This is from, Operation Mind Control by Walter Bowart, published in 1978 (look around online and you can find it for substantially less than the used copies are going for on Amazon *wink*):

In 1975 a primitive “mind-reading machine” was tested at the Stanford Research Institute. The machine is a computer which can recognize a limited amount of words by monitoring a person’s silent thoughts. This technique relies upon the discovery that brain wave tracings taken with an electroencephalograph (EEG) show distinctive patterns that correlate with individual words—whether the words are spoken aloud or merely subvocalized (thought of).

The computer initially used audio equipment to listen to the words the subject spoke. (At first the vocabulary was limited to “up,” “down,” “left,” and “right.”) At the same time the computer heard the words, it monitored the EEG impulses coming from electrodes pasted to the subject’s head and responded by turning a camera in the direction indicated. After a few repetitions of the procedure, the computer’s hearing was turned off and it responded solely to the EEG “thoughts.” It moved a television camera in the directions ordered by the subject’s thoughts alone!

This “mind-reading machine” was the creation of psychologist Lawrence Pinneo and computer experts Daniel

Wolf and David Hall. Their stated goal was eventually to put a highly skilled computer programmer into direct communication with the computer. Their research indicated that a nonsymbolic language—brain-wave patterns—did exist. By teaching computers this language, the timeconsuming practice of speaking or writing computer instructions could be abandoned. Faster programming would result in an information explosion whose effects could cause a transformation of our civilization unlike anything that has happened since the Industrial Revolution.

Many beneficial effects of the Stanford “mind-reading machine” may eventually accrue. Physically handicapped people may be able to use mini-computers to interpret signals from their environment and compensate for the loss of some bodily functions. The deaf may be able to hear; the blind to see; the paralyzed to walk.

Military applications of a “mind-reading machine” will someday allow faster computer input and output of information, remote control of war machines, and even the creation of animal or human robots to do the bidding of the military.