Scientists: Use machine to read minds they using brain scans to reconstruct faces people are thinking of!

Soon they’ll be able to see exactly what you're thinking.

A new technique is able to see and accurately reconstruct images directly from a person's mind.

Researchers at Yale University conducted an experiment in which the brains of 30 volunteers were scanned using an MRI scanner while they were browsing through a selection of 300 photographs of people's faces.

Using nothing more than the neural activity data from the scans, the team was able to then reconstruct the specific faces that each volunteer was thinking about. The results were nothing if not remarkable with the reconstructed faces consistently bearing a close resemblance to the actual photographs.

"It is mind reading," said graduate student Alan S. Cowen. "You can see how people perceive faces depending on different disorders, like autism - and use that to help diagnose therapies."

The study, using functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, calls itself the first to attempt facial reconstruction through thoughts.

"It is mind reading," said Cowen.

It's hoped that the process could one day assist in solving crimes, better understand mental disorders and even recording dreams.

"You can see how people perceive faces depending on different disorders, like autism — and use that to help diagnose therapies," said Cowen.

As for the likelihood it could be used to extract memories, Cowen assures they're still ways away from that.

"This sort of technology can only read active parts of the brain. So you couldn't read passive memories — you would have to get the person to imagine the memory to read it,".

Source: New York Daily News