More specifically, a functional MRI. I signed up for a study way back in September/October and Chris finally called for a subject! I had to memorize a bunch of faces then identify them in the scanner, but I used their hair as a distinguishing feature - eg, bald, fro, etc. When I was in the scanner all I saw was their eyes nose and mouth! They cut off the hair! And they flashed the images for only milliseconds… it was so hard :confused: They can see which parts of my brain are working by measuring the blood flow in almost real-time (there is a lag of a few seconds).

In another part of the scan I had to say whether a face was repeated, but when they explained it I thought they would flash a picture, then another picture, then I would say if it was the same or not, but about 3 minutes into it I realized that each picture had to be compared to the one before it. They must have noticed that I was only responding to every second picture instead of every picture but they didn’t say anything *sigh*. Anyway, I redid that section after I pushed the bell for them to stop and confirmed the proper instructions =|

Overall I came out feeling pretty stupid, heh. I had to say if the people were the same identity but they would have different expressions and were flashed so quickly so it was hard to answer properly because these were strangers’ faces. In another you just had to say if they were the same expression, and while surprise and happiness are easily distinguishable from anger, disgust and anger look pretty darn similar when they’re flashed at you at millisecond intervals and you have to keep answering quickly to move to the next question! Ack!

Anyway, both Lionel and I survived, despite having to wear some questionable hospital PJs, and we’ll be paid $20. What I was looking forward to the most though was an image of our brains on CD! Unfortunately their CD burner wasn’t working so Chris is going to stop by with it later :yawn: