I read this post a few months ago and found the result from the study amazing. But by actually reading the study, I came away far less amazed.
From your post, I got the impression that simply by timing the flashing of the white square to the trough's of participants alpha waves, the participants learned the perceptual task significantly faster. But that's not what actually happened! In the group that learned significantly faster, it wasn't the flashes that were timed to the troughs but the appearance of the perceptual task which was timed to the troughs.
This makes sense from some of the previous literature that shows that participants tend to percieve objects quicker if the objects are presented during the trough vs the peak. This is largely due to the fact that neurons in the visual cortex are more excitable during the trough and more inhibited during the peak.
I don't know how this can generalize to any task or skill that isn't both perceptual and extremely short. How would you time learning calculus or French to a participants alpha wave troughs?
Thank you for catching this and sharing! I will make an edit and note at the top of the post to indicate the inaccuracy. But I'd like to leave it up for the discussion here, as well as to demonstrate that I can get such an important part wrong.
Learning calculus is almost certainly out. But French might work with timed vocabulary flashcards. You might also do musical note recognition, pattern recognition in medical imaging... The main question is whether things like vocabulary-image associations or similar pairings behave like the perceptual discrimination task. But the practical problem is you'd need real-time EEG monitoring or very stable entrainment, since people's alpha frequency drifts. A flashcard app that times card presentation to brainwave troughs is technically possible but...cumbersome.
I've read about some labs doing closed-loop brain stimulation already--I'd be curious if that could be adapted to stimulus presentation timing, where you monitor EEG continuously and present stimuli only when a trough is detected. It would be hugely technically demanding but would remove the reliance on sustained entrainment. Of course, the central challenge there would be latency. But it would free you up for quite a few more practical applications long-term.
I might be wrong, but I think the point of the entrainment is to be able to better time the stimulus to the participants troughs. Without entrainment I’m not sure how feasible this timing is.
I think you’re right and a learning boost with flashcards may be possible using this method. Though I’m doubtful that the gains will be great enough to outweigh the costs of a cumbersome eeg and entrainment setup. I guess there’s only one way to find out.
I read this post a few months ago and found the result from the study amazing. But by actually reading the study, I came away far less amazed.
From your post, I got the impression that simply by timing the flashing of the white square to the trough's of participants alpha waves, the participants learned the perceptual task significantly faster. But that's not what actually happened! In the group that learned significantly faster, it wasn't the flashes that were timed to the troughs but the appearance of the perceptual task which was timed to the troughs.
This makes sense from some of the previous literature that shows that participants tend to percieve objects quicker if the objects are presented during the trough vs the peak. This is largely due to the fact that neurons in the visual cortex are more excitable during the trough and more inhibited during the peak.
I don't know how this can generalize to any task or skill that isn't both perceptual and extremely short. How would you time learning calculus or French to a participants alpha wave troughs?
Thank you for catching this and sharing! I will make an edit and note at the top of the post to indicate the inaccuracy. But I'd like to leave it up for the discussion here, as well as to demonstrate that I can get such an important part wrong.
Learning calculus is almost certainly out. But French might work with timed vocabulary flashcards. You might also do musical note recognition, pattern recognition in medical imaging... The main question is whether things like vocabulary-image associations or similar pairings behave like the perceptual discrimination task. But the practical problem is you'd need real-time EEG monitoring or very stable entrainment, since people's alpha frequency drifts. A flashcard app that times card presentation to brainwave troughs is technically possible but...cumbersome.
I've read about some labs doing closed-loop brain stimulation already--I'd be curious if that could be adapted to stimulus presentation timing, where you monitor EEG continuously and present stimuli only when a trough is detected. It would be hugely technically demanding but would remove the reliance on sustained entrainment. Of course, the central challenge there would be latency. But it would free you up for quite a few more practical applications long-term.
I might be wrong, but I think the point of the entrainment is to be able to better time the stimulus to the participants troughs. Without entrainment I’m not sure how feasible this timing is.
I think you’re right and a learning boost with flashcards may be possible using this method. Though I’m doubtful that the gains will be great enough to outweigh the costs of a cumbersome eeg and entrainment setup. I guess there’s only one way to find out.
Amazing