Not sure where to post this, but too interesting not to share:
Scientists have trained a computer to analyze the brain activity of someone listening to music and, based only on those neuronal patterns, recreate the song.
The research, published on Tuesday, produced a recognizable, if muffled version of Pink Floyd’s 1979 song, “Another Brick in the Wall (Part 1).”
Before this, researchers had figured out how to use brain activity to reconstruct music with similar features to the song someone was listening to. Now, “you can actually listen to the brain and restore the music that person heard,” said Gerwin Schalk, a neuroscientist who directs a research lab in Shanghai and collected data for this study.
The researchers also found a spot in the brain’s temporal lobe that reacted when volunteers heard the 16th notes of the song’s guitar groove. They proposed that this particular area might be involved in our perception of rhythm.
The findings offer a first step toward creating more expressive devices to assist people who can’t speak....
The new research also underscored what makes music different from speech. When the study volunteers heard a song, the right side of their brains tended to be more involved than the left, whereas the opposite happens when people hear plain speech. This finding, replicating previous research, helps explain why some stroke patients who can’t speak well can clearly sing sentences.
Scientists have trained a computer to analyze the brain activity of someone listening to music and, based only on those neuronal patterns, recreate the song.
The research, published on Tuesday, produced a recognizable, if muffled version of Pink Floyd’s 1979 song, “Another Brick in the Wall (Part 1).”
Before this, researchers had figured out how to use brain activity to reconstruct music with similar features to the song someone was listening to. Now, “you can actually listen to the brain and restore the music that person heard,” said Gerwin Schalk, a neuroscientist who directs a research lab in Shanghai and collected data for this study.
The researchers also found a spot in the brain’s temporal lobe that reacted when volunteers heard the 16th notes of the song’s guitar groove. They proposed that this particular area might be involved in our perception of rhythm.
The findings offer a first step toward creating more expressive devices to assist people who can’t speak....
The new research also underscored what makes music different from speech. When the study volunteers heard a song, the right side of their brains tended to be more involved than the left, whereas the opposite happens when people hear plain speech. This finding, replicating previous research, helps explain why some stroke patients who can’t speak well can clearly sing sentences.
