Just now, a scientific research team in Shanghai made big news - the brain-computer interface can finally read Chinese! This research is published in the new issue of Science Advances, which means that the world's largest language group is about to enter the era of "idea communication". You know, Mandarin decoding is a tough nut to crack. The same pronunciation but different tones have completely different meanings. For example, the pitch change of "Mama scolds" directly determines the semantics. It is this feature that makes Chinese decoding much more complicated than English.
However, a team from Fudan University and the Shanghai Key Laboratory of Clinical and Translational Brain-Computer Interface Research finally solved this problem. They captured neural signals as patients read aloud, achieving real-time generation of Chinese text for the first time. Looking at the Chinese characters that popped up on the screen along with the voice, the researchers called them "witness the miracle."
At present, the speed of this system cannot keep up with the speed of lip service: it can only decode 50 words per minute, which is one-fifth of the normal speech speed, but the accuracy rate has reached 70%. Experts from the University of California commented: This is a real technological leap!
It is worth noting that the Westlake University team is also making progress simultaneously. Their offline decoding accuracy also reached 70%, and one-third of the sentences were perfectly restored. The two teams unanimously proved that syllable-level mapping is the key to cracking Chinese passwords.
Now, the research team is accelerating in two directions: one is to apply the system to patients with aphasia such as stroke, and the other is to develop wireless implantable devices that can be used for a long time. As more data accumulates, this system is expected to become the "voice" for millions of speech-impaired patients.