James' World 2

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As neuroscientists struggle to demystify how the human brain converts what our eyes see into mental images, artificial intelligence (AI) has been getting better at mimicking that feat. A recent study, scheduled to be presented at an upcoming computer vision conference, demonstrates that AI can read brain scans and re-create largely realistic versions of images a person has seen. As this technology develops, researchers say, it could have numerous applications, from exploring how various animal species perceive the world to perhaps one day recording human dreams and aiding communication in people with paralysis.

Many labs have used AI to read brain scans and re-create images a subject has recently seen, such as human faces and photos of landscapes. The new study marks the first time an AI algorithm called Stable Diffusion, developed by a German group and publicly released in 2022, has been used to do this. Stable Diffusion is similar to other text-to-image “generative” AIs such as DALL-E 2 and Midjourney, which produce new images from text prompts after being trained on billions of images associated with text descriptions.

For the new study, a group in Japan added additional training to the standard Stable Diffusion system, linking additional text descriptions about thousands of photos to brain patterns elicited when those photos were observed by participants in brain scan studies.

Unlike previous efforts using AI algorithms to decipher brain scans, which had to be trained on large data sets, Stable Diffusion was able to get more out of less training for each participant by incorporating photo captions into the algorithm. It’s a novel approach that incorporates textual and visual information to “decipher the brain,” says Ariel Goldstein, a cognitive neuroscientist at Princeton University who was not involved with the work.

The AI algorithm makes use of information gathered from different regions of the brain involved in image perception, such as the occipital and temporal lobes, according to Yu Takagi, a systems neuroscientist at Osaka University who worked on the experiment. The system interpreted information from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) brain scans, which detect changes in blood flow to active regions of the brain. When people look at a photo, the temporal lobes predominantly register information about the contents of the image (people, objects, or scenery), whereas the occipital lobe predominantly registers information about layout and perspective, such as the scale and position of the contents. All of this information is recorded by the fMRI as it captures peaks in brain activity, and these patterns can then be reconverted into an imitation image using AI.

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Artificial intelligence re-creations of images based on brain scans (bottom row) match the layout, perspective, and contents of the actual photos seen by study participants (top row). Creative Commons

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Sleep is a semiconscious state, but there are neurons firing in the brain even when all seems quiet. Now brain activity during the deepest sleep phase could make it possible for people to communicate with the waking world during lucid dreaming.

If someone is lucid dreaming, they are aware they are dreaming and able to manipulate what happens in the dream. Sleep expert Michael Raduga of Phase Research Center has developed a “language” that’s intended to allow people to communicate while in that state. Called Remmyo, the first language of its kind, it relies on specific facial muscle movements that can occur during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. Remmyo can be learned during waking hours like any other language. Anyone capable of lucid dreaming could potentially communicate in Remmyo while asleep.

“You can transfer all important information from lucid dreams using no more than three letters in a word,” Raduga, who founded Phase Research Center in 2007 to study sleep, told Ars. “This level of optimization took a lot of time and intellectual resources.”

Reaching lucidity

It takes about 90 minutes to transition from lighter sleep phases to REM sleep. REM sleep brings on a state of sleep paralysis—arm and leg muscles cannot move, which keeps us from playing out what is happening in the dream. Meanwhile, brain waves, heart rate, and blood pressure all become similar to the levels seen in the awake state. Breathing becomes faster and erratic. Even though eyelids remain closed, the sleeper’s eyes constantly move from side to side, giving the state its name.

This is when most dreams occur, including lucid dreams. Those are still an enigma but thought to be a hybrid of the waking and sleeping states.

Remmyo consists of six sets of facial movements that can be detected by electromyography (EMG) sensors on the face. Slight electrical impulses that reach facial muscles make them capable of movement during sleep paralysis, and these are picked up by sensors and transferred to software that can type, vocalize, and translate Remmyo. Translation depends on which Remmyo letters are used by the sleeper and picked up by the software, which already has information from multiple dictionaries stored in its virtual brain. It can translate Remmyo into another language as it is being “spoken” by the sleeper.

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No parent wants their child to know about war. We want our kids to feel safe, loved, and free from worry, but this is not always possible. Wars continue to happen in all corners of the world, and children are going to find out about them whether we want them to or not. They’ll find out at school, from friends, online. And even though it feels terribly difficult, especially when we are deeply afraid ourselves, there will come a time when we need to talk to our kids about frightening world events like war. Here are a few things to consider as you approach these difficult conversations.

Consider their age.

While every child and every family is different, UNICEF recommends that parents try to be mindful of age-appropriateness when discussing big world events like war. Some younger children might not yet have the capacity to comprehend. UNICEF recommends parents “speak calmly and be mindful of your body language” as children are sensitive to our emotional cues and facial expressions.

Stay ahead of the news.

If there is going to be considerable news coverage of a war or conflict, and you know your child will be likely to find out, try to be the first one to explain it to them. Dr. Harold Koplewicz, president of the Child Mind Institute and child psychologist, advises parents and caregivers to try to break the news to their children before they have the chance to stumble across a frightening headline or hear the news from another child. “Don’t delay telling your children about what’s happened … You want to be able to convey the facts, however painful, and set the emotional tone,” Koplewicz suggests.

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Wars continue to happen in all corners of the world, and children are going to have questions.

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