Can fMRI decode what a person is thinking without their cooperation? · Grey Matter

In 2023 a decoder trained on about 16 hours of a person's fMRI recordings reconstructed the gist of stories they listened to or imagined, and of silent films they watched.

Can fMRI decode what a person is thinking without their cooperation?

In 2023 a decoder trained on about 16 hours of a person's fMRI recordings reconstructed the gist of stories they listened to or imagined, and of silent films they watched. It worked only for the person it was trained on and only with their cooperation: decoders trained on other people failed, and participants could defeat it by thinking of something else. The authors presented those limits as a current safeguard and called for policies to protect mental privacy before decoders become less dependent on cooperation.