Researchers decode their thoughts into words in real time

July 31, 2019 – 10:49 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net – Researchers at the University of California at San Fransico have successfully decoded human thoughts in speech in real time, the university announced. This marks a new stage for detailed work for the first time in April, paving the way for mainstream devices to respond to thoughts without the user needing to audibly control, says SlashGear.

Voice control is quickly becoming the preferred method for interacting with devices, but it is not practical in public environments and is not an option for anyone who is speech impaired or speech impaired that existing badistants are unable to understand. This is where the synthesis of thoughts in the form of discourse comes into play.

In April, UCSF researchers detailed a "neural prosthesis of speech" capable of producing a relatively natural speech from a decoded activity in the bath. Technology, if it ever reaches the market, could be used in biomedical devices that allow dumb individuals to speak. However, the detailed technology earlier this year was too slow for these usage scenarios.

In a study published today, UCSF researchers revealed that they had relied on these works and had managed to decode brain activity as speech in real time. A key aspect of development is to use the context in which participants expressed themselves to improve the ability of the machine to accurately and rapidly decode brain activity.

The principal investigator of the study, David Moses, explained:

The real-time treatment of brain activity has been used to decode simple speech sounds, but this is the first time this approach is used to identify words and spoken sentences. It is important to keep in mind that we have achieved this goal by using a very limited vocabulary, but hopefully, in the future, increase the flexibility and accuracy of what we can translate from brain activity.

The research was funded as part of the sponsored university research agreement with Facebook, which announced a "brain typing" project in 2017. While the medical industry sees technology as a potential way to enable people with ALS and other conditions to "talk" "Using thoughts, Facebook seems to be looking for such a technology for the development of augmented reality glbades controlled by the brain.