Scientists have made a major breakthrough in exploring ways to create expressive devices to assist people who can’t speak.
By implanting electrodes in the human brains, scientists recorded patients with epilepsy as they listened to music.
A computer can analyze brain activity and, based solely on neuronal patterns, the computer can recreate the song.
Scientists Recreate Pink Floyd Song by Reading Brain Signals of Listeners
The future is bright! pic.twitter.com/Dhb3lpPups
— Julio Medina (e/acc) (@JulioMedina) August 16, 2023
“You can actually listen to the brain and restore the music that person heard,” said Gerwin Schalk, a neuroscientist in Shanghai said.
Epilepsy is a neurological disorder characterized by recurrent seizures. A seizure is a sudden burst of electrical activity in the brain that can cause a variety of symptoms, including convulsions, loss of consciousness, and changes in behavior or sensation.
Epilepsy is a common disorder, affecting about 1 in 26 people worldwide. It can start at any age, but it is most common in children and older adults. There is no cure for epilepsy, but it can be managed with medication, surgery, or other treatments.
This is considered a major first step toward creating more expressive devices to assist people who can’t speak.
“Much like how the resolution of an image depends on its number of pixels, the quality of an audio recording depends on the number of frequencies it can represent,” the report found.
Scientists Recreate Pink Floyd Song by Reading Brain Signals of Listeners https://t.co/lLTMVL41nq pic.twitter.com/W6dE9swLRb
— Sam Fell (@samueldfell) August 16, 2023
“To legibly reconstruct ‘Another Brick in the Wall,’ the researchers used 128 frequency bands. That meant training 128 computer models, which collectively brought the song into focus,” the report added.
There are some expressive devices that exist to help people who can’t speak. Communication boards are made up of pictures or symbols that represent different words or phrases. People who can’t speak can point to the pictures or symbols to communicate their needs or wants.
Speech-generating devices are electronic devices that can speak words or phrases that are programmed into them. People who can’t speak can select the words or phrases they want to say by using a switch or a touchscreen.
Eye-gaze technology allows people to control a computer or other device by looking at it. People who can’t speak can use eye-gaze technology to select words or phrases to say.
Sign language continues to play a critical role in using visual language with hand gestures and facial expressions to communicate.
