Brainwaves Linked To Mistakes
Britain's
Medical Research Council in Cambridge says it has determined a drop in
a certain brainwave is linked to one's making a mistake.
The BBC said
the council's cognitive and brain sciences unit presented its findings
Saturday to the Physiological Society Conference.
The scientists
monitored volunteers' brainwaves and found the volunteers were more likely
to make a mistake following a drop in levels of a type of brainwave called
P300.
Lead researcher
Dr. Avijit Datta told the BBC: "It's the sort of mistakes you make especially
when you're feeling tired or sleepy, like accidentally putting coffee on
your cornflakes instead of milk.
But you have
to remember these sorts of mistakes have also been implicated in the Chernobyl
disaster and the three-mile island accident."
Datta noted
that previous brain imaging has also suggested the P300 brainwaves were
linked to mistakes.
He said: "We
looked at P300 waves and we found that if they began to fall, we knew a
mistake was likely to happen. Because of the nature of the test, we knew
that it was not due to changes in reaction time, so the subjects were no
faster or slower at performing -- just more error-prone."
--
Copyright 2004 by United
Press International.
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