Wednesday, September 17, 2008

EEG Used to Convict Murder Suspect

Filed under: in the news...

A woman in India has been convicted of murder partially based on an EEG-based lie detector, called Brain Electrical Oscillations Signature test (BEOS), developed by Champadi Raman Mukundan, a local neuroscientist. We are nonetheless skeptical.

This latest Indian attempt at getting past criminals' natural defenses begins with an electroencephalogram, or EEG, in which electrodes are placed on the head to measure electrical waves. The suspect sits in silence, eyes shut. An investigator reads aloud details of the crime — as prosecutors see it — and the resulting brain images are processed using software built in Bangalore.

The software tries to detect whether, when the crime's details are recited, the brain lights up in specific regions — the areas that, according to the technology's inventors, show measurable changes when experiences are relived, their smells and sounds summoned back to consciousness. The inventors of the technology claim the system can distinguish between peoples' memories of events they witnessed and between deeds they committed.

More from International Herald Tribune...

Image credit: Wellcome images: Scientist preparing a subject for multi-electrode EEG....

(hat tip: Engadget)

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