Toward Truly Good Tech

min read

Neurable Team

This post originally appeared in:

Instructions

If you intend to use this component with Finsweet's Table of Contents attributes follow these steps:

Remove the current class from the content27_link item as Webflows native current state will automatically be applied.
To add interactions which automatically expand and collapse sections in the table of contents select the content27_h-trigger element, add an element trigger and select Mouse click (tap)
For the 1st click select the custom animation Content 27 table of contents [Expand] and for the 2nd click select the custom animation Content 27 table of contents [Collapse].
In the Trigger Settings, deselect all checkboxes other than Desktop and above. This disables the interaction on tablet and below to prevent bugs when scrolling.

When you develop a device that measures brain activity, people tend to ask a lot of questions. They want to know, for instance, what scalp sensors can discern about one’s thoughts, how companies plan to protect this most-personal data, and whether neurotechnology can really improve everyday life.

These questions, both practical and profound, flow from an intuition that there’s something unique about tech that records from the brain—a sense that, even if new devices can’t exactly read your mind, they may nonetheless capture a special kind of data. Neurable shares this intuition and, as a pioneer in the field of consumer neurotechnology, is committed to creating products that respect the specialness of brains and their owners.

Learning from the Past

In some ways, new neurotechnologies may be less intrusive than devices we already own. After all, smartphone apps can make predictions about your personality, based purely on your online activity. Of course, this precedent may not be terribly comforting.

In recent years, we’ve learned that apps can collect a frightening amount of data about users, often without explicit permission to do so. Additionally, developers often design programs in ways that maximize their addictiveness, rather than their usefulness. While there now exists growing pushback against such practices, these important conversations have arrived only after years of decisions that fail to prioritize end users. Relatively young, the field of consumer neurotechnology can and should hold itself to a higher standard.

In addition to learning from the mistakes of other industries, we can learn from our customers, our competitors, and researchers in the fields of data privacy and ethics. Though no one can anticipate every challenge that will accompany the development of new tech, we know that industries are better equipped to navigate these challenges when diverse voices are included in the conversation. As such, in the coming years it will be critical to engage in open, ongoing dialogue about the role of neurotechnology in our lives.

A Model for the Future

On top of inventing actual devices, neurotech leaders have an opportunity and responsibility to invent standards of ethical practice for the industry. Here, a great deal can be learned from research in neuroethics, a field devoted to understanding how brain tech might affect people and society.

For example, a leading neuroethics group recently published recommendations on responsible innovation in neurotechnology. While some of these recommendations apply to future devices, they also include practical tips that can be implemented now. The group states, for instance, that companies should not collect brain data unless users actively volunteer to share this information.

They also stress that users have a right to understand how a product interacts with their brain, and that companies must take steps to counteract bias during product development.

These guidelines are a great start. Now, it’s up to companies like Neurable to apply these principles and, drawing from real world experience, expand upon them. We have found, for example, that one of the best ways to protect the rights of users is to enhance their knowledge of the field. When consumers have a firm understanding of technology, they are empowered to make informed decisions about how they engage with it, and to spot questionable industry practices. As such, we believe that consumer education should be a pillar of any neuroethics initiative.

While we think that users should be able to do what they want with their data and devices, we also think that companies should take strides to protect their customers from potential privacy violations. So, as a matter of policy, we will never sell your data. Though we can’t force everyone in the industry to adopt the same policy, we can encourage good behavior by modeling it.

Put simply, we want to develop technology that improves everyday life. That means making decisions that put our users first. In doing so, we will contribute to the development of high ethical standards that guide our industry for years to come.

‍
‍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.

Continue reading...

To read the full article and explore the original content, click the button below. You'll be redirected to the original post created by an external media outlet where our brand and products have been mentioned.

Read Full Story on