Brain Electrical Oscillation Signature Profiling (BEOSP), also known as brain fingerprinting, is a revolutionary scientific technology that has come into use in investigating crimes. The National Centre for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) says that the BEOSP is an electroencephalogram (EEG) technique by which a suspect’s participation in a crime is detected by eliciting electrophysiological impulses.It is a non-invasive scientific technique that is considered sensitive and credible to a large extent.
The EEG detects electrical activity in a person’s brain using small, metal discs (electrodes) attached to the person’s scalp. The brain cells communicate via electrical impulses and are active all the time.
In BEOSP test, words or pictures relevant to a crime, terrorist act, terrorist training, or other investigated situation are presented on a computer screen, along with other, irrelevant words or pictures. The subject’s brainwave responses to these stimuli are measured non-invasively using a headband equipped with EEG sensors. A computer program then analyses the data to determine if the crime-relevant information is stored in the brain. The specific, measurable brain response known as the P300-MERMER is emitted by the brain of a subject who has the details of a crime stored in his brain, but not by a person whose brain does not have this record in his/her brain.
The technique is based on the fact that a person’s brain emits an electrical signal known as P300, beginning approximately 300 milliseconds after confronting a stimulus of special significance, related to the crime or other investigated situation. These stimuli could be relevant words, phrases, or pictures (a murder weapon, the victim’s face) to detect whether or not the relevant information is stored in the subject’s brain. When an individual recognizes something as significant in the current context, he/she experiences a response characterised by a specific brainwave pattern known as a P300-MERMER (Memory and Encoding Related Multifaceted Electroencephalographic Response), which includes additional features to P300, and is reported to be more accurate than the P300 alone.
Thus, the BEOSP procedure, unlike the polygraph (lie detection test), does not involve a question-answer session with the accused; also, unlike polygraph testing, it does not attempt to determine whether or not the subject is lying or telling the truth. It is rather a neuro psychological study of their brain. In a polygraph test, the accused person’s physiological indicators are taken into account, such as blood pressure, pulse rate, respiration, and skin conductivity. The BEOSP measures the subject’s brain response to relevant words, phrases, or pictures to detect whether or not the relevant information is stored in the subject’s brain.
The BEOSP uses cognitive brain responses and does not depend on the emotions of the subject, nor is it affected by emotional responses. The tests are based on the phenomena of ‘knowledge’ and ‘remembrance of experience’. The brain responds differently to novel experiences than to something previously encountered or participated in or something that the person has previous knowledge of. For example, when the information is obtained from a secondary source, such as books, conversations, hearsay, etc., the array of signals is stored by the brain as a function of the available knowledge base of the individual. This is considered ‘secondary encoding’. However, when the brain compiles an array of signals obtained from a ‘primary’ source, i.e., first-hand experience, the information is deep-seated and the response is different from an array of signals obtained from secondary sources. This is called ‘primary encoding’.
A person’s brain might have knowledge of the crime committed and the alibi they have come up with. However, it is only the ‘experience’ of having participated in the crime that confirms his/her guilt.The BEOSP technique detects and differentiates whether the subject was actually involved in committing a crime or had only learnt of it. In the BEOSP test, the individual is confronted with the crime events/scenarios. The subject’s brain responses are then analysed to find out if the encoded information is experiential or absorbed as a secondary source during the recounting.
According to experts, the results of BEOSP are more credible than those of a polygraph as it is difficult to tamper with neuroscientific mappings as opposed to physiological responses; the latter can be controlled and even faked with a certain amount of training of the mind.
Dr. Lawrence Farwell of the USA is associated with the use of brain fingerprinting technology. It was used to detect which people in a group were FBI agents, by measuring brain responses to words and phrases that only FBI agents would recognize.
In the US, BEOSP was ruled admissible in court in the case of Terry Harrington, who was convicted of murder in 1978 in Iowa and sentenced to life in prison. The test proved that the record stored in Harrington’s brain did not match the crime scene, instead, it matched his alibi. In the face of the evidence provided by the test, the only alleged witness to the crime recanted. Later, the sheriff of Macon County, Missouri, engaged Dr Farwell to conduct a brain fingerprinting test on a murder suspect, J.B. Grinder. The test proved that the record stored in his brain matched the scene of the murder of Julie Helton. As a result, Grinder pleaded guilty to escape the death penalty. In fact, he confessed to the murders of three other young women.
Farwell‟s brain fingerprinting originally used the P300 brain response. Farwell later discovered the P300 MERMER.
In India, BEOS was developed by Champadi Raman Mukundan, a neuroscientist, former professor and head of clinical psychology at National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bangalore.
In 2010, the Supreme Court of India passed a judgement in the Selvi vs State of Karnataka case, observing that narco-analysis, polygraph, and brain mapping tests cannot be forced upon any individual without their consent; moreover, the test results cannot be admitted as stand-alone evidence. However, any information or material discovered during the tests can be made part of the evidence, observed the bench.
Uses and Limitations Besides being used o discover, document, and provide evidence of guilty knowledge regarding crimes, brain fingerprinting can be used to identify individuals with a specific training or expertise such as members of dormant terrorist cells or bomb makers. It can also be used to evaluate brain functioning as a means of early detection of Alzheimer’s and other cognitively degenerative diseases, and depression. It has potential in the advertising field, as it can be used to measure in a scientific way if specific information, like a product brand, is retained in a person’s memory.
However, the technology has limitations. Brain fingerprinting detects brain responses that reveal what information is stored in the subject’s brain, but it does not detect how that information got there. Brain fingerprinting can detect only information, and not intent.
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Polygraph (lie detection machine) is an instrument that measures and records several physiological indices such as blood pressure, pulse, respiration, and skin conductivity. It is based on the fact that deceptive answers/information will have physiological responses that can be differentiated from responses associated with non-deceptive answers/information.
The term Narco-analysis is derived from the Greek word narkç (meaning “anesthesia” or “torpor”) and is used to describe a diagnostic and psychotherapeutic technique that uses psychotropic drugs, particularly barbiturates, to induce a stupor in which mental elements with strong associated affects come to the surface, where they can be exploited by the therapist. The term Narco-analysis was coined by Horseley.