The information in this entry was obtained from the article "A Pentagon Agency Is Looking at Brains---And Raising Eyebrows," by Sharon Begley (Science Journal), Wall Street Journal, 12/15/06, p. B1
In October 2006, the Pentagon's Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) asked researchers to develop "innovative" techniques to understand and track what is going on inside the brain when a person learns new things and develops new skills. An example of the type of technique desired is to determine when brain waves transition from exhibiting patterns characteristic of novices to those characteristic of experts.
Strangely (in the view of this blogger), the Pentagon is also looking for "noninvasive ways to speed up the [above] process."
Lets think about this for a moment. Can we really create experts more rapidly by looking at the brain waves of experts, comparing them to the brain waves of novices (performing the same task) and then applying some "technique" (presumably based on insight that comes from brain waves) to make this transition faster?
Being an expert means understanding a particular area of knowledge. How could one "induce" such a state to develop more rapidly? By feeding the person sugar (or some other substance, maybe amphetamines) while they learn? Utilizing the same type of approach, could one analyze the electrical activity of a relatively low power PC, analyze the electrical activity of a higher power PC, and then find some general way to increase the power of a PC---perhaps by increasing the voltage?
I apologize for the analogy, which is indeed a bit messy.
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Shortly after posting this, I realized my criticism is unjustified. What they are doing is looking for guides to make people learn faster, using brain waves as a key. It does make sense, really.
I think the basis for my negative reaction was emotional. This is indeed creepy, scary stuff. The jump from this kind of work to work to see how to more efficiently "convince" a person of a particular point of view is indeed a small one.
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