A machine has been developed to display on screen the thoughts seen or remembered on screen using only your thoughts! Finally the dark seedy underbelly of your mind can be on display for all to see. The device uses brainwave activity detailed by an MRI machine into a moving image on a computer screen. Professor Jack Gallant at the University of California says: “At the moment you want to see something and want to describe it you have to words or draw it and it doesn’t work very well. This technology might allow you to recover an eyewitness’ memory of a crime” 

Using a fMRI scanner,the American team scanned the brains of two volunteers while they watched videos. The results were fed into a computer which looked for links between colurs, shapes and movements on the screen, and patterns of activity in the brain.The computer software was then given the brain scans of the volunteers as they watched a different video and was asked to recreate what they were seeing. The software was close to the mark. In one scene featuring comic actor Steve Martin in a white shirt, the computer reproduced his white torso and rough shape, but was unable to handle details of his face. In another, the volunteers watched an image of a city skyline with a plane flying past.The software was able to recreate the skyline – but not the aircraft.

Steve Martin is one more memory that I would rather repress

Suddenly our innermost disgusting, repulsive, terrorist, secret or sensitive thoughts will be on display for the world to see. Crime fighting? If I can visualize big foot carjacking my 86 toyota corolla it doesn’t mean it happened. Most memories are generative, in that we re-create them on the fly and do not retrieve them from some static database. In fact some memories I argue should remain buried, like the time my uncle asked me to help him wax.

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