Wanna Play? Computer Gamers Help Push Frontier Of Brain Research

People can get pretty addicted to computer games. By some estimates, residents of planet Earth spend 3 billion hours per week playing them. Now some scientists are hoping to make use of all that human capital and harness it for a good cause.

Right now I'm at the novice level of a game called EyeWire, trying to color in a nerve cell in a cartoon drawing of a slice of tissue. EyeWire is designed to solve a real science problem — it aims to chart the billions of nerve connections in the brain,

(..)

At least Seung is hoping that's what people will think. But before he tackles the human brain, Seung wants to explore a simpler collection of cells: the ones in the back of the eyes of mice. So he and his colleagues created EyeWire, which looks at the neural connections in the eye. So far about 35,000 people have registered witheyewire.org to play.

"Anyone sitting in their living room can just fire up a web browser and look at images of neurons, and help us figure out how they're connected," he says.
Link

The Eyes Have It: Marketers Now Track Shoppers' Retinas

To find out what really draws their test shoppers' attention, companies likeProcter & Gamble Co., PG +1.81%Unilever UL +1.58% PLC and Kimberly-Clark Corp. KMB +0.62% are combining three-dimensional computer simulations of product designs and store layouts with eye-tracking technology. And that, in turn, is helping them roll out new products faster and come up with designs and shelf layouts that boost sales.

(..)

Falling costs are helping to make the use of such technology more commonplace. A retina-tracking camera embedded in the rim of a computer screen and attached to special glasses or free standing typically costs $25,000 to $40,000, Dr. Wedel says. The information it collects can be used to form a "heat map" that uses color to show where people looked on a simulated shelf.

Some companies also attach bands to testers' heads to monitor brain-wave activity showing which designs trigger pleasurable responses, says David Johnston, a senior vice president at JDA Software Group Inc. JDAS +1.46%Companies also track involuntary facial expressions to gauge true emotional reaction, says Jonathan Asher, an executive vice president at marketing firm Perception Research Services International Inc.

Link