Slashdot Log In
DARPA Working on Spidey Sense for Soldiers
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Wed May 02, 2007 11:41 AM
from the everyone-riding-the-hype-wave dept.
from the everyone-riding-the-hype-wave dept.
anti-human 1 writes to tell us Wired is reporting that DARPA is developing a new optics system to help soldiers identify threats earlier. "The most far-reaching component of the binocs has nothing to do with the optics: it's Darpa's aspirations to integrate EEG electrodes that monitor the wearer's neural signals, cueing soldiers to recognize targets faster than the unaided brain could on its own. The idea is that EEG can spot 'neural signatures' for target detection before the conscious mind becomes aware of a potential threat or target. [...] In other words, like Spiderman's 'spider sense', a soldier could be alerted to danger that his or her brain had sensed, but not yet had time to process."
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
1 step closer (Score:5, Funny)
Well for starters... (Score:5, Funny)
{no....I just can't bring myself to finish that one.....}
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Ever hear of the "Sixth Sense" (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Ever hear of the "Sixth Sense" (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
True about entire societies. The more evolved, the truer — one may even perish completely, when confronted by another, which manages to concentrate on the mission of killing the enemy, instead of "seeing his side".
Re:Ever hear of the "Sixth Sense" (Score:4, Informative)
Okay, here's one:
Pick someone, anyone, out of a crowd, on the highway (not recommended if you are driving), etc., from who you are out of their field of view. Stare at them intensely for a few seconds. Direct a strong emotion towards them if you can -- hate, fear, rage, etc. I guarantee you that most of them will look back at you nervously. It may not work for everyone because some people are less aware of their '6th sense' than others.
Parent
Re:Ever hear of the "Sixth Sense" (Score:5, Informative)
Pick someone, anyone, out of a crowd, on the highway (not recommended if you are driving), etc., from who you are out of their field of view. Stare at them intensely for a few seconds. Direct a strong emotion towards them if you can -- hate, fear, rage, etc. I guarantee you that most of them will look back at you nervously. It may not work for everyone because some people are less aware of their '6th sense' than others.
Parent
Re:Ever hear of the "Sixth Sense" (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
They never admit defeat (Score:4, Insightful)
When people want to believe in something extraordinary there's no way an experiment, no matter how well performed, will convince them of the contrary. They will always assume the experiment itself was faulty in some way.
It seems that for some people the need to believe in something is so strong it overrides reason.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Speak for yourself, human. Besides, how wonderful
Re:Ever hear of the "Sixth Sense" (Score:4, Insightful)
Then get scientific evidence for it: Make absolutely sure that the observer cannot affect the environment of the subject in any way, and record the results.
All sorts of EMP studies have been tried, and there is still no evidence for it. Given how easy it would be to get evidence if it did work, I think the only conclusion has to be that it doesn't.
My own opinion of this sort of anecdotal evidence is that 1) it is very startling when someone who you are sure cannot see you looking at them turns and looks at you (hence we tend to remember it as important event), 2) it's not very remarkable when people don't turn when you are looking at them (so we tend to forget it), and 3) our brains very very good at making connections between tiny bits of sensory data and the possibility that someone is looking at us (so in our everyday lives we are likely to see a bias towards people noticing us watching them).
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
This has more to do with empathy. Picture your enemy is a 14 y/o iraqi girl with an AK. looking her in the eyes will cause you to connect, question and pause. all of which can be fatal under threatening conditions.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
If 14 year old girls that you have apparently freed from the oppression of a ruthless dictator are your enemy, then something has already gone very, very wrong
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
This is what separates normal people from sociopaths and it isn't a good thing to head down that road. You should think about what you're doing, who you're doing it to, and be able to do it anyways and deal with the thoughts of it later. This is what it is to fight in the most limited way and not come to enjoying the kil
Re:Ever hear of the "Sixth Sense" (Score:5, Insightful)
Science doesn't have to explain it. That part comes after proving that it actually exists.
Parent
Re:Ever hear of the "Sixth Sense" (Score:5, Interesting)
My guess is that this type of perception is what they are alluding to. The "gut instinct" of it.
Parent
Re:Ever hear of the "Sixth Sense" (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I kinda have a 'sixth sense' that someone is staring at this post right now.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Try this today.
1. Get in a car and drive until you reach a red stop light.
2. Look at other person.
3. Watch them instantly look back at you.
Or in reverse
1. Get in a car and drive until you reach a red stop light.
2. Don't look at other person until you feel them looking.
3. Look at them quickly and watch them turn their head away.
One of th
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
*If* you are going to kill someone, particularly someone who can/will fight back, then you damn well better be prepared to pay attention to what you are doing. The whole reason that one is admonishe
Re:Ever hear of the "Sixth Sense" (Score:5, Informative)
Humans see principally in three "channels", red, green and blue due to the opsins in your photoreceptors. There is some evidence that some women are tetrachromats however. At any rate, these three opsins give us color discrimination in three mathematical dimensions. However, fish and amphibian eyes are much more complicated than ours. For example, the turtle likely sees in at least seven channels of vision, perceiving a world we could never hope to imagine and here is another fact: In the zebrafish, despite their retinas being much more complex and sophisticated than ours, can repair their retinas from damage whereas we are currently screwed if our retinas go bad.
IAAVS (I am a vision scientist), and neuroscientist.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
However, lateral lines are found on a lot of vertebrate sea life. They are lines of neural tissue that run down the body of the critter. The exact structure differs dependi
Re: (Score:2)
Couldn't have anything to do with looking at where you're going, or maybe not having the whites of your eyes give you away -- humans are good at identifying faces, so face down makes that more difficult. It probably also is intended to not make you dwell on the fact that you're about to kill a person.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Experiments have shown exactly the opposite. Test subjects are unable to tell if someone was looking at them or not in a rigorous test. The real question is why people believe you can, which can be answered by psychology: you remember the hits and not the misses. When you turn and someone is
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
a sixth sense, the ability to know someone is looking at you even though they are not in your field of vision. I have yet to see science explain this...
Okay, it is a known fact [citation needed] that we see small details with the central part of our field of view, the peripheral area being more sensitive to movements and variations of light. These detections have their own fast circuits to react to dangerous things. People dodge before looking when a dark thing appear on top of their head, catching or deflecting a ball is slower than a reflex but faster than conscious act.
It is less known that the resolution of this peripheral area is better than what
Edgy Perception? (Score:3, Funny)
I think this is a great idea... (Score:2)
How is this better? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
What I'd like to do... (Score:2)
Altered Carbon (Score:3, Interesting)
In the book, ordinary people with enough money can get the tech. If you meet someone who has better tech than you, they can almost certainly take you down with little effort. Every move you make, they see first and move faster to counter.
Re: (Score:2)
And yet soldiers don't want this crap (Score:5, Insightful)
Within the article:
"It's unclear what the final system will look like." but "Darpa says it expects to have prototypes in the hands of soldiers in three years."
Sure. It's like the Popular Science covers of the 1960s "Flying cars tomorrow! Pick your model today!"
If we really want to helps soldiers brains, help them come back from a bogus war with fewer instances of PTSD and other psychological damage.
Re: (Score:2)
Just off the top of my head, in the last few months there have been slashdot articles about:
Re: (Score:2)
Complex systems also increase the chances of an equipment failure. German tanks in WWII were overengineered and prone to breakdowns.
Re: (Score:2)
I saw a documentary on the development of the joint strike fighter - and the simulator. they bought kids in and let them use it. they incorporated their feedback. they wanted to make it feel as close to a video game as possible... the experience of flying the jsf.
my mother tried texting once. she quickly gave up. i text frequently... but i'm apparently not as cool a texter as my nephew - who at 11 whizzes across a
Re: (Score:2)
Win != done (Score:2)
Filling the resulting power vacuum is something else, still underway.
To use an analogy relevant to
Just because a product has successfully shipped doesn't mean development work is done. Bug fixes, enhancements, documentation, etc. all follow for a prolonged period.
Likewise, successfully removing a tyrranical dictator from power doesn't mean troops can just go home
Almost like forcing "DSI"... (Score:5, Insightful)
A tactile DSI, would always feel like they just put that watch on, it can be quite irritating after a while. Tactile DSIs often do things like cut tags off of thier clothing and take other such steps to minimize the sensory overload they are exposed to.
I'm an auditory DSI, I have a hard time blocking out background noise and often times, it competes with what I should be paying attention to. My work-around is to wear wireless full-coverage headphones that pipe in soft classical music. Thus, I reduce the distractions to a single source that is easy to manage.
These days however, I have an office so I can also just close my door.
Based upon my experience, I say this won't work like they hope it will.
Book: Blink (Score:2, Insightful)
This technology would merely make your subcontious more contious. But it doesn't tell you anything that you don't already know. Green recruits dropped into combat with this technology wouldn't get any use out of it,
Cut the funding already (Score:2)
Forget this AND forget the armor they don't have. We don't need enough armored vehicles for a large scale offensive anyway. What we need to preserve what we have. Congress needs to grow some balls and recall the troops by refusing to grant addition
Articulation != perception (Score:2)
Just because you can't explain something in a rational symbolic cognitive socially-accepted linguistic framework doesn't mean you haven't perceived it.
Tools that help enhance and articulate these perceptions would be very useful - especially in war.
On a related note: may I suggest The Science and Art of Tracking [amazon.com].
Keep this away from potential recruits (Score:2)
"Danger Danger young Will Robinson! Don't go in there! Try community college first at least!"