full transcript

From the Ted Talk by David Eagleman: Can we create new senses for humans?

Unscramble the Blue Letters


Now, we've been very encouraged by our results with sensory souiiutbttsn, but what we've been thinking a lot about is sensory addition. How could we use a technology like this to add a completely new kind of sense, to expand the human umvelt? For example, could we feed real-time data from the Internet directly into somebody's brain, and can they develop a dcriet perceptual experience?

So here's an experiment we're doing in the lab. A secujbt is fenlieg a real-time streaming feed from the Net of data for five seconds. Then, two btnotus appear, and he has to make a choice. He doesn't know what's going on. He makes a choice, and he gets feedback after one second. Now, here's the thing: The subject has no idea what all the patterns mean, but we're seeing if he gets better at figuring out which button to press. He doesn't know that what we're feeding is real-time data from the stock mkerat, and he's making buy and sell decisions. (Laughter) And the feedback is tleilng him whether he did the right thing or not. And what we're seeing is, can we expand the human umvelt so that he comes to have, after several wkees, a direct perceptual epirenexce of the economic mementvos of the planet. So we'll report on that later to see how well this goes. (Laughter)

Open Cloze


Now, we've been very encouraged by our results with sensory ____________, but what we've been thinking a lot about is sensory addition. How could we use a technology like this to add a completely new kind of sense, to expand the human umvelt? For example, could we feed real-time data from the Internet directly into somebody's brain, and can they develop a ______ perceptual experience?

So here's an experiment we're doing in the lab. A _______ is _______ a real-time streaming feed from the Net of data for five seconds. Then, two _______ appear, and he has to make a choice. He doesn't know what's going on. He makes a choice, and he gets feedback after one second. Now, here's the thing: The subject has no idea what all the patterns mean, but we're seeing if he gets better at figuring out which button to press. He doesn't know that what we're feeding is real-time data from the stock ______, and he's making buy and sell decisions. (Laughter) And the feedback is _______ him whether he did the right thing or not. And what we're seeing is, can we expand the human umvelt so that he comes to have, after several _____, a direct perceptual __________ of the economic _________ of the planet. So we'll report on that later to see how well this goes. (Laughter)

Solution


  1. telling
  2. direct
  3. market
  4. feeling
  5. substitution
  6. movements
  7. experience
  8. subject
  9. weeks
  10. buttons

Original Text


Now, we've been very encouraged by our results with sensory substitution, but what we've been thinking a lot about is sensory addition. How could we use a technology like this to add a completely new kind of sense, to expand the human umvelt? For example, could we feed real-time data from the Internet directly into somebody's brain, and can they develop a direct perceptual experience?

So here's an experiment we're doing in the lab. A subject is feeling a real-time streaming feed from the Net of data for five seconds. Then, two buttons appear, and he has to make a choice. He doesn't know what's going on. He makes a choice, and he gets feedback after one second. Now, here's the thing: The subject has no idea what all the patterns mean, but we're seeing if he gets better at figuring out which button to press. He doesn't know that what we're feeding is real-time data from the stock market, and he's making buy and sell decisions. (Laughter) And the feedback is telling him whether he did the right thing or not. And what we're seeing is, can we expand the human umvelt so that he comes to have, after several weeks, a direct perceptual experience of the economic movements of the planet. So we'll report on that later to see how well this goes. (Laughter)

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
blind people 4
sensory substitution 3
direct perceptual 3
cell phone 2
objective reality 2
brain figures 2
electrochemical signals 2
peripheral devices 2
pretty good 2
video feed 2
perceptual experience 2
blind person 2
sensory addition 2
visual cortex 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
direct perceptual experience 2

Important Words


  1. add
  2. addition
  3. brain
  4. button
  5. buttons
  6. buy
  7. choice
  8. completely
  9. data
  10. decisions
  11. develop
  12. direct
  13. economic
  14. encouraged
  15. expand
  16. experience
  17. experiment
  18. feed
  19. feedback
  20. feeding
  21. feeling
  22. figuring
  23. human
  24. idea
  25. internet
  26. kind
  27. lab
  28. laughter
  29. lot
  30. making
  31. market
  32. movements
  33. net
  34. patterns
  35. perceptual
  36. planet
  37. press
  38. report
  39. results
  40. seconds
  41. sell
  42. sense
  43. sensory
  44. stock
  45. streaming
  46. subject
  47. substitution
  48. technology
  49. telling
  50. thinking
  51. umvelt
  52. weeks