Paying close attention to something: Not that easy, is it? It's because our attention is pulled in so many different directions at a time, and it's in fact pretty impressive if you can stay focused.
Poñede moita atención en algo: Non é fácil, non? É porque a nosa atención vai cara a distintas direccións ao mesmo tempo e, de feito, é bastante impresionante se conseguides centrarvos en algo.
Many people think that attention is all about what we are focusing on, but it's also about what information our brain is trying to filter out.
Moita xente cre que a atención trata daquilo no que tratamos de concentrarnos, pero tamén trata da información que o cerebro tenta filtrar.
There are two ways you direct your attention. First, there's overt attention. In overt attention, you move your eyes towards something in order to pay attention to it. Then there's covert attention. In covert attention, you pay attention to something, but without moving your eyes. Think of driving for a second. Your overt attention, your direction of the eyes, are in front, but that's your covert attention which is constantly scanning the surrounding area, where you don't actually look at them.
Hai dous xeitos de centrar a atención. Primeiro, coa atención directa. Na atención directa, movedes os ollos cara a algo para poñer atención. Tamén está a atención indirecta. Na atención indirecta, poñedes a atención en algo mais sen mover os ollos. Pensade un segundo en conducir. A vosa atención directa, a dirección dos ollos, está en fronte, pero a vosa atención indirecta está constantemente buscando ao redor, a onde, de feito, non mirades.
I'm a computational neuroscientist, and I work on cognitive brain-machine interfaces, or bringing together the brain and the computer. I love brain patterns. Brain patterns are important for us because based on them we can build models for the computers, and based on these models computers can recognize how well our brain functions. And if it doesn't function well, then these computers themselves can be used as assistive devices for therapies. But that also means something, because choosing the wrong patterns will give us the wrong models and therefore the wrong therapies. Right? In case of attention, the fact that we can shift our attention not only by our eyes but also by thinking -- that makes covert attention an interesting model for computers.
Son neurocientífico computacional, e traballo con interfaces cognitivas cerebro-máquina, é dicir, xuntando o cerebro e o ordenador. Encántanme os padróns cerebrais. Os padróns cerebrais son importantes porque baseándonos neles construímos modelos para ordenadores, e baseándonos neses modelos os ordenadores poden recoñecer como funciona o cerebro. E se non funciona ben, eses ordenadores pódense usar como dispositivos de asistencia para terapias. Mais tamén implica algo, porque elixir os padróns errados dános modelos errados e, por tanto, terapias erradas. Non? No caso da atención, o feito de podermos cambiar a nosa atención non só cos nosos ollos senón tamén co pensamento fai da atención indirecta un modelo interesante para ordenadores.
So I wanted to know what are the brainwave patterns when you look overtly or when you look covertly. I set up an experiment for that. In this experiment there are two flickering squares, one of them flickering at a slower rate than the other one. Depending on which of these flickers you are paying attention to, certain parts of your brain will start resonating in the same rate as that flickering rate. So by analyzing your brain signals, we can track where exactly you are watching or you are paying attention to.
Así que eu quería saber cales son os padróns cerebrais ao mirar directamente ou ao mirar indirectamente. Deseñei un experimento. Nel, hai dous cadrados que chiscan, un deles chisca máis devagar có outro. Dependendo de en que cadrado poñades a atención, certas partes do cerebro resoarán ao mesmo ritmo do cadrado. Así, ao analizar os sinais do cerebro, podemos rastrexar exactamente onde estades mirando ou poñendo a atención.
So to see what happens in your brain when you pay overt attention, I asked people to look directly in one of the squares and pay attention to it. In this case, not surprisingly, we saw that these flickering squares appeared in their brain signals which was coming from the back of their head, which is responsible for the processing of your visual information. But I was really interested to see what happens in your brain when you pay covert attention. So this time I asked people to look in the middle of the screen and without moving their eyes, to pay attention to either of these squares. When we did that, we saw that both of these flickering rates appeared in their brain signals, but interestingly, only one of them, which was paid attention to, had stronger signals, so there was something in the brain which was handling this information so that thing in the brain was basically the activation of the frontal area. The front part of your brain is responsible for higher cognitive functions as a human. The frontal part, it seems that it works as a filter trying to let information come in only from the right flicker that you are paying attention to and trying to inhibit the information coming from the ignored one.
Para ver que ocorre no cerebro cando se pon atención directa, pedinlles a unhas persoas que mirasen directamente un dos cadrados e se concentrasen nel. Neste caso, prediciblemente, vimos que os cadrados que chiscaban aparecían nos sinais cerebrais que viñan da parte de atrás da cabeza, que é a responsable de procesar a información visual. Pero interesoume moito ver o que ocorre no cerebro ao poñer atención indirecta. Desta vez, pedinlle á xente que mirase para o centro da pantalla, e sen mover os ollos, que se concentrase en calquera deses cadrados. Cando o fixemos vimos que ambos os cadrados aparecían nos sinais cerebrais mais, curiosamente, un deles, ao que se lle poñía atención, tiña sinais máis fortes, así que había algo no cerebro que manexaba esa información e ese algo era basicamente a activación da área frontal. A parte frontal do cerebro é a responsable das funcións cognitivas superiores que temos como humanos. A parte frontal parece que traballa como un filtro que intenta que a información entre só desde o cadrado en que nos concentramos e intenta inhibir a información que vén do cadrado que ignoramos.
The filtering ability of the brain is indeed a key for attention, which is missing in some people, for example in people with ADHD. So a person with ADHD cannot inhibit these distractors, and that's why they can't focus for a long time on a single task. But what if this person could play a specific computer game with his brain connected to the computer, and then train his own brain to inhibit these distractors?
A habilidade de filtrar do cerebro é unha chave para a atención, que non teñen algunhas persoas, por exemplo as que teñen TDAH. Unha persoa con TDAH non pode inhibir eses distractores, e esa é a razón pola que non se pode concentrar nunha tarefa moito tempo. Pero que ocorrería se esa persoa puidese xogar a un videoxogo específico co cerebro conectado ao ordenador e adestrar o seu propio cerebro para inhibir eses distractores?
Well, ADHD is just one example. We can use these cognitive brain-machine interfaces for many other cognitive fields. It was just a few years ago that my grandfather had a stroke, and he lost complete ability to speak. He could understand everybody, but there was no way to respond, even not writing because he was illiterate. So he passed away in silence. I remember thinking at that time: What if we could have a computer which could speak for him? Now, after years that I am in this field, I can see that this might be possible. Imagine if we can find brainwave patterns when people think about images or even letters, like the letter A generates a different brainwave pattern than the letter B, and so on. Could a computer one day communicate for people who can't speak? What if a computer can help us understand the thoughts of a person in a coma? We are not there yet, but pay close attention. We will be there soon.
Ben, o TDAH é só un exemplo. Podemos usar esas interfaces cognitivas máquina-cerebro para outros campos cognitivos. Hai algúns anos, o meu avó tivo un derramo e perdeu a capacidade de falar. Podía entender todo, pero non podía responder, nin por escrito, porque era analfabeto. Así que morreu en silencio. Lémbrome de pensar daquela: E se tivésemos un ordenador que puidese falar por el? Agora, despois de anos neste campo, vexo que iso podería ser posible. Imaxinade que podemos atopar padróns cerebrais cando a xente pensa en imaxes ou mesmo en letras, como que a letra A xere un padrón cerebral diferente da letra B, e así. Podería un día un ordenador comunicar pola xente que non pode falar? E se un ordenador pode axudarnos a entender os pensamentos dunha persoa en coma? Aínda non chegamos aí pero poñede atención. Estaremos aí ben axiña.
Thank you.
Grazas.
(Applause)
(Aplausos)