Monday, November 21, 2011
Hippocampus GPS
Do you always get lost? Maybe you just need to update your brain with new maps.
Apparently, according to neuroscientists at the Institute of Behavioural Neuroscience at University College London our mind works like a sat-nav when we’re making our way somewhere by foot. One section analyses how far there is to go before we reach our final destination, and another part decided upon which route to take when we have several paths to choose from.
One of the scientists explained, "The posterior hippocampus cares about how long a route is going to be. It's like GPS. It knows how far you've got to go in the real world and it gets more excited the closer you are to your goal."
So, if you’re thinking about getting a sat-nav, maybe you don’t even need one!
On the other-hand, navigating your way through some of the UK’s more complicated roads, like the one-way systems which encircle whole towns or cities, might be a little easier with GPS technology on your side, and not just the posterior hippocampus.
Photo © dkwonsh via Flickr, under Creative Commons Licence
Labels: brain, destination, GPS, hippocampus, lost, map, navigating, road, route, sat-nav
Thursday, August 4, 2011
I think therefore I brake
When taking your theory and practical driving tests, you’ll probably have learnt that allowing yourself enough braking response time is quite important in order not to be involved in an accident.
Well, a scientist at the Berlin Institute for Technology called, Stefan Haufe, has been developing technology which could cut out the time taken between your brain thinking, “I need to brake”, and your leg actually doing it. He and his colleagues used 18 participants in their research, attaching electroencephalography (EEG) wires to each person’s head and sitting them in a driving simulator.
The people were told to keep driving at 100 kilometers an hour (62mph) while staying close to the computer controlled vehicle driving ahead of them. The car in front would brake without warning several times during the simulation, and the participants’ brain waves were measured as they reacted.
On average the EEG system successfully ‘predicted’ the person’s intention to brake 130 milliseconds before they physically did so.
Now Mr Haufe has stated that he and his fellow researchers are “considering to test the system online in a real car, however, if such a technology would ever enter a commercial product, it would certainly be used to complement other assistive technology to avoid the consequences of false alarms that could be both annoying and dangerous".
This sounds like a positive advance into reducing road traffic accidents, yet, if the automated vehicles Google has been testing become a reality first, then EEG braking will be obsolete before it ever became commercially available.
Let the technology race commence!
Photo © delta_avi_delta via Flickr, under Creative Commons Licence
Labels: brain, brake, driverless technology, driving test, EEG, practical, scientist, theory