Special report : Can we copy the brain? - The dawn of the real thinking machine

IEEE Spectrum ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 54 (6) ◽  
pp. 22-25
Author(s):  
Fred Rothganger
Keyword(s):  
Special Report ◽  
The Real ◽  
The Brain

The Meditations

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Walter Ott
Keyword(s):  
Perceptual Experience ◽  
Developmental Reading ◽  
Basic Structure ◽  
Brain Image ◽  
The Real ◽  
The Third ◽  
Real Work ◽  
Sensible Qualities ◽  
The Brain

Despite its difference in aspiration, the Meditations preserves the basic structure of perceptual experience outlined in Descartes’s earliest works. The chapter explores Descartes’s notion of an idea and uses a developmental reading to clear up the mystery surrounding material falsity. In the third Meditation, our protagonist does not yet know enough about extension in order to be able to tell whether her idea of cold is an idea of a real feature of bodies or merely the idea of a sensation. By the time she reaches the end of her reflections, she has learned that sensible qualities are at most sensations. As in his earliest stages, Descartes believes that the real work of perceiving the geometrical qualities of bodies is done by the brain image, which he persists in calling an ‘idea,’ at least when it is the object of mental awareness.

Musical Illusions and Phantom Words

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diana Deutsch
Keyword(s):  
Music Perception ◽  
Musical Ability ◽  
Art And Science ◽  
Brain Organization ◽  
Early Form ◽  
The Real ◽  
Musical Patterns ◽  
Psychology Of Music ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain

In this groundbreaking synthesis of art and science, Diana Deutsch, one of the world’s leading experts on the psychology of music, shows how illusions of music and speech – many of which she discovered - have fundamentally altered thinking about the brain. These astonishing illusions show that people can differ strikingly in how they hear musical patterns - differences that reflect both variations in brain organization and influences of language on music perception. They lead Deutsch to examine questions such as: When an orchestra performs a symphony, what is the ‘real’ music? Is it in the mind of the composer, or the conductor, or different members of the audience? Deutsch also explores extremes of musical ability, and other rare responses to music and speech. Why is perfect pitch so rare? Why are some people unable to recognize simple tunes? Why do some people hallucinate music or speech? Why do we hear phantom words and phrases? Why are most people subject to stuck tunes, or ‘earworms’? Why do we hear a spoken phrase as sung just because it is presented repeatedly? In evaluating these questions, she also shows how music and speech are intertwined, and argues that they stem from an early form of communication that had elements of both. Many of the illusions described here are so striking and paradoxical that you need to hear them to believe them. So the book enables you to listen to the sounds that are described while reading about them.

Chairman’s introduction

1968 ◽  
Vol 171 (1024) ◽  
pp. 276-277 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Nervous System ◽  
Experimental Observation ◽  
General Problem ◽  
Research Strategy ◽  
System Research ◽  
Cerebral Function ◽  
The Real ◽  
Black Boxes ◽  
The Brain ◽  
As If

The object of this discussion might be said to be to discover a strategy for study of cerebral function. An earlier title suggested for it may indicate the theme that we had in mind. We thought that to ask you to discuss ‘Principles of addressing in brains and computers’ might be a way of approaching the problem of finding that strategy. We hope that those joining in the discussion will keep this general problem in mind and try to relate their own particular findings to it. For those who are concerned directly with the physical nervous system research strategy is dictated largely by the type of experimental observation that seems to be feasible with current techniques. This leads some of us anatomists and physio­logists to adopt a rather high and mighty attitude as if we alone knew how to study the nervous system, but this attitude may be less wise than it seems. Perhaps our techniques put us in blinkers. We continue to find out what we already know can be found out. Surely what we want to discover is what must be found out if we are to understand the brain. We hope that our more logical friends, who perhaps have more time to think because they have not actually got to open the black boxes, will help us to learn what to look for when we open them : to tell us what are the real problems.

Brain Activation Measurement of Velvet Hand Illusion Using Pocket NIRS

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Ohka ◽  
Y. Mitsui ◽  
H. Komura
Keyword(s):  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Relative Motion ◽  
Brain Activation ◽  
Haptic Device ◽  
Wire Mesh ◽  
Real Thing ◽  
The Real ◽  
Activation Measurement ◽  
The Brain ◽  
As If

In this research, as a different approach to the conventional one which enhances the performance with hardware of a haptic device, we adopt another approach to make the brain feel as if the person is touching the real thing via an illusion. Thus, we study Velvet Hand Illusion (VHI) which is an illusionary phenomenon concerning tactile touch. In VHI, a hexagonal wire mesh is sandwiched between both hands and rubbing the wire mesh without relative motion between both hands generates a smooth feeling, like velvet. The brain activation at this time is measured by PocketNIRS, which contains two channels measuring the bilateral prefrontal cortex. We obtained the result that the prefrontal cortex was activated to roughly two times larger when VHI occurred than when touching real velvet fabric. Since different responses can be obtained in the prefrontal cortex during brain activation between real velvet and VHI, it is possible to use pocketNIRS for the evaluation of VHI.

scholarly journals Experiments and observations on the influence of the nerves of the eighth pair on the secretions of the stomach

1832 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 486-487
Keyword(s):  
Natural State ◽  
The Real ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Nervous Influence

Former experiments having shown that when the functions of the brain are destroyed the secretory organs invariably ceased to perform their office, and consequently that the various secretions were pro­bably dependent on nervous influence, it appeared desirable to ascer­tain this point by dividing the nervous branches by which some one gland is supplied, and observing the effect. But on account of the difficulty of the operation itself, and of the injury done to adjacent parts, it appears extremely difficult to determine the real influence of the nerves in the natural state of all the functions. There are, how­ever, some experiments on the preternatural secretion excited by the action of arsenic, and its interruption by division of the nerves, which the author thinks may deserve to be recorded as tending to elucidate so important a subject. Mr. Brodie had formerly observed in dogs poisoned by arsenic, a very copious secretion of mucus and watery fluid from the coats of the stomach and intestines, and so rapidly excited, that he conceived this to be a favourable instance for observing the effect of dividing those nerves which supply the stomach.

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