(ELOG 6 for CS3790: Cognitive Science)
One of our guest lecturers for Cog Sci in the past few weeks was a guy from a group at Georgia Tech investigating BCIs – Brain-Computer Interfaces. He had a very interesting topic to talk about – becoming cyborgs. There is a lot of interesting research being done in the area of interfacing computers with nervous systems. There are wheelchairs controlled by thought and robotic arms that respond to the same impulses our brain uses to control our real arms.
To me, one of the more interesting points of research pointed out by the lecture was the work of Kevin Warwick. He has had an array of electrodes implanted into his arm and used it to control, over the internet, an arm. Not only could he control it, but he was also able to receive stimulus from the arm, allowing him to control it blindfolded. His wife got an implant as well, and they set up bidirectional communication between the implants controlled by thought. (Read more about it in his paper: “Thought communication and control: a first step using radiotelegraphy”)
The result – a crude, but completely thought-driven means of communication. Kevin was able to send finger twitches to his wife, who would feel the twitches and could accurately identify them, and she could send back the same. This is a really cool idea to me. The ability to transmit thoughts, even if they are only simple twitches for now, is something that could be an extremely useful tool and lots of fun too.
What’s this mean for the average joe? Well, nothing for right now. But with all of the advances science has been making, bionic eyes, robotic arms, remote controlled rats… we could be seeing a future where people are as much machine as they are person. Being able to connect to the internet with a thought, being able to get a limb replaced with the full ability of the original arm… None of it seems quite as far fetched any more. Science has begun to understand the brain to the point where we can create technology that taps directly into it.
(ELOG 5 for CS3790: Cognitive Science)
Memento is an interesting movie. I mean, yeah, it’s got the whole doing the entire story backwards thing. But it’s also got a character with anterograde amnesia [wikipedia]. Anterograde amnesia is something I first encountered while watching Memento. Whenever you hear about amnesia in movies, it always seems to be retrograde amnesia – the kind that always happens in soap operas – so I’d never really heard about anterograde amnesia. Apparently it’s more common though.
Anterograde amnesia largely occurs in one of two ways: drug-induced or trauma-induced. Drug induced amnesia can be overcome with time, but trauma-induced damage is typically permanent. Either way, the amnesia is caused by damage to the memory systems of the brain. While we are still unclear on how memory works in the brain, we do know the areas generally responsible for memory. The typical suspect in cases of anterograde amnesia is damage to the medial temporal lobe (MTL). The medial temporal lobe includes the hippocampus.
Memento features a character who is bashed over the head, causing damage to this area of his brain and destroying his ability to form new memories. The extreme extent to which he has this trouble may seem somewhat far-fetched, but if you’ve ever seen anything about Clive Wearing [youtube] then you can consider the main character of Memento as practically normal by comparison. The debilitating effect anterograde amnesia can have on a person is best exemplified in the movie when the main character is trying to remember a person as an enemy and finds himself struggling to find a pen to write this important fact down while he tries to keep the thought in short-term memory using rehearsal.
Anterograde amnesia often only involves what is know as declarative memory – memories of facts, such as what happened when. Often time the amnesiac retains the ability to form new habits or even simple skills and this is known as non-declarative memory. Also, in many cases, the person completely retains memories from before the cause of their illnesses. The contrast between these types of memory and how they are affected by anterograde amnesia definitely shows that the MTL is not the only place memory is dealt with in the brain. We see the main character in the movie using these differences to his advantage by using procedural habits to deal with his lack of memory.
Altogether, Memento is as intriguing a movie as anterograde amnesia is a condition. It’s definitely worth watching, even (or especially) if it was edited together to play out the story backwards. (Each colored scene in the movie happens chronologically before the scenes shown after it, and the black and white shots spliced in happen before all of the color events.) In fact, this style of story telling makes perfect sense from the point of view of the main character, whose life is not linear, but just a bunch of independent scenes.
Recently my friend Mike was looking for a service to sync his documents between his laptop (Linux) and his desktop (Windows). This is often a tricky problem involving a USB stick or something of that nature, but he wanted something more automatic. I told him I knew of nothing that would quite fit the bill.
Of course, my other friend Tom decided that there must be a solution out there somewhere and did some googling. He found this little gem:
getdropbox.com
I don’t really have to much need for such a program, but I decided to download it anyway. I must say it is rather nifty. After installing the program and registering it to your account, you are given a folder that represents your Dropbox. It acts just like any other folder in your filesystem except for one very important rule – in the background the Dropbox program is constantly checking for updates to the folder and updating as necessary. After syncing with the online storage, any other computers running dropbox and set up for the same account will see and automatically download changes.
But that’s not all! Since it all works by syncing remotely, you also have the option of logging in through the web interface to download files you might need without having to install the program on another computer. It also can help you undelete or roll back changes.
But wait, there’s more! Not only can you log in and get access to your files, but you can also put files into the public folder in the dropbox and share them with friends via a link. Or you can put the files in your photos folder and create a gallery that can be viewed in slideshow form.
And that’s not all! You can also invite users to share folders in your dropbox. Then any of them can make changes and everyone will be able to see the changes instantly. That’s really sweet for collaboration on a group project.
So, if you’ve ever been wishing for an easier way to keep files in sync between multiple computers or for a way to instantly share some of those files with friends without having to upload to something like flickr, look into dropbox. While it’s in beta, you’re limited to a free 2GB storage limit. They have plans to offer a paid 50GB storage limit down the line, once testing is complete.
(ELOG 4 for CS3790: Cognitive Science)
Last Tuesday we had a class discussing Autism and Autism Spectrum Disorders. But… I wasn’t there. In light of this, I decided to read up on Autism and watch the video shown in class.
(The video is: The Mind of a Visual Thinker [youtube])
Temple Grandin is a fascinating person. Her talk (see video above) on visual thinking was a great look into the thought process of someone one the Autistic Spectrum. Apparently she doesn’t think in words like many people, but instead thinks completely in visual pictures. When she hears the word steeple, she doesn’t just call to mind attributes of steeples, or even a generic steeple, but actual pictures of steeples she has seen at some point.
To Grandin, the major feature tying together the various parts of the Autistic Spectrum, is that all have a different way of thinking about things from those that are not in the Autistic Spectrum. She mentions three specific ways of thinking that many in the Autistic Spectrum find themselves in. One is thinking in pictures, which is the way Grandin herself thinks. Others may think in patterns or even in sounds, but the common theme is that these people think in one way more exclusively, rather than being able to easily switch and relate the different ways of thinking.
The physiological causes of Autism have not been found, but the current theory of how the behavioral differences develop follows this model:
The idea being that the genetic and possible environmental factors lead to a difference in the way the brain develops, which affects how the person is able to think, and finally results in an observable difference in behavior. Work is currently being done to develop a model that explains exactly how this process occurs in a way that fits current evidence. (A Cognitive Model of Autism [cc.gatech.edu])
In understanding Autism Spectrum Disorders, we do important work not only in helping those with Autism survive in a world of what Grandin refers to as neurotypicals. but also in understanding how the mind in general works.
This Friday was Georgia Tech’s Annual Six Flags day. The school rents out the park and sells tickets at a discount to students. It’s a pretty sweet deal, $13 for a ticket that’d normally cost $30-$40. Plus, the lines are typically shorter than those you’d find on a normal day.
I love roller-coasters, and Six Flags has some good ones. Unfortunately, this year there were a lot of other students thinking the same thing. The lines for the Batman and Superman rides, two of the better coasters in the park, were hideously long. Like rumors of people waiting two and a half hours long. We opted not to risk waiting in those two lines for hours on end.
It probably didn’t help that the park was short a couple of rides they had previous years, but the unfortunate truth of the matter was that the park was a bit overcrowded this year as opposed to the last. There were long lines even for the rides that last year had practically no lines (mainly because people think they suck) – like the Ninja.
It wasn’t all bad though – we got in line for the Goliath relatively early, only waiting about an hour for what is arguably one of the park’s best rides. We also experienced pretty short lines for the Cyclone and the Scream Machine, two old wooden monstrosities that cause major headaches from the extreme rickety vibrations. Awesome, but also nauseating. The new metal rides are so much smoother, but they don’t give off that whole could-break-apart-and-kill-you-at-any-moment vibe.
We made our last ride of the night the Georgia Scorcher. This ride was probably my favorite, but the designer of the ride is undoubtedly the most spiteful person to walk the face of the planet. The seats are designed to hold you in by lifting you up by the groin and holding down your shoulders, so either the designer hates men or has a very kinky fetish. I’m talking major discomfort if you strap in wrong.
All in all, I’ll probably go again, but this next time I hope Six Flags has a few more rides running or Tech decides to sell a few less tickets.
Oh, and apparently everyone decides to go to Steak and Shake after Six Flags, so don’t think you’re the only one brilliant enough to come up with that idea, or you’ll be stuck waiting an hour to get your shakes.
