By: Elise Hu
May 7, 2019
Communicating through your thoughts alone is possible — with a little technical assistance.
Scientists at the University of Washington’s Center for Neurotechnology have figured out how to network human minds together to collaborate to move Tetris-like shapes on a computer screen using only thoughts.
It works like this: Three players, including one main player, sit in separate rooms and watch game pieces cascade down a computer screen. Using telepathy (and a lot of hardware, including a heavily wired brain cap), two players “tell” the main player which way to move the pieces to clear the bottom row.
I know because I put on the funky cap and played this mind game, under the direction of University of Washington’s Rajesh Rao and his team. It’s part of the first video in NPR’s new exploration of the future.