STEPHANIE MARTIN AND COWORKERS PUBLISHED AN ARTICLE IN FRONTIERS IN NEUROENGINEERING, MAY 2014, VOL. 7, ENTITLED “DECODING SPECTROTEMPORAL FEATURES OF OVERT AND COVERT SPEECH FROM THE HUMAN CORTEX.” IN THEIR STUDY SUBJECTS READ THE SAME STORIES BOTH ALOUD AND SILENTLY, OVERT AND COVERT RESPECTIVELY. SPEECH IMAGERY IS INNER SPEECH, SILENT SPEECH, IMAGINED SPEECH, COVERT SPEECH, OR AUDITORY VERBAL IMAGERY. IT IS HAVING WORDS IN THE MIND. IT REFERS TO THE ABILITY TO “HEAR” SPEECH INTERNALLY WITHOUT THE INTENTIONAL MOVEMENT OF ANY BODY PARTS INVOLVED IN GENERATING AUDIBLE SPEECH. THE AUTHORS UTILIZED A METHOD TO “RECONSTRUCT OVERT AND COVERT SPEECH FROM DIRECT INTRACRANIAL RECORDINGS” TAKEN BY ELECTROCARDIOGRAPHY. THEY FIRST BUILT A NEURAL DECODING MODEL FROM SELF-GENERATED OVERT SPEECH, AND THEN [EVALUATED] WHETHER THIS SAME MODEL COULD RECONSTRUCT SPEECH FEATURES IN THE COVERT SPEECH CONDITION.” THEY FOUND THAT “AUDITORY FEATURES OF COVERT SPEECH COULD BE DECODED FROM MODELS TRAINED FROM AN OVERT SPEECH CONDITION, PROVIDING EVIDENCE OF A SHARED NEURAL SUBSTRATE FOR OVERT AND COVERT SPEECH.” THOUGHTS WERE MAPPED TO BRAIN ACTIVITY IN THE FORM OF WAVEFORM TRACINGS THAT WERE DECODED SO THAT BRAIN ELECTRICAL ACTIVITY COULD BE TRANSLATED INTO UNDERSTANDABLE SPEECH. BUT THE PROCESS BY WHICH WAVEFORMS WERE GENERATED THAT WERE REFLECTED IN THE BRAIN TRACINGS WAS NOT ADDRESSED. AND JUST WHAT “HEARS” THE INTERNAL SPEECH? I OFFER THAT IT IS THE IMMATERIAL COGNITIVE MIND IN BOTH INSTANCES, BUT THE AUTHORS PROPOSED THAT “IMAGERY-RELATED BRAIN ACTIVATION COULD RESULT FROM TOP-DOWN INDUCTION MECHANISMS, INCLUDING MEMORY RETRIEVAL AND MOTOR STIMULATION.” THEIR PROPOSAL SUGGESTS A MATERIALIST REDUCTIONISM, ASSIGNING NO ROLE FOR THE IMMATERIAL COGNITIVE MIND.
THE AUTHORS TRANSLATED THE BRAIN TRACINGS USING THE MODEL THEY BUILT, AND IT IS AN ELEGANT STUDY THAT HOLDS ULTIMATE PROMISE FOR BRAIN-COMPUTER INTERFACES THAT CAN MAKE COMMUNICATION POSSIBLE FOR PATIENTS UNABLE TO SPEAK BUT ABLE TO HAVE THOUGHTS. I PROPOSE THAT THEIR STUDY RESULTS POINT TO THE IMMATERIAL MIND AS THE “TRANSLATOR” OF LINGUISTIC NEURAL CODES GENERATED BY BOTH AUDIBLY PERCEIVED AND IMAGINED SPEECH. WE HAVE SEEN IN PREVIOUS BLOG POSTS AND IN MY BOOKS THAT WAVEFORMS ARE TRANSMITTED PROBABILISTICALLY VIA QUANTUM TUNNELING THROUGH POTENTIAL BARRIERS WITHIN SYNAPTIC COMPONENTS TO GENERATE SPIKE TRAINS OF ACTION POTENTIALS TRANSMITTING IN TURN LINGUISTIC NEURAL CODES THROUGH COHERENT SYNAPTIC NETWORKS WITH PURPOSE, SUCH AS TO TRANSMIT SPEECH. I OFFER THAT THE COGNITIVE MIND IS THE GENERATOR OF THE WAVEFORMS AND THE TRANSLATOR/INTERPRETER OF THE LINGUISTIC NEURAL CODES. THAT THE COGNITIVE MIND OF A HUMAN HAS THIS CAPACITY LEADS ONE TO DEDUCE THAT THE MIND OF GOD INDWELLING US AS THE HOLY SPIRIT ALSO HAS THE CAPACITY FOR DUALIST INTERACTION WITH THE MIND AND BRAIN OF MAN.