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In a nutshell, the device converts electrical signals sent to the visual cortex into images that can be viewed on a computer screen. In their experiment, they showed test subjects the six letters in the word neuron and succeeded in reconstructing the word on screen by measuring their brain activity. As the technology progresses, it could be possible to "see" what people are thinking, what they dream about and record it for posterity. What do you think? Would that be awesome or scary as hell? All I know is that image weirds me out. [Yahoo Image via Pink Tentacle Thanks Roger!]

"One theory is that individual senses have separate areas of the brain dedicated to them," said Mark Wallace, Ph.D., the study's lead investigator. "In this view, information is processed initially on a sense-by-sense basis and doesn't come together until much later. However, this view has recently been challenged by studies showing that processing in the visual area of the brain, for example, can be influenced by hearing and touch."

"Without regulating your attention, you would orient to everything that appears and moves. An organism that couldn't filter anything just wouldn't work. It would be in a state of constant distraction," said Moore. "This work shows that, whether we are moving our eyes or not, the networks that control eye movements may be a source of that filtering."