The lie detector may give way to “mind reading” using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).
In a study by scientists from Carnegie Mellon University (USA), subjects were shown images of five tools and five types of dwellings, asking them to think about the properties of each. It turned out that the “pattern” of brain activity corresponding to a certain object is characteristic only for thoughts about it and, at the same time, is similar in different people. According to the results of fMRI, the computer determined with an accuracy of 78% when the subject was thinking about a hammer, and not, for example, about a drill. This discovery could facilitate forensic examinations, such as identifying a suspect’s knowledge of the weapon and crime scene. However, it is not yet clear whether the brains of different people will work in the same way when they begin to operate with more complex concepts than “drill” or “hut”.