A fantastic and magical device from the past.

[cgannon64]

I have a vague memory, from when I was younger, of being in a computer store and using the coolest toy I have ever heard of: A little skiing video game, which you played by putting your finger into a little metal slot and thinking 'left' and 'right' - and the guy did it!

Does anyone know if this device is real, and if so, how it works? (A theory proposed by my friends is that your finger moves left and right minutely when you think left and right. Sounds true, but I want to beleive something cooler.)

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

Did you actually do it yourself, or was the salesman (or your parents) just putting you on? If it was real, then slight involuntary movemenys are the only other possibility.

 

[El_Machinae]

Or, alternatively, time moves backwards

Originally Posted by El_Machinae
I vaguely remember that paper, and how creepy it was. Though not nearly as creeped out as the people who were in the experiment!

Yeah. There's a fair bit of evidence that there's a whole section of the brain that is primarily concerned with "keeping a good story running", so to speak. It's quite interesting, I think. It's not something that can really be proven, but there's a fair number of experiments as well as case studies which suggest rationalization is all we've got. Either that, or time runs backwards

 

[cgannon64]

I'm not sure that I understand why time would run backwards, or why that's creepy. I remember reading that in the other thread and thinking, "Damn that sounds interesting, I wish I knew what the hell they were talking about." Can you please give some more background please?

But also: Are we sure that's the only explanation? Are we reallyreally sure? (And yes, I did it myself.)

 

[punkbass2000]

Er, the bit about time was meant to be a bit rhetorical. But I do like to keep the options open

 

[El_Machinae]

(Let me look for the paper, it's old, so it probably isn't online)

I also suspect that it was sensing minor motions in your finger. You know how you lean when playing video games? (you'll see it all the time, people will lean forward when getting Ms. Croft to look around a corner. People will flinch when their jet is trying to dodge missles) I suspect it's the same thing.

 

[cgannon64]

I understand it was joking, I was wondering if there was anything more to it. Like if they actually proposed that in the paper. (I would still like to understand or read this paper, I'm intrigued...)

El Machinae: Children are the worst. I see kids who turn the controller all the way around their bodies when they turn.

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

El Machinae: Children are the worst. I see kids who turn the controller all the way around their bodies when they turn.

I've noticed that. When I am playing Mario Kart with my 7 year old sister, I will just lean into the corners; she will spin all the way around.

 

[cgannon64]

That effect will only be worsened when then Nintendo Revolution comes out, and movign the contoller in real space actually works.

I wonder if little kids will be better than us at video games, then?

 

[Birdjaguar]

I wonder if little kids will be better than us at video games, then?

They will be better at them and worse for it most likely.

 

[punkbass2000]

I understand it was joking, I was wondering if there was anything more to it. Like if they actually proposed that in the paper. (I would still like to understand or read this paper, I'm intrigued...)

I wasn't referring specifically to El-Mac's paper. I'm aware of plenty of psychological evidence suggesting what he mentioned. A good primer for unusual mental phenomena would be Jay Ingram's The Burning House. IF you're unaware, he co-hosts The Daily Planet on Discovery and has an incredible knack for concisely expressing fascinating possibilities with arrays of modern scientific studies.

 

[Heretic_Cata]

You know how you lean when playing video games? (you'll see it all the time, people will lean forward when getting Ms. Croft to look around a corner.

OT:
That happened to me a lot . I played the 2-5 tomb raider games a LOT .

 

[Sidhe]

you'll see it all the time, people will lean forward when getting Ms. Croft to look around a corner. People will flinch when their jet is trying to dodge missles.

Best idea was to get here into a narrow space and edge her towards the wall and then the camera angle would and you could see erm aherm cough er forget I said anything

 

[El_Machinae]

Perhaps the first is a 1963 experiment conducted by the eccentric neuroscientist and roboticist William Grey Walter. Patients with electrodes in their motor cortices were given a remote control that let them advance a slide projector, one slide at a time. Grey Walter didn’t tell the patients, though, that the remote control was fake. The projector was actually being advanced by the patients’ own brain signals, picked up by the electrodes, amplified, and sent to the projector. Daniel Dennett describes an unexpected result of the experiment in his Consciousness Explained:

One might suppose that the patients would notice nothing out of the ordinary, but in fact they were startled by the effect, because it seemed to them as if the slide projector was anticipating their decisions. They reported that just as they were “about to” push the button, but before they had actually decided to do so, the projector would advance the slide—and they would find themselves pressing the button with the worry that it was going to advance the slide twice!

That odd effect, caused by the delay between the decision to do something and the awareness of that decision, raises profound questions about the nature of consciousness. But for the moment, let’s just note that patients were able to control a useful machine with their brains alone, even if they didn’t realize that’s what they were doing.

Here is a quick summary of the study. I cannot find a sample of it online, but it was done by William Grey Walter in 1963.

What jumped out the most was that the slides would change just before people realised that they wanted to change the slide.

 

[cgannon64]

That's incredible!

 

[Perfection]

They will be better at them and worse for it most likely.

Hey video games didn't hurt me any. I mean look at me, I'm amazing!

&ElMachine, you do have a source, don't you?

 

[El_Machinae]

ElMachine, you do have a source, don't you

Dude, I *am* the source. The way, the truth, the wisdom ....

(oh, you meant for the article .... I haven't read the web page, so I don't know if the webpage is 'on the whole' any good. I just posted the paragraphs around the experiment, because they were sufficiently close to what I remembered. Here is the link, but I'm not putting the El_Mac stamp of approval on it because I haven't read it)

 

[Syterion]

I have played a maze game at UMass Lowell in which you try to think left right, up and down to get through the maze, and it was incredily difficult to concentrate. The pointer would suddenly jump to and fro, and it was exceedingly hard to move up. You put these metal things on your temples to read your brain waves. Really fun.

 

[warpus]

What jumped out the most was that the slides would change just before people realised that they wanted to change the slide.

That sorta makes sense to me. The decision is made in the subconscious - and you only became aware of it when it reaches your conscious. It is at that point that you are able to over-ride the decision your subconscious made, if you wish to.

I don't remember where - but I read an article once outlining that that's precisely how the human brain work. I wish I could remember the source.

As for the OP, I remember watching a show on the discovery channel about a similar sort of thing. It was a person sitting in a lab, with wires hooked up his index fingers. There was a large screen in front of him, with a white ball in the centre. He was told to try to move the ball with his mind - and at first it started fluctuationg around wildly.. but eventually he was able to control it fairly well. The way it works is that electrical impulses are sent from your brain throughout your body when you make a decision - that is picked up by the wires and sent to a computer - which then attemps to figure out what your intent was.

So this sort of thing sounds reasonable, at least to me!

 

[cgannon64]

I don't remember exactly how responsive or accurate this game was, so I'm afraid I'm of no help here. I'm no good at these skiing games even when I control the skiier by more normal means.

Although, I wonder: Do we perform better or worse with devices like this?