Robot Interprets Dreams Through Dance
Writing by Evan Ackerman on Tuesday, 19 of February , 2008 at 6:33 am
As with most people, sometimes I remember my dreams, and sometimes I don’t. I’ve always wished for some way to record what was going on… Especially for those few occasions where during a dream, I realized I was dreaming, and took full (full) advantage of it. Fernando Orellana and Brendan Burns have created a robotic work of art that uses brain activity recorded during REM sleep to program the movements of a robot. Unfortunately, the programming is rather subjective in that there’s no way to directly correlate dream actions with what shows up on an EEG:
The use of the EEG data is a bit more complex. Running it through a machine learning algorithm, we identified several patterns from a sample of the data set (both REM and non-REM events). We then associated preprogrammed robot behaviors to these patterns. Using the patterns like filters, we process the entire data set, letting the robot act out each behavior as each pattern surfaces in the signal. Periods of high activity (REM) where associated with dynamic behaviors (flying, scared, etc.) and low activity with more subtle ones (gesturing, looking around, etc.). The “behaviors” the robot demonstrates are some of the actions I might do (along with everyone else) in a dream.
I imagine that with a bit of time and calibration, and perhaps some additional measurements of muscle movement, there could be some way to differentiate between (say) dream running and dream flying. Still, it’s an intriguing concept, and the results are interesting to watch:
[ We Make Money Not Art ] VIA [ Gearfuse ]
Category: Art
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