IFTF's Future Now

Brain Scanning Superbowl ads

A mini experiment looks at fMRI scanning of folks watching superbowl ads. This is the basic concept behind neuromarketing. Its reliability or accuracy as translated to consumer behavior is unclear. Fundamental privacy issues exist.

" ... Commercials are a part of our lives. We watch them, enjoy them, and discuss them with our friends. Do commercials make us buy the product they advertise? Nobody really knows. The most anticipated 'ad experience' is watching the Super Bowl ads. After the game, there is a flurry of opinions from marketing experts and focus groups of what was the most effective Super Bowl ad. This year, at the UCLA Ahmanson-Lovelace Brain Mapping Center, Marco Iacoboni and his group used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure brain responses in a group of subjects while they watched the Super Bowl ads. The way fMRI works is relatively simple: different levels of cerebral blood oxygenation have different magnetic properties. Moreover, changes in blood oxygenation correlate with changes in neural activity. Thus, without using any contrast agent, fMRI can measure how much brain areas are activated during sensory, cognitive and motor experiences..."

NeuroInsights

I had a very interesting meeting today with Zack Lynch of NeuroInsights. Zack is the firm's founder and NeuroInsights "is a research and advisory firm that provides in-depth analysis of the neurotechnology industry. "

My interest in meeting with Zack was to learn about brain imaging and neuromarketing, but Zack and his team are covering a wide range of brain related technologies and issues, including the very thorny moral and ethical issues associated with these technologies.

If you are interested in this field - and given the impact neurotechnology and cognitive sciences are having and will have on society everyone should be interested - Zack has a blog called Brain Waves on Corante that is well worth visiting.

An Image of a Single Thought

More improvements in brain scanning, resulting in higher accuracy, real-time scans. The image is a snapshot of a brain as it learns a new task. Commentary in Corante.

...The University of Illinois at Chicago unveiled today the world's most powerful magnetic resonance imaging machine for human studies, capable of imaging not just the anatomy but metabolism within the brain. This advanced technology ushers in a new age of metabolic imaging that will help researchers understand the workings of the human brain, detect diseases before their clinical signs appear, develop targeted drug therapies for illnesses like stroke and provide a better understanding of learning disabilities ...

Anthroscopes at Sandia Labs

More neuroscience emergent tech came to my attention this past week, work at Sandia National Labs Advanced Concepts Group known as their Mentor-Pal project, which uses a system called an anthroscope to gather physical bio data from people as they are presented with scenarios. The anthroscope consists of some 40 channels of physical information, like a lie-detector with more bandwidth, gathering gigabytes of fundamental data.

What Sandia has added is the ability to do advanced pattern recognition on the data stream. The resulting patterns could be used to ultimately adapt and refine machine interaction. They suggest that it could be used to define and track performance in collaborative teams. This is another example of tracking affective interaction between people and machines.

Here is a video from Sandia presenting an overview of the project. It also covered in the Corante blog, which discusses its use in the area of collaborative teams.

Beyond the obvious ideas of tracking human reactions in teams ... this also has potential applications to neuromarketing. A consumer or shopper could be shown products or shopping scenarious and their interactions tracked at a more fundamental level than filling in questionaires. Might be seen as less invasive than brain scanning techniques.

[ A Wired article on this, which discusses privacy implications ]