History
Brain fingerprinting was invented by Lawrence Farwell. The theory is that the brain processes known and relevant information differently from the way it processes unknown or irrelevant information (Farwell & Donchin 1991). The brain's processing of known information, such as the details of a crime stored in the brain, is revealed by a specific pattern in the EEG (electroencephalograph) (Farwell & Smith 2001, Farwell 1994). Farwell's brain fingerprinting originally used the well known P300 brain response to detect the brain's recognition of the known information (Farwell & Donchin 1986, 1991; Farwell 1995a). Later Farwell discovered the MERMER ("Memory and Encoding Related Multifaceted Electroencephalographic Response"), which includes the P300 and additional features and is reported to provide a higher level of accuracy than the P300 alone (Farwell & Smith 2001, Farwell 1994, Farwell 1995b). In peer-reviewed publications Farwell and colleagues report over 99% accuracy in laboratory research (Farwell & Donchin 1991, Farwell & Richardson 2006) and real-life field applications (Farwell & Smith 2001, Farwell et al. 2006). In independent research William Iacono and others who followed identical or similar scientific protocols to Farwell's have reported a similar high level of accuracy (e.g., Allen & Iacono 1997).
To ensure accuracy and statistical confidence, brain fingerprinting tests are conducted according to specific scientific standards, which are specified in.
Brain fingerprinting has been applied in a number of high-profile criminal cases, including helping to catch serial killer JB Grinder (Dalbey 1999) and to exonerate innocent convict Terry Harrington after he had been falsely convicted of murder (Harrington v. State 2001). Brain fingerprinting has been ruled admissible in court (Harrington v. State 2001, Farwell & Makeig 2005).
Brain fingerprinting technique has been criticized on a number of fronts (Fox 2006b, Abdollah 2003). Although independent scientists who have used the same or similar methods as Farwell's brain fingerprinting have achieved similar, highly accurate results (Allen & Iacono 1997; see also Harrington v. State 2001), different methods have yielded different results. J. Peter Rosenfeld used P300-based tests incorporating fundamentally different methods, resulting in as low as chance accuracy (Rosenfeld et al. 2004) as well as susceptibility to countermeasures, and criticized brain fingerprinting based on the premise that the shortcomings of his alternative technique should generalize to all other techniques in which the P300 is among the brain responses measured, including brain fingerprinting.
Read more about this topic: Brain Fingerprinting
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