#Consumer Neuroscience

[mars777]

El Neuromarketing como Consumidor

El Neuromarketing, a menudo invisible para el ojo común, juega un papel significativo en tu experiencia como consumidor. En este artículo, exploraremos cómo las estrategias de Neuromarketing influyen en tus decisiones de compra, desde la publicidad hasta el diseño de productos y la configuración de precios, brindándote una visión más profunda de cómo estas tácticas impactan tu cerebro y tus…

[boredpathologist]

I cannot fathom having the choice between studying neuroscience and joining a group that exists solely to kill… and choosing the second group. There’s so much promise in that field, and you would give up a career in it?

[espl-22]

GULLIBILITY AND THE USE OF POSITIVE GENERALISATIONS THE BARNUM FORER EFFECT

In what has been described as a "classic experiment", Psychologist Bertram Forer, University of Massachusetts, gave a psychology test – his so-called "Diagnostic Interest Blank" – to his psychology students, who were told that they would each receive a brief personality sketch based on their test results. One week later Forer gave each student a purportedly individualized sketch and asked each of them to rate it on how well it applied to them. In reality, each student received the same sketch, consisting of items like the following ….

1. You have a great need for other people to like and admire you

2. You have a tendency to be critical of yourself

3. You have a great deal of unused capacity which you have not turned to your advantage

4. While you have some personality weaknesses, you are generally able to compensate for them

5. Some of your aspirations tend to be pretty unrealistic

6. Security is one of your major goals in life……and about a dozen more similar statements!!

7. You have a great need for other people to like and admire you.

8. You have a tendency to be critical of yourself.

9. You have a great deal of unused capacity which you have not turned to your advantage.

10. While you have some personality weaknesses, you are generally able to compensate for them.

11. Some of your aspirations tend to be pretty unrealistic.

12. Security is one of your major goals in life……and about a dozen more similar statements

On average, the students rated its accuracy as 4.30 on a scale of 0 (very poor) to 5 (excellent). Only after the ratings were turned in was it revealed that all students had received an identical personality sketch assembled by Forer from a newsstand astrology book.

This effect, sometimes called the Barnum Forer effect or the Barnum effect can provide a partial explanation for the widespread social learning about some paranormal beliefs, practices and the faith in some ‘so called’ tests and assessments.

These characterizations are often used by practitioners as a con-technique, nudging victims into believing that they are endowed with a paranormal gift. Because the assessment statements are so vague, people ascribe their own interpretation, thus the statement becomes "personal" to them. Also, individuals are more likely to accept negative assessments of themselves if they perceive the person presenting the assessment as a potential high-status professional.

Two factors are important in producing the Barnum-Forer effect-

1) The content of the description offered is important, with specific emphasis on the higher ratio of positive to lower negative trait assessments

2) The subject trusts the honesty of the person providing feedback.

Have you experienced the Barnum Forer effect lately?

Psychologist Ross Stagner of Wisconsin University, asked a number of personnel managers to take a personality test.

After they had taken the test, Stagner, instead of responding with feedback based on their actual individual answers, presented each of them with generalized feedback that had no relation to their test answers but that was, instead, based on horoscopes, graphological analyses, and the like. Each of the managers was then asked how accurate the assessment of him or her was. More than half described the assessment as accurate, and almost none described it as wrong.

 Many years later, in what has been described as a "classic experiment", Psychologist Forer, University of Massachusetts, gave a psychology test – his so-called "Diagnostic Interest Blank" – to his psychology students, who were told that they would each receive a brief personality sketch based on their test results. One week later Forer gave each student a purportedly individualized sketch and asked each of them to rate it on how well it applied. In reality, each student received the same sketch, consisting of items like the following ….

On average, the students rated its accuracy as 4.30 on a scale of 0 (very poor) to 5 (excellent). Only after the ratings were turned in was it revealed that all students had received an identical vignette assembled by Forer from a newsstand astrology book. The vignette contained statements that were vague and general enough to apply to most people.

The Barnum effect, also called the Forer effect or, less commonly, the Barnum–Forer effect, is a common psychological phenomenon whereby individuals give high accuracy ratings to descriptions of their personality that supposedly are tailored specifically to them, yet which are in fact vague and general enough to apply to a wide range of people.

This effect can provide a partial explanation for the widespread acceptance of some paranormal beliefs and practices, such as astrology, fortune telling, aura reading, and some types of personality tests.

These characterizations are often used by practitioners as a con-technique to convince victims that they are endowed with a paranormal gift. Because the assessment statements are so vague, people ascribe their own interpretation, thus the statement becomes "personal" to them, integral to their habit formation.

Also, individuals are more likely to accept negative assessments of themselves if they perceive the person presenting the assessment as a high-status professional.

Researcher Bertram Forer originally named it the "fallacy of personal validation". The effect has been said to confirm the Pollyanna principle, where individuals tend "to use or accept positive words of feedback more frequently than negative words of feedback."

 Two factors are important in producing the Forer effect, according to the findings of replication studies. The content of the description offered is important, with specific emphasis on the ratio of positive to negative trait assessments. The other important factor is that the subject, in their learning journey, trusts the honesty of the person providing feedback.

Visit our website at…https://truleadai.com/

[jcmarchi]

Chicken Whisperers: Humans Crack the Clucking Code - Technology Org

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/chicken-whisperers-humans-crack-the-clucking-code-technology-org/

Chicken Whisperers: Humans Crack the Clucking Code - Technology Org

A University of Queensland-led study has found humans can tell if chickens are excited or displeased, just by the sound of their clucks.

Chicken – illustrative photo. Image credit: Pixabay (Free Pixabay license)

Professor Joerg Henning from UQ’s School of Veterinary Science said researchers investigated whether humans could correctly identify the context of calls or clucking sounds made by domestic chickens, the most commonly farmed species in the world.

“In this study, we used recordings of chickens vocalising in all different scenarios from a previous experiment,” Professor Henning said.

“Two calls were produced in anticipation of a reward, which we called the ‘food’ call and the ‘fast cluck’.

“Two other call types were produced in non-reward contexts, such as food being withheld, which we called the ‘whine’ and ‘gakel’ calls.”

The researchers played the audio files back to test whether humans could tell in which context the chicken sounds were made, and whether various demographics and levels of experience with chickens affected their correct identification.

“We found 69 per cent of all participants could correctly tell if a chicken sounded excited or displeased,” Professor Henning said.

“This is a remarkable result and further strengthens evidence that humans have the ability to perceive the emotional context of vocalisations made by different species.”

Professor Henning said the ability to detect emotional information from vocalisation could improve the welfare of farmed chickens.

“A substantial proportion of participants being able to successfully recognise calls produced in reward-related contexts is significant,” he said.

“It provides confidence that people involved in chicken husbandry can identify the emotional state of the birds they look after, even if they don’t have prior experience.

“Our hope is that in future research, specific acoustic cues that predict how humans rate arousal in chicken calls could be identified, and these results could potentially be used in artificially intelligent based detection systems to monitor vocalisations in chickens.

“This would allow for the development of automated assessments of compromised or good welfare states within poultry management systems.

“Ultimately this could enhance the management of farmed chickens to improve their welfare, while helping conscientious consumers to make more informed purchasing decisions.”

This research is published in Royal Society Open Science.

Source: The University of Queensland

You can offer your link to a page which is relevant to the topic of this post.

[msamba]

Unlock creative genius like da Vinci and Richard Feynman | Tiago Forte

[babysgarage]

it really do be because i'm on that damn phone all the time

[leftistfeminista]

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was in a car talking with her staffers about legislation and casually scrolling through her X mentions when she saw the photo. It was the end of February, and after spending most of the week in D.C., she was looking forward to flying down to Orlando to see her mom after a work event. But everything left her mind once she saw the picture: a digitally altered image of someone forcing her to put her mouth on their genitals. Adrenaline coursed through her, and her first thought was “I need to get this off my screen.” She closed out of it, shaken.

“There’s a shock to seeing images of yourself that someone could think are real,” the congresswoman tells me. It’s a few days after she saw the disturbing deepfake, and we’re waiting for our food in a corner booth of a retro-style diner in Queens, New York, near her neighborhood. She’s friendly and animated throughout our conversation, maintaining eye contact and passionately responding to my questions. When she tells me this story, though, she slows down, takes more pauses and plays with the delicate rings on her right hand. “As a survivor of physical sexual assault, it adds a level of dysregulation,” she says. “It resurfaces trauma, while I’m trying to — in the middle of a fucking meeting.”

The violent picture stayed in Ocasio-Cortez’s head all day. 

“There are certain images that don’t leave a person, they can’t leave a person,” she says. “It’s not a question of mental strength or fortitude — this is about neuroscience and our biology.” She tells me about scientific reports she’s read about how it’s difficult for our brains to separate visceral images on a phone from reality, even if we know they are fake. “It’s not as imaginary as people want to make it seem. It has real, real effects not just on the people that are victimized by it, but on the people who see it and consume it.”

“And once you’ve seen it, you’ve seen it,” Ocasio-Cortez says. “It parallels the same exact intention of physical rape and sexual assault, [which] is about power, domination, and humiliation. Deepfakes are absolutely a way of digitizing violent humiliation against other people.”

[catboymoments]

Behold my beautiful space ouppy that’s been years in the making….

“Humans and the bridge they built once they established first contact and achieved light speed have been a major proponent of the galaxy’s interstellar expanse. Their knowledge is vast and their perseverance is great- for better or worse- and with the new resources from the sudden advancement into space, they began creating technology more advanced than was ever seen before. Automatas, colloquially called “mechas” or “robots” of this caliber are varied, and yet unique for the job they provide. They’re the perfect blend of delicate sinew and machine, a true marriage of creator and creation.

Automatas are piloted by a combination of neuroscience and nanotechnology. The robot physically connects to its pilot’s nervous system with a series of microsensors- the personal ones for an average consumer are more rudimentary and require a single pilot, but the bigger you go, the more complex the system becomes, the more pilots necessary to function. So far, the ones on the ECLPS project have the largest number, that being a team of five.”

[esotericworld]

As advances in brain science make it possible to read and write human thoughts, some US states are pushing for new laws to protect neural activity

Colorado, California, Minnesota consider neural protection

Dozens of companies already capture our brainwaves

Chile is first country to enshrine protection

US safeguards urged to keep pace with innovation

LOS ANGELES - U.S. neurologist Sean Pauzauskie used to rely exclusively on expensive and cumbersome hospital kit to capture his patients' brainwaves and analyse problems in their electronic pathways.

But in recent years, the Colorado doctor turned to consumer headbands, commonly sold online to monitor sleep patterns or boost brain function, to capture the brain activity of some patients suffering seizures.

Cheaper and easy to use, the headbands - which can cost just a few hundred dollars - capture similar electronic data as state-of-the-art hospital machines, only with far less fuss.

"In the beginning I was thrilled, I thought: 'patients can even do all this themselves, at home,'" he told Context.

"But then I thought: 'wait a second, that means all their brain data is going to some private company.'"

Advances in brain science have made it easier to capture detailed data flows for the human brain and interpret their meaning. Some recent experiments have also shown the possibility of manipulating thoughts through neurological intervention…

[anotherobeymeblog]

Has anyone tried to figure out how demonus works biologically? The only thing I can think of is that demons have a fundamentally different brain structure, but because I'm both a nerd and a neuroscience student, I want to know how. I can think of two possibilities, but please share if you have any of your own!

So, real quick, here's a (very simplified) rundown of how alcohol works in the human body. The actual effective part of alcoholic drinks is called ethanol. (There are actually many types of alcohol, but ethanol is what people generally are referring to when talking about alcohol. This will be important later.) Ethanol is able to dissolve in both fat and water, which makes it very easy to travel around the body. It enters the bloodstream largely via the stomach and small intestine, and eventually crosses the blood-brain barrier into the... well, brain. Inside the brain are GABA receptors, which help to regulate brain activity by blocking neural signaling. Ethanol binds to these receptors, which basically sends them into overdrive and causes brain activity to slow significantly.

Now, I don't remember if the game ever specified whether human alcohol affects demons, which would have a huge impact on what demonus is. (We also don't have much information on how demonus tastes, which would be another clue) So, I have two theories, one for if human alcohol does affect demons and one for if it doesn't.

If human alcohol DOES affect demons, then that at the very least means that demons have GABA receptors (or a modified version of them). Ethanol is a very small molecule, which makes it easy for it to bypass fatty membranes such as the blood-brain barrier. An alcohol with a larger molecular structure would be more hydrophobic, so it would have a harder time crossing that barrier. Perhaps demons have a more easily permeable blood-brain barrier, so alcohols with larger molecular structures would be able to affect them, but when consumed by humans, less of it would cross that barrier. (Unfortunately, many alcohols will kill you very quickly, and we know demonus isn't lethal to humans, so that limits our options.) An example of a potential active ingredient in demonus is 2-nonanol, which is a much larger molecule than ethanol and has relatively low toxicity. (It's actually commonly used as artificial cucumber flavouring!)

If human alcohol DOES NOT affect demons, then things get trickier because we now know that they don't have GABA receptors, and therefore probably have a totally different brain structure altogether. At that point, it's hard to speculate as to what it actually is since we don't have much to narrow it down with. It's probably not something frequently seen in food (in high concentrations, at least), since we don't see demons getting drunk on human world food, and as said before, it's not something that is toxic to humans, but that's still too open-ended to speculate any further. At that point, it seems more likely that it's just some weird magic shit with no biological explanation at all, which is probably how it was intended to be interpreted in the first place.

[mars777]

Como el Neuromarketing facilita la Gestión de las Ventas

El Neuromarketing no solo impacta la forma en que los consumidores interactúan con la publicidad, sino que también ofrece herramientas valiosas para facilitar la gestión de ventas en las empresas. En este artículo, exploraremos cómo el Neuromarketing se convierte en un aliado estratégico en la gestión de ventas, proporcionando insights fundamentales que mejoran la eficacia de los equipos de…

[brightlotusmoon]

Choosing Ignorance: 40% Shun Consequence Knowledge for Selfish Gains - Neuroscience News

New research unveiled that when faced with a choice, 40% of individuals opt to remain ignorant about how their decisions impact others, often leveraging this unawareness to act more selfishly.

The researchers equate this behavior to consumers who turn a blind eye to the problematic origins of products they purchase. Within the studies analyzed, evidence surfaced indicating that when participants were made aware of the consequences of their actions, there was a 15.6% rise in altruistic behavior.

This suggests that while many might act out of a desire to maintain a positive self-perception, much of the perceived altruism could be rooted more in societal pressures and self-view rather than a genuine regard for others’ well-being.

[eonian-nightmare]

If you know me, I'm a podcast addict, and as such I have alot of opinions about alot of podcasts/concept albums/audiobooks, so I decided to make a masterlist; which rates these on a 5 Star Rating System.

[Note: This list is ongoing an will be updated at random points indefinetly]

***Currently listening to: Our Wives Under the Sea***

》 Alice Isn't Dead: An audio diary by a truck driver in her search across America for the wife she had long assumed was dead

Content Warnings: Body Horror, Cannabalism, Gaslighting, Kiddnaping, Mental Health Issues, Possesion, Stalking, Torture,

Themes: Drama, Memior, Horror, Mystery, Roadtrip, Supernatural & WLW

Notes: The story was interesting and steadily paced. I enjoyed it, I just wasn't gripped with excitement to finish it. It was entertaining, just a bit bland for my taste

[Rating: ☆☆☆]

》 Archive 81: An archivist takes a job restoring damaged videotapes, but finds themselves getting pulled into a mystery involving the missing director and a mysterious cult that they were documenting.

Content Warnings: Addiction, Body Horror, Child Abuse, Drowninv, Gaslighting, Kidnapping, Mental Health Issues, Possession, PTSD, Self Harm, Suicide, Stalking, Torture, Themes: Anthology, Drama, Horror, Mystery & Supernatural

Themes: Anthology, Drama, Horror, Mystery & Supernatural

Notes: I liked it as a concept. But I found that I couldn't keep attention on it. If it progressed a bit quicker maybe I could have completed it, but I lost interest and abandoned it.

[Rating: ☆☆]

》 The Bifrost Incident: A retelling of Norse myth, framed as mystery, set on an interplanetary train, using rock and prog style music.

Content Warnings: Body Horror, Kiddnapping, Mass Death, Possesion, Suicide,

Themes: Lovecraftian, Music, History, Folk Rock, Eldritch, Drama, Queer,

Notes: the songs are a bop and the ending made me sob like a baby

[Rating: ☆☆☆☆]

》 Critical Role: A band of professional voice actors improvise, role-play, and roll their way through an epic Dungeons and Dragons campaign

Content Warnings: Alchhol Use, Dead Animals, Child Abuse, Gaslighting, Kiddnapping, Mental Health Issues, Possesion, Recreational Drug Use, Self Harm, Stalking, Torture, Violence,

Themes: Dungeons & Dragons, Fantasy, Magic, RPG

Notes: This is an fun, and adventure filled tale. It's a roller-coaster of emotions. It's just soooooo long.[Rating: ☆☆☆]

》 Deviser: In this series Son wakes up aboard a spaceship bound for earth in an effort to recolonize. What he discovers however will change everything he knows about his world and him.

Content Warnings: Animal Cruelty, Body Horror, Cloning, Human Experimentation, Gaslighting, Mass Death, Self Harm, Torture,

Themes: Apocalypse, Horror, Isolation, Sci-Fi, Space etc.

Notes: Not my usual cup of tea but a good short podcast with an addictive plot.

[Rating: ☆☆☆☆]

》 Jonathan Sim's Family Business Audiobook: after the death of her QRP, Diya picks up work cleaning up after dead people.

Content Warnings: death, gore and corpses, derealisation, unreality, prompted feelings of insignificance, etc

Themes: horror, thriller, suspense, grief, supernatural

Notes: Typical Jonny Sims work. Irked me to my core. I loved it.

[Rating: ☆☆☆☆]

》 Good Omens Full Cast Production Audiobook: An angel and a demon try to thwart the ineffable apocalypse.

Themes: Comedy, Fantasy, Supernatural, Religious

Content Warnings: Religious themes, mild gaslighting, smoking

Notes: I just love my ineffable husbands

[Rating: ☆☆☆☆]

》 Limetown: Journalist Lia Haddock attempts to solve the mystery behind the disappearance of over 300 people at a neuroscience research facility in Tennessee.

Content Warnings: Animal Abuse, Bodily Harm, Child Death, Mass Death, Gaslighting, Graphic Images of Violence Human Experimentation, Human Torture, Kidnapping, Refferences to PTSD/Flashbacks, Refferences to Suicide, Self Harm, Stalking, etc

Themes: Drama, Mystery, Queer, Sci Fi, Supernatural Abilities, Thriller, Technology

Notes: It's the first podcast I ever fell in love with, I was so intrigued by Limetown as a concept. It kept me engaged and heartbroken all at the same time.

[Rating: ☆☆☆☆ ]

》 The Magnus Archives: A queer horror podcast about what lurks in the Archives of The Magnus Institue.

Content Warnings: Animal Abuse, Adicction, Body Horror, Being Buried Alive, Cannabalism, Gaslighting, Kidnapping, Medical Malpractice, Mental Instability, Refferences to Child Abuse/ Neglect, Refferences to drug/alcohol use, Spiders- God so many spiders, Scopophobia, Self Harm, Stalking, Suicide, Trypophobia, Uncanny, Unreality, and so much more. For a full list please read individual episode warnings

Themes: Anthology, Mystery, Horror, Queer, Supernatural Themes.

[This is also my main special interest. I can connect magnus to everything. My students (I am a teacher) judge me for my laptop covered in magnus stickers. My friends know the entire plot and haven't even listened to it. They sat for 5 hours to let me rant from beginning to end.]

[Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆]

》 Malevolent: In the early 1900s a PI wakes up with no memory, no sight and an equally confused voice instru cting him to hide a body. Together these two must work together to solve the mystery on who they are, what their connection is and most importantly how to co- inhabitant the body they must now share.

Content Warnings: Body Horror, Cannabalism, Cults, Child Neglect, Dead Child, Drowning, Gaslighting, Humans Hunted, Mental Health Issues, Kiddnapping, Possesion, PTSD/Flashbacks, Sucidal Characters,

Themes: Faustian, Lovecraftian, Mystery, Horror, Psychological, Queer, & Supernatural

Notes: This podcast is so personal to me. It hit quite close to home during a vulnerable time for me and gave me the strength I needed while low. PLUS I JUST LOVE THEIR DYNAMIC.

[This is also a special interest to me.]

[Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆]

》 Myths Baby: Join Liv Albert as she discusses Greek Mythology.

Content Warning: Lots of discussion of Rape.

Themes: Education, Greek Mythology

Notes: The author claims to be a classics expert, yet has admitted to never reading the source material. She goes further to use sources that are known to be incredibly biased and uses her distorted perception to villanse culturally significant Greek heroes but idolise hedonistic assholes.

[Rating: ☆]

》 No Sleep: Reddit users submit their freaky stories

Content Warnings: Various Episode to episode but generally strong Unreality vibes

Themes: Anthology, Creative Works, Horror, Thriller & Supernatural

Note: I enjoy the series, but honestly I find reading the tales/ the thread more engaging

[Rating: ☆☆]

》 Shipworm: A one of a kind audio movie, in which a man is mplanted with an untraceable earpiece while sleeping. So long as he does everything the voice on the other end tells him, he and his family will live.

Content Warning: Violence, Mental Health Issues & Unreality,

Themes: Audio Movie, Mystery, Science Fiction & Technology

Notes: Its really easy to place yourself in the story, it was an incredibly detailed audio environment.

[Rating: ☆☆☆☆]

》 Stella Firma

Content Warnings:

Themes: Adventure, Comedy, Improv, Science- Fiction & Space

Notes: This show is such random ass comedy. It's honestly so stupid and I love it. Plus Ben Meredith is in it and I just love him.

[Rating: ☆☆☆]

》 Tiny Terrors: The Tiny Terrors story exchange is a writing exchange program that explores message boards & pre-internet recordings of spooky stories to share with their listeners.

Content Warnings:

Themes: Anthology, Creative Writing, Found-Footage Horror.

Notes: I do love the concept behind this, I do think the series has a lot of potential, it's engaging.

[Rating: ☆☆☆]

》 Welcome to Nightvale: A radio host provides a cryptic supernatural dessert town with community updates.

Content Warnings: Animal Cruelty, Alcholism, Addiction, Body Horror, Childhood Abuse/Neglect, Canabalism, Gaslighting, Kiddnapping, Mental Health Issues, Memory Issues, Mirrors, Possesion, PTSD, Recreational Drug Use, Scopophobia, Self Harm, Stalking, Unreality

Themes: Comedy, Conspiracy, Horror, Mystery, Queer, Science Fiction & Supernatural

Notes: This podcast is just so uniquely original. It's comedic approach is something similar to how I personally view horror. Plus it changed the podcast community on a fundamental level; it deserves its stars.

[An this podcast marks the 3rd of my holy trinity of special interest podcasts]

[Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆]

》 36 Questions: Two lovers who have fallen apart due to lies, use the 36 questions—an experiment known for making strangers fall in love—to save their own relationship.

Themes: Comedy, Musical, Romance, Drama

Content Warnings: Alcohol use, Drink Driving, Drug Use, Overdosing, Parental Neglect

Notes: Its a good short podcast that can be completed during a long road trip. I found it very emotionally engaging, and liked the progression of the story

[Rating: ☆☆☆]

》 Epic: An Odysseus Story: A musical retelling of the Odyssey

Content Warnings: Bodily Harm, Death of a Child, Depictions of Violence, War (to be updated as songs are released)

Themes: History, Musical, Action, Drama, Violence

Notes: I have never heard fights been so well described in songs. Plus the music suits the myths so well, and has me falling in love with Greek Mythology all over again

[Rating: ☆☆☆☆]

To type review up

I am in Escrew

Watcher in the rain

Faceless Old woman

Death by dying

Rules for vanishing

》 Intending to Consume 《

Hello from Hallowoods

Supersuits

Knifepoint Horror

Kings Fall Am

The Arkham Sessions

Spines

The Silt Verse

Batman Unburied

Rabbits

The Black Tapes

Devil Town

Old Gods of Appalachia

Case 63

Harley Quinn: Sound Mind

[why-am-i-here-just-to-suffer]

Guys, gals and nonbinary pals: I present the latest development in Dystopian Tech Inventions:

[begin article: "Are You Ready for Workplace Brain Scanning?"]

"Get ready: Neurotechnology is coming to the workplace. Neural sensors are now reliable and affordable enough to support commercial pilot projects that extract productivity-enhancing data from workers’ brains. These projects aren’t confined to specialized workplaces; they’re also happening in offices, factories, farms, and airports. The companies and people behind these neurotech devices are certain that they will improve our lives. But there are serious questions about whether work should be organized around certain functions of the brain, rather than the person as a whole.

To be clear, the kind of neurotech that’s currently available is nowhere close to reading minds. Sensors detect electrical activity across different areas of the brain, and the patterns in that activity can be broadly correlated with different feelings or physiological responses, such as stress, focus, or a reaction to external stimuli. These data can be exploited to make workers more efficient—and, proponents of the technology say, to make them happier. Two of the most interesting innovators in this field are the Israel-based startup InnerEye, which aims to give workers superhuman abilities, and Emotiv, a Silicon Valley neurotech company that’s bringing a brain-tracking wearable to office workers, including those working remotely.

The fundamental technology that these companies rely on is not new: Electroencephalography (EEG) has been around for about a century, and it’s commonly used today in both medicine and neuroscience research. For those applications, the subject may have up to 256 electrodes attached to their scalp with conductive gel to record electrical signals from neurons in different parts of the brain. More electrodes, or “channels,” mean that doctors and scientists can get better spatial resolution in their readouts—they can better tell which neurons are associated with which electrical signals.

What is new is that EEG has recently broken out of clinics and labs and has entered the consumer marketplace. This move has been driven by a new class of “dry” electrodes that can operate without conductive gel, a substantial reduction in the number of electrodes necessary to collect useful data, and advances in artificial intelligence that make it far easier to interpret the data. Some EEG headsets are even available directly to consumers for a few hundred dollars.

While the public may not have gotten the memo, experts say the neurotechnology is mature and ready for commercial applications. “This is not sci-fi,” says James Giordano, chief of neuroethics studies at Georgetown University Medical Center. “This is quite real.”

How InnerEye’s TSA-boosting technology works

In an office in Herzliya, Israel, Sergey Vaisman sits in front of a computer. He’s relaxed but focused, silent and unmoving, and not at all distracted by the seven-channel EEG headset he’s wearing. On the computer screen, images rapidly appear and disappear, one after another. At a rate of three images per second, it’s just possible to tell that they come from an airport X-ray scanner. It’s essentially impossible to see anything beyond fleeting impressions of ghostly bags and their contents.

“Our brain is an amazing machine,” Vaisman tells us as the stream of images ends. The screen now shows an album of selected X-ray images that were just flagged by Vaisman’s brain, most of which are now revealed to have hidden firearms. No one can knowingly identify and flag firearms among the jumbled contents of bags when three images are flitting by every second, but Vaisman’s brain has no problem doing so behind the scenes, with no action required on his part. The brain processes visual imagery very quickly. According to Vaisman, the decision-making process to determine whether there’s a gun in complex images like these takes just 300 milliseconds.

What takes much more time are the cognitive and motor processes that occur after the decision making—planning a response (such as saying something or pushing a button) and then executing that response. If you can skip these planning and execution phases and instead use EEG to directly access the output of the brain’s visual processing and decision-making systems, you can perform image-recognition tasks far faster. The user no longer has to actively think: For an expert, just that fleeting first impression is enough for their brain to make an accurate determination of what’s in the image.

Vaisman is the vice president of R&D of InnerEye, an Israel-based startup that recently came out of stealth mode. InnerEye uses deep learning to classify EEG signals into responses that indicate “targets” and “nontargets.” Targets can be anything that a trained human brain can recognize. In addition to developing security screening, InnerEye has worked with doctors to detect tumors in medical images, with farmers to identify diseased plants, and with manufacturing experts to spot product defects. For simple cases, InnerEye has found that our brains can handle image recognition at rates of up to 10 images per second. And, Vaisman says, the company’s system produces results just as accurate as a human would when recognizing and tagging images manually—InnerEye is merely using EEG as a shortcut to that person’s brain to drastically speed up the process.

While using the InnerEye technology doesn’t require active decision making, it does require training and focus. Users must be experts at the task, well trained in identifying a given type of target, whether that’s firearms or tumors. They must also pay close attention to what they’re seeing—they can’t just zone out and let images flash past. InnerEye’s system measures focus very accurately, and if the user blinks or stops concentrating momentarily, the system detects it and shows the missed images again.

Having a human brain in the loop is especially important for classifying data that may be open to interpretation. For example, a well-trained image classifier may be able to determine with reasonable accuracy whether an X-ray image of a suitcase shows a gun, but if you want to determine whether that X-ray image shows something else that’s vaguely suspicious, you need human experience. People are capable of detecting something unusual even if they don’t know quite what it is.

“We can see that uncertainty in the brain waves,” says InnerEye founder and chief technology officer Amir Geva. “We know when they aren’t sure.” Humans have a unique ability to recognize and contextualize novelty, a substantial advantage that InnerEye’s system has over AI image classifiers. InnerEye then feeds that nuance back into its AI models. “When a human isn’t sure, we can teach AI systems to be not sure, which is better training than teaching the AI system just one or zero,” says Geva. “There is a need to combine human expertise with AI.” InnerEye’s system enables this combination, as every image can be classified by both computer vision and a human brain.

Using InnerEye’s system is a positive experience for its users, the company claims. “When we start working with new users, the first experience is a bit overwhelming,” Vaisman says. “But in one or two sessions, people get used to it, and they start to like it.” Geva says some users do find it challenging to maintain constant focus throughout a session, which lasts up to 20 minutes, but once they get used to working at three images per second, even two images per second feels “too slow.”

In a security-screening application, three images per second is approximately an order of magnitude faster than an expert can manually achieve. InnerEye says their system allows far fewer humans to handle far more data, with just two human experts redundantly overseeing 15 security scanners at once, supported by an AI image-recognition system that is being trained at the same time, using the output from the humans’ brains.

InnerEye is currently partnering with a handful of airports around the world on pilot projects. And it’s not the only company working to bring neurotech into the workplace.

How Emotiv’s brain-tracking technology works

When it comes to neural monitoring for productivity and well-being in the workplace, the San Francisco–based company Emotiv is leading the charge. Since its founding 11 years ago, Emotiv has released three models of lightweight brain-scanning headsets. Until now the company had mainly sold its hardware to neuroscientists, with a sideline business aimed at developers of brain-controlled apps or games. Emotiv started advertising its technology as an enterprise solution only this year, when it released its fourth model, the MN8 system, which tucks brain-scanning sensors into a pair of discreet Bluetooth earbuds.

Tan Le, Emotiv’s CEO and cofounder, sees neurotech as the next trend in wearables, a way for people to get objective “brain metrics” of mental states, enabling them to track and understand their cognitive and mental well-being. “I think it’s reasonable to imagine that five years from now this [brain tracking] will be quite ubiquitous,” she says. When a company uses the MN8 system, workers get insight into their individual levels of focus and stress, and managers get aggregated and anonymous data about their teams.

Emotiv launched its enterprise technology into a world that is fiercely debating the future of the workplace. Workers are feuding with their employers about return-to-office plans following the pandemic, and companies are increasingly using “ bossware” to keep tabs on employees—whether staffers or gig workers, working in the office or remotely. Le says Emotiv is aware of these trends and is carefully considering which companies to work with as it debuts its new gear. “The dystopian potential of this technology is not lost on us,” she says. “So we are very cognizant of choosing partners that want to introduce this technology in a responsible way—they have to have a genuine desire to help and empower employees,” she says.

Lee Daniels, a consultant who works for the global real estate services company JLL, has spoken with a lot of C-suite executives lately. “They’re worried,” says Daniels. “There aren’t as many people coming back to the office as originally anticipated—the hybrid model is here to stay, and it’s highly complex.” Executives come to Daniels asking how to manage a hybrid workforce. “This is where the neuroscience comes in,” he says.

Emotiv has partnered with JLL, which has begun to use the MN8 earbuds to help its clients collect “true scientific data,” Daniels says, about workers’ attention, distraction, and stress, and how those factors influence both productivity and well-being. Daniels says JLL is currently helping its clients run short-term experiments using the MN8 system to track workers’ responses to new collaboration tools and various work settings; for example, employers could compare the productivity of in-office and remote workers.

Emotiv CTO Geoff Mackellar believes the new MN8 system will succeed because of its convenient and comfortable form factor: The multipurpose earbuds also let the user listen to music and answer phone calls. The downside of earbuds is that they provide only two channels of brain data. When the company first considered this project, Mackellar says, his engineering team looked at the rich data set they’d collected from Emotiv’s other headsets over the past decade. The company boasts that academics have conducted more than 4,000 studies using Emotiv tech. From that trove of data—from headsets with 5, 14, or 32 channels—Emotiv isolated the data from the two channels the earbuds could pick up. “Obviously, there’s less information in the two sensors, but we were able to extract quite a lot of things that were very relevant,” Mackellar says.

Once the Emotiv engineers had a hardware prototype, they had volunteers wear the earbuds and a 14-channel headset at the same time. By recording data from the two systems in unison, the engineers trained a machine-learning algorithm to identify the signatures of attention and cognitive stress from the relatively sparse MN8 data. The brain signals associated with attention and stress have been well studied, Mackellar says, and are relatively easy to track. Although everyday activities such as talking and moving around also register on EEG, the Emotiv software filters out those artifacts.

The app that’s paired with the MN8 earbuds doesn’t display raw EEG data. Instead, it processes that data and shows workers two simple metrics relating to their individual performance. One squiggly line shows the rise and fall of workers’ attention to their tasks—the degree of focus and the dips that come when they switch tasks or get distracted—while another line represents their cognitive stress. Although short periods of stress can be motivating, too much for too long can erode productivity and well-being. The MN8 system will therefore sometimes suggest that the worker take a break. Workers can run their own experiments to see what kind of break activity best restores their mood and focus—maybe taking a walk, or getting a cup of coffee, or chatting with a colleague.

What neuroethicists think about neurotech in the workplace

While MN8 users can easily access data from their own brains, employers don’t see individual workers’ brain data. Instead, they receive aggregated data to get a sense of a team or department’s attention and stress levels. With that data, companies can see, for example, on which days and at which times of day their workers are most productive, or how a big announcement affects the overall level of worker stress.

Emotiv emphasizes the importance of anonymizing the data to protect individual privacy and prevent people from being promoted or fired based on their brain metrics. “The data belongs to you,” says Emotiv’s Le. “You have to explicitly allow a copy of it to be shared anonymously with your employer.” If a group is too small for real anonymity, Le says, the system will not share that data with employers. She also predicts that the device will be used only if workers opt in, perhaps as part of an employee wellness program that offers discounts on medical insurance in return for using the MN8 system regularly.

However, workers may still be worried that employers will somehow use the data against them. Karen Rommelfanger, founder of the Institute of Neuroethics, shares that concern. “I think there is significant interest from employers” in using such technologies, she says. “I don’t know if there’s significant interest from employees.”

Both she and Georgetown’s Giordano doubt that such tools will become commonplace anytime soon. “I think there will be pushback” from employees on issues such as privacy and worker rights, says Giordano. Even if the technology providers and the companies that deploy the technology take a responsible approach, he expects questions to be raised about who owns the brain data and how it’s used. “Perceived threats must be addressed early and explicitly,” he says.

Giordano says he expects workers in the United States and other western countries to object to routine brain scanning. In China, he says, workers have reportedly been more receptive to experiments with such technologies. He also believes that brain-monitoring devices will really take off first in industrial settings, where a momentary lack of attention can lead to accidents that injure workers and hurt a company’s bottom line. “It will probably work very well under some rubric of occupational safety,” Giordano says. It’s easy to imagine such devices being used by companies involved in trucking, construction, warehouse operations, and the like. Indeed, at least one such product, an EEG headband that measures fatigue, is already on the market for truck drivers and miners.

Giordano says that using brain-tracking devices for safety and wellness programs could be a slippery slope in any workplace setting. Even if a company focuses initially on workers’ well-being, it may soon find other uses for the metrics of productivity and performance that devices like the MN8 provide. “Metrics are meaningless unless those metrics are standardized, and then they very quickly become comparative,” he says.

Rommelfanger adds that no one can foresee how workplace neurotech will play out. “I think most companies creating neurotechnology aren’t prepared for the society that they’re creating,” she says. “They don’t know the possibilities yet.”

[end article.]

Ok what the fuck has gotten into the capitalist's brains this time?

The working class has been voicing its issues with its employers since the beginning of time. Hundreds and hundreds of studies show what needs to be changed. Shorter week and hours, more pay, less power dynamic, etc. Nothing is being changed regardless. There's no need to do fucking brain monitoring to figure out what the problem is. Are they really that ignorant or is it an act?

And there's no telling how long if possible it will take to fully decode people's thoughts. The scientists behind it imply they are quite close. If it happens then it will be literally 1984 but unironically. Employers and government would quickly jump on the train of creating thoughtcrimes exactly as Orwell envisioned it. Why wouldn't they?

Also, anonymize my ass. Make it FOSS. Software is always guilty until proven innocent. There's literally no way I can prove that you aren't sharing the data, and literally no way you can prove there will never be a data breach.

And these so-called "ethicists" just brush it off like

Both she and Georgetown’s Giordano doubt that such tools will become commonplace anytime soon. “I think there will be pushback” from employees on issues such as privacy and worker rights, says Giordano. Even if the technology providers and the companies that deploy the technology take a responsible approach, he expects questions to be raised about who owns the brain data and how it’s used. “Perceived threats must be addressed early and explicitly,” he says.

" 'Percieved threats must be addressed early and explicitly.' " So you're admitting that workers don't get to have a choice in the matter and that you intend to use force (Economic pressure is still force. If you can't find a job in the future that doesn't do this you are effectively forced. And the government could use this too.) to make us comply.

Everyone called George Orwell crazy. Everyone called Richard Stallman crazy. Everyone called Edward Snowden crazy. Yet their predictions continue to come true again and again. And no one bats an eye. Society had just blindly accepted the onset of mass surveillance. Everyone knows about it in dictatorships like China and North Korea but no one wants to talk about how rampant it is in other places where it's done more silently.

Some people say "I have nothing to fear because I have nothing to hide." Ok, so what happens when the government goes wack and decides to start rounding up groups of people? What happens if your race/ethnicity, religion, gender, sexuality, disabilities, etc falls into one of those categories? It happened in Germany and we are at risk of it happening in the U.S. and other places. (In Germany there wasn't surveillance tech yet so they just force searched your home instead. Same difference.) How do you know it will never happen? What do you do then? What. Do. You. Do. Then.

No one I have asked it has ever been able to answer this question beyond blind faith that it won't happen. The real answer is you're fucked. That's the answer.

[beemovieerotica]

"bUt cAnT wE tEsT oN hUmAnS" drives me nuts. New medicine/treatments/vaccines/surgeries/etc. can cause SO many issues. Like, have these people never seen those commercials going "If you or a loved one have been diagnosed with mesothelioma" or "If you or a loved one were diagnosed with this cancer after using this weed killer" or the "Hey your baby powder might have fucking asbestos in it"???

I mean fuck even after things have been ~officially tested~ I still wait a year or more before trying a new medication/vaccine/procedure/whatever and just let all the other guinea pigs test it out and see what happens to them first because sometimes! Things are missed! Or ignored!

There's literally a Wikipedia article on the largest pharmaceutical settlements for things like failure to disclose safety data, kickbacks and fraud.

It's the same when a new video game/console/phone/car comes out! Let everyone else go first and find all of the bugs/problems/see if the car explodes or the breaks stop working.

^^^^^^

To be clear though, hesitancy about vaccines has been a detriment of society with little basis in fact. Everyone was panicking about the covid vaccine like "it's NEW and EXPERIMENTAL!" No...mRNA vaccines have been tested on mice since the 90's. And the panic about the lyme disease vaccine prevented us from potentially eradicating that disease among humans, and now it's mutated beyond the point where a vaccine could ever be effective. I trust vaccines, they don't fuck around with all the hurdles somebody has to go through before any of that gets to the consumer level.

For other medications I generally trust the medical review process, but you're correct in that things can be unreliable if they aren't tested on a wide variety of bodies because of things like medical misogyny and ableism. Medical professionals are shocked when a medication has unexpected side effects for people who menstruate, like...did this never come up during trials? Oh, no, it didn't, because they didn't bother testing anyone beyond healthy ages 20-40 cis men.

It's also standard to only use male mice/cats/dogs/primates for most medication tests - I work with inverts and didn't know this was a thing until I went to a conference for the broader neuroscience community. Basically, female rats/mammals present "issues" for medical testing because of their reproductive hormone cycles ...... and so does half of the human population.

It's a complicated issue but yeah, it's not going to make things any safer by eliminating animal testing outright.

[angelosearch]

Okay so no one asked about my Of Mind and Magic WIP but I really want to talk about it anyway. And when I say WIP, I mean a page of notes. But in my head, there's a lot.

Of Mind and Magic is my... comfort fic? It is the core plot of all my daydream scenarios for the last year. It is where I export my brain when I need to not ruminate on something irl. It is the longfic I will likely never write because it is basically an FF8 post-game soap opera that is loaded with every headcanon I've ever had. However, every once in a while, I will come up with something in this sandbox that I will use elsewhere.

The fic is honestly deeply personal and there are some concepts I'd want to introduce but may feel too distant from the "reality" of the game for me to confidently write about.

BUT just because I am unsure I will ever write it, doesn't mean I don't want to talk about it! And perhaps if I do talk about it enough I will give in and try...

This fic is the ULTIMATE marrying of my two "unskippable cutscene" topics: FFVIII and mental health/psychology/neuroscience.

The main concept is that using magic in the world of FFVIII takes a toll on your mental health. We already know that summoning GFs affects memory storage and retrieval, and this is pushing that idea further. The more magic you use, and the more powerful magic you summon, the more potential there is for diseases of the mind and the development of toxic thought patterns.

But it also works the other way. Those with mental illness and those with still-developing brains (children and teenagers) are predisposed to being able to capably wield magic. This blurred "membrane" between the conscious mind and magical power can also manifest in other magic-related abilities, like manipulating dreamscapes and premonitions/visions of the future.

Particularly, those with developing brains are more capable of using magic because their pre-frontal cortex (the decision-making center of the brain) is not fully formed until age 24-27. On some unconscious level, people must decide to accept magic as something they can tap into, and if your brain is fully developed and functioning it recognizes the magic and rejects it as an "immune" response. This is why women must receive Sorceress powers for the first time as children or young adults. Once the magic is accepted in this vulnerable place (Sorceress magic or otherwise) the capacity to use magic (or accept more magic from a sorceress) never goes away. Adults can choose to use magic for the first time after their brain fully develops, but it is never as strong. People cannot junction GFs if they haven't done so before they are in their late 20s.

There is some optional dialogue with Edea at the orphanage on disk three (after the promise): "A knight will present you with peace of mind. He will protect your spirit."

In this fic, this idea plays out in the sense that the knight must ground the sorceress and help her limit her magic use so she does not descend into "madness" - melt her brain and lose herself to the all-consuming power of the magic. However, the bond between sorceress and knight does weaken the mind-magic membrane further, so there is a reciprocal need for the sorceress to also monitor the mental health of her knight.

If a knight was already predisposed to magic (maybe by using it heavily before their brain finished developing) and had a mental illness, they could have tremendous potential for magical ability.

Do you see where I am going here?

It is an eight-year post-game story from Squall's POV (at least in the first part). It's Squall/Rinoa but in the beginning, they have lost themselves and each other. It's really a story of self-discovery, change, caring for the inner child, legacy, and longing. Lots of family stuff because that's what I do, including a major plot line involving Raine and LAGUNA LAGUNA LAGUNA always.

This is why I hesitate to even try to write it: It is steeped in mental health/therapy stuff. I think I am capable of handling that as a writer, but the intensity to which I'd want to take it I am not sure is... appealing? Especially because I wouldn't want to give many trigger warnings to avoid spoiling. Also, I wonder if people would find it "appropriate" to bring super-heavy stuff into this world? Does anyone want to read about Rinoa suffering from an eating disorder in a very serious and as-accurate-as-I-can-make-it way? Or is that just insulting to people suffering from eating disorders? I like reading about this stuff, but I'm not everyone.

Squall comes to realize he has bipolar disorder... I am bipolar, I relate to Squall, and I know what bipolar experiences look like. I have no in-game "proof" of Squall being bipolar (though there's nothing in the game that disproves it either) but it's one of those things where you long to see yourself in the media you consume. Honestly, "Squall is bipolar with cptsd" (like me) was where this fic started. He has a very complete and public breakdown in this story. If you ever wanted to know what it's like to be admitted to an acute crisis psych unit in a hospital, this fic would show that. But maybe that is something that is better to write about in nonfiction??

A lot of this stuff is based on lived experience - either of myself or of other people via case studies/memoirs I've read. I rarely see stuff of this intensity depicted in works of fiction, let alone fanfiction. Is that because of a lack of representation, or is it because people don't want to read it? I honestly do not know.

I don't have a clear idea of where this story is going or when/where it will end, which is another factor that makes me hesitate in writing it. In my mind, I have two "season finales" but it's still ongoing (though Chaos Theory has taken over lately).

Anyway, I've been dying to throw this all down somewhere. If you've made it to the end of this post, good for you. You now know what the inside of my brain looks like.