Perceptual Learning through Neurofeedback Alone
Recently a talented vision scientist in my lab published a paper in Science showing that one can induce perceptual learning in an experimental participant through neurofeedback alone (i.e. they were able to improve the fit between the participants' brain activity and an fMRI decoder for a particular orientation by asking the participants to "somehow regulate activity in the posterior part of the brain to make the solid green
disc that was presented 6 s later as large as possible," where the participants had no idea what increasing the size of that disc represented in their brain). As one blog puts it, "BU wizards find success in unconscious neurofeedback learning, announce plans for secret lair." Impressive stuff!
The scary thing about this is not the new method of learning, it's the distant possibility of baddies using this as a better subliminal messaging system, for attitude control
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