For years my brother has been saying, "Wouldn't it be great if people could just think their messages to each other?" He believes translation devices and similar assistive technology might hold the key to a communication technique humans don't come by naturally.
Like most great thinkers, my brother has always been just a tad ahead of his time. But, the future may come sooner than later. Soon it may be possible for people to communicate with each other—and with machines—using an implant in their brain.
There are thousands of people who, due to disease or accident, are unable to move or communicate. Inside their bodies they are vibrant and alert. To the outside world, however, they are non-responsive.
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly – Overcoming Locked-In Syndrome
A few years ago the movie The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, told the story of journalist Jean-Dominique Bauby, a man who suffered from Locked-In Syndrome following a massive stroke. The only muscle he could move was in one eyelid.
Through painstaking trial and error, he learned to communicate one letter at a time by blinking as the alphabet was recited by people he was "speaking" to. The letters were written down, eventually forming words and sentences. The technique was exhausting for both speaker and listener.
Some people use voice synthesis devices to simulate speech, but the user has to be able to type. The physicist Stephen Hawking, for example, uses the only muscles available to him, in one finger, to type messages. The device then speaks the messages.
Using Translation Devices to “Talk” Through Brain Waves
New research by a German neuroscientist from the University of Tübingen may be on the threshold to improving on this procedure. Dr. Niels Birbaumer has developed a device that, to date, has allowed 11 patients to communicate with a computer through brain waves alone.
Birbaumer's Thought Translation Device translates low-frequency brain waves, called slow cortical potential waves (SLP), into computer instructions. It takes a good deal of practice, but initial test subjects have been able to use the implant and a modified EEG machine to answer yes/no questions, write sentences, and do searches on the Internet.
This was not the researcher's first foray into the use of SLP waves. In 1995 Birbaumer won Germany's prestigious Leibniz Prize for his work with epilepsy sufferers. With his help, subjects learned to control their seizure activity through manipulation of their brain's electrical current. The procedure wasn't a panacea. Not all seizure activity could be prevented using the device. But the research was sufficiently encouraging to give the researcher ideas for various applications.
Translation Devices of Tomorrow
In the future, it might be possible for two or more users of translation devices to "talk" directly with each other through some form of augmented telepathy. At present, the process is much too slow for such communication to be possible. A hundred characters can take almost an hour to type.
But, now that Birbaumer has opened the door for brainwave communication, research into the use of faster, more reliable brain-to-computer interfaces should be possible. One hump to get past is a lack of test subjects. Even totally locked-in patients are not always eager to have their heads drilled into so a device can be implanted.
But perhaps one of the key messages of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is that the will to communicate with other humans is so intrinsic to us as human beings that we will overcome any hurdle to connect.
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