sad or upset or just I want a bottle or anything…
And pointing to (6) ... is difficult because Sarah was paralysed so she couldn’t even point at a picture of what she wanted, so that would've been a brilliant idea.

But some scientists say we should still be cautious.

The very notion of mind reading is very, very far away from now, it’s decades or even centuries. What we will be able to do in the (7) ... is provide the (8) ... to facilitate sensory processing for people whose processing has been (9) ... , for example due to brain lesions.

(10) ... what’s really going on in our brains could still be decades away, but image a world where dreams can be translated, memories reproduced or where even reading your mind would be possible.

Karen Kraft Sky News

Key:
subjected 2 breakthrough 3 blend 4 MRI 5 stroke 6 charts 7 charts 8 devices 9 impaired 10 Decoding