The truth is in your brain waves

(AFP PHOTO DANIEL MIHAILESCU)

Researchers at Northwestern University have found they can predict and uncover details of "mock terrorist plans" by reading brain waves using the P300-based concealed information test.

The study was first published in the Early View June 22 online edition of the international peer-reviewed journal Psychophysiology.

According to a Northwestern University announcement on July 30, J. Peter Rosenfeld, professor of psychology in Northwestern's Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, explained, "without any prior knowledge of the planned crime in our mock terrorism scenarios, we were able to identify 10 out of 12 terrorists and, among them, 20 out of 30 crime- related details.

"The test was 83 percent accurate in predicting concealed knowledge, suggesting that our complex protocol could identify future terrorist activity."

Rosenfeld is a recognized expert in the "study of P300 testing to reveal concealed information." The test includes placing electrodes to the scalp to measure P300 brain activity "when meaningful information is presented to a person with ‘guilty knowledge'."

For this study 29 student participants took the test that included "four classes of stimuli" specifically "targets (sights, sounds or other stimuli the person being questioned already knows or is taught to recognize before the test), non-targets, probes (stimuli only a guilty suspect would be likely to know) and irrelevances (stimuli unlikely to be recognized)."

Rosenfeld concluded, "we suspect if our test was employed in the real world the deeper encoding of planned crime-related knowledge could further boost detection of terrorist intentions."

Over thirty years ago, a group of researchers began working with P300 testing to replace the polygraph. In the near future the P300 test could also be a valid lie detector.

Full study, "A Mock Terrorism Application of the P300-based Concealed Information Test": http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/123553766/abstract