Meet The Science Team: Earl Miller, PhD

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Neurable

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When it comes to neurotechnology, Dr. Earl Miller has high standards. The Picower Professor of Neuroscience at MIT, Miller studies how the brain carries out complex goal-directed behavior. He has been recognized globally for his research and advised a number of neurotech startups. As such, Miller has little patience for brain wearables that don’t work.

“I have seen consumer-grade systems fall short,” he says. “The pressure to ship can outweigh solving the truly difficult neuroscience questions. This is unacceptable, especially when we are talking about devices that have the potential to impact a person's health.”

Like Miller, Neurable takes brain tech seriously. So we were thrilled when he agreed to check out Enten and give us his honest feedback. Meeting virtually, we walked him through our white paper, which explains how we translate brain activity into meaningful insights for users. Following this deep dive and a thorough product demo, Miller expressed confidence in the technology, noting that it appeared to accurately measure user focus and would offer “true value” to customers.

“Neurable’s white paper details the lengths they went to ensure that Enten is capturing quality EEG signals,” he says. “I am optimistic that this technology will deliver on its promise.”

“I am optimistic that this technology will deliver on its promise.”

A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Miller holds appointments at the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory and the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT. He has received a number of awards for his work, including the George A. Miller Prize in Cognitive Neuroscience and the Goldman-Rakic Prize for Outstanding Achievement in Cognitive Neuroscience. Miller’s innovative research has advanced understanding of the prefrontal cortex and working memory, a corner of neuroscience that factored heavily into the development of Enten. As such, his enthusiasm about the product is quite exciting for Team Neurable.

In addition to recognizing Enten’s usefulness, Miller praised Neurable’s commitment to data ethics, stating: “I appreciate their openness and transparency regarding their data collection methods and analysis algorithms. This kind of transparency is key as new neurotechnology enters the market.”

Neurable’s obsession with ethical product development is part of a broader science-driven, user-first approach to tech; because, while the “pressure to ship” is real, it should never outweigh scientific integrity. That’s why we love getting feedback from researchers like Miller–a brainiac with high standards who won’t hesitate to tell us if we mess up.

Learn more about the science behind Enten by Neurable.

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‍²Distraction Stroop Tasks experiment: The Stroop Effect (also known as cognitive interference) is a psychological phenomenon describing the difficulty people have naming a color when it's used to spell the name of a different color. During each trial of this experiment, we flashed the words “Red” or “Yellow” on a screen. Participants were asked to respond to the color of the words and ignore their meaning by pressing four keys on the keyboard –– “D”, “F”, “J”, and “K,” -- which were mapped to “Red,” “Green,” “Blue,” and “Yellow” colors, respectively. Trials in the Stroop task were categorized into congruent, when the text content matched the text color (e.g. Red), and incongruent, when the text content did not match the text color (e.g., Red). The incongruent case was counter-intuitive and more difficult. We expected to see lower accuracy, higher response times, and a drop in Alpha band power in incongruent trials. To mimic the chaotic distraction environment of in-person office life, we added an additional layer of complexity by floating the words on different visual backgrounds (a calm river, a roller coaster, a calm beach, and a busy marketplace). Both the behavioral and neural data we collected showed consistently different results in incongruent tasks, such as longer reaction times and lower Alpha waves, particularly when the words appeared on top of the marketplace background, the most distracting scene.

‍Interruption by Notification: It’s widely known that push notifications decrease focus level. In our three Interruption by Notification experiments, participants performed the Stroop Tasks, above, with and without push notifications, which consisted of a sound played at random time followed by a prompt to complete an activity. Our behavioral analysis and focus metrics showed that, on average, participants presented slower reaction times and were less accurate during blocks of time with distractions compared to those without them.

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