One possible criticism to the idea of distributed cognition could be that it is far-fetched as it it relies on verbal communication–an information bottleneck that disallows the manifestation of the dense interactions that are thought to be distinctive of extended cognitive systems. But what if brain to brain interfaces became available?

Scientists have connected the brains of a pair of animals and allowed them to share sensory information in a major step towards what the researchers call the world’s first “organic computer”.

The scientists first demonstrated that rats can share, and act on, each other’s sensory information by electrically connecting their brains via tiny grids of electrodes that reach into the motor cortex, the brain region that processes movement. […]Remarkably, the communication between the rats was two-way. If the receiving rat failed at the task, the first rat was not rewarded with a drink, and appeared to change its behaviour to make the task easier for its partner […] Nicolelis said the team is now working on ways to link several animals’ brains at once to solve more complex tasks. “We cannot even predict what kinds of emergent properties would appear when animals begin interacting as part of a ‘brain-net’,” he said. “In theory, you could imagine that a combination of brains could provide solutions that individual brains cannot achieve by themselves.” (Ian Sample, The Guardian, Friday 1 March 2013).

• To read the full journal article click here.
• To access the academic paper you may follow this link 

(Thanks to Scott Kerzman for showing the article to us)