A New Party Trick: A Hearing Aid That Reads Minds

Our brains have a remarkable knack for picking out individual voices in a noisy environment, like a crowded coffee shop or a busy city street. This is something that even the most advanced hearing aids struggle to do. But now Columbia engineers are announcing an experimental technology that mimics the brain’s natural aptitude for detecting and amplifying any one voice from many. Powered by artificial intelligence, this brain-controlled hearing aid acts as an automatic filter, monitoring wearers’ brain waves and boosting the voice they want to focus on. Find out about this experimental technology that would enable wearers to converse with the people around them seamlessly and efficiently. Science by: Nima Mesgarani, PhD a neuroengineer at Columbia’s Zuckerman Institute and associate professor of electrical engineering at Columbia’s Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science. Animation by: Skeptisketch