I saw a video of his demo a couple months back. This time it’s even more amazing. Too much of our technology is limited by awkward, cluttered interfaces. For example, I’m typing this post on a keyboard, and I need a mouse to click on buttons. And if I want precision drawing on the computer I’d have to buy a pen tablet. But with multitouch, all three (and much more) are rolled up into one. The screen is the input device, and there is much more freedom and speed in manipulating screen objects. The only thing I don’t know is if it is affected by moisture; I quit using touchpads because I tend to get sweaty palms.

This is the same technology that will be featured on the iPhone. But I don’t know if Apple licensed it from him.

When I tell people that I’m studying Cognitive Sciences, I usually receive blank stares. Then comes the natural follow-up question:

“What’s that?”

EEG, I tell them.

“Whoa, what is that?”

“It’s like…brain waves.”

People tend to stop at this point, and I’m pretty sure confusion plays a big role. Personally, I don’t like the term “brain waves,” but it seems to do the job. So I think I’ll write a little explanation. Here’s hoping it can help with the confusion.

Cognitive science is very interdisciplinary, and by that nature, rarther hard to define. Wikipedia defines it as “the scientific study either of mind or of intelligence.” There are many ways to do that, and my field of study would mostly likely fall into the category of cognitive neuroscience, where one tries to define neural correlates and mechanisms for various cognitive functions — the holy grail being our consciousness.

EEG, or electroencephalography , is one tool scientists can use to study these neural mechanisms. The neurons in our brain generate tiny electrical currents that can be recorded on the scalp using electrodes. We have subjects perform certain visual tasks, and we record and study changes in the electrical activity related to these visual tasks. We usually look for changes in the frequency and amplitude of these currents.

So, for example, a very basic demonstration of this would be to record a subject viewing a black and white grating pattern flickering at, say, 12 Hz — that is, 12 times per second. In our recording, we will also see a 12 Hz signal. This means that somewhere in the brain, mostly likely in the visual cortex, there are neurons that are responding to the flicker at the same rate.

Our studies make full use of this effect: we can present one stimulus at one frequency, and another at a different frequency. We can then separate and track the brain’s response to both stimuli by locking on to the appropriate frequency. Such a technique is called “frequency tagging.”

Edit: This was intended to be a two-part post. I’ve decided to cancel the second part…

Katy posed a question a few Sundays ago: “What is the grossest/most unpleasant thing you’ve ever done?” Most answers around the Sunday School room (yes, during Sunday School) revolved around feces and the like. My response was a little different — I shared about how I held a research job at CHLA killing rats. This got me thinking: I’ve acquired an odd mixture of skills/experiences over these years. One was not for the faint of heart, some are quite discipline-specific, and others are quite mundane. But a good number of them I care not to repeat in any future job function/endeavor/general life experience. So here goes, the first portion of my skillset: Neuroscience/Cognitive Science. (Reader beware, first item might not be very appetizing.)

• I was proficient at harvesting rat brains. The practice involved putting the rat to sleep, decapitating them with a guillotine-like device, breaking their skulls with a plier (one cut above each eye socket, and one in the back), and digging out the brain with a spatula. (One must be careful when shoveling for the brain, for if the right nerve was stimulated, the rat jaw snaps.) Then I proceeded to cut the brain into thin slices for experimental use. Definitely not repeating
• I’m good at putting a EEG net onto human subjects for the purpose of recording brain waves. In my lab in college, we used a cap, and filled electrodes on the cap with conducting gel. The whole process took about 1.5 hrs. Now, here in grad school, we’ve advanced to a net of electrodes that can be applied in about 20 minutes. Prefer not to repeat after I graduate
• I use MATLAB to program experimental stimuli and to analyze EEG data. We generate plots. Lots of plots. Lots and lots of plots. If only the generation of naming schemes to accomodate a myriad of plot permutations were a notable skill. Looking to transfer said skill set
• If this were my resume, I would probably include the obligatory data analysis, critical thinking, and writing skills. But I don’t suppose those are particular worth describing here. Don’t mind applying said skill set

Read part 2