Brainwave Fingerprinting

Yesterday, the founder and chief scientist of Brainwave Fingerprinting, Inc. - Dr. Larry Farwell -took the time to talk with me about how his product applies to national security. Back in 1994, Farwell, while still a PhD student at Harvard, was awarded a $1 million dollar contract by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to apply and further develop his brainwave fingerprinting technique. The technique is primarily used as a tool for detection of deception. Unlike standard lie detection / credibility assessment techniques, rather than monitoring emotional responses to questions, Farwell’s technique measures the brain for an electrical signal, called the ‘P300’, the appearance of which allows operators to identify whether or not the individual in questioning has a memory of specific objects in context. For instance, brainwave fingerprinting has been used to distinguish FBI Agents from non-FBI Agents, by virtue of the fact that FBI Agents have specific knowledge, granted through training and field experience – knowledge that non-agents are not accustomed to store in memory. This same methodology has been used for counterterrorism / interrogation purposes to assess whether or not a supposed assailant / terrorist possesses memory of specific elements of an attack that only the true perpetrator could recall. This ability to distinguish threat from non-threat is a great boon for military special operations working in the counterinsurgency and urban environments. With a track record of 100% accuracy, the brainwave fingerprinting technique has been ruled admissible in US courts. As a tool of justice, it has been used as evidence to convict criminals and clear the innocent. Indeed, Farwell’s business is that of a private investigator – like a real-life Cal Lightman / Paul Eckman (reference to the hit TV show ‘Lie to Me’), except that, instead of reading facial expressions and body language, he sets the record straight with the power of the observation of the brain.

Farwell is the surrogate father of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) Neurotechnology for Intelligence Analysts (NIA) program, which harnesses the brainwave fingerprinting technology to facilitate image intelligence (IMINT) analysts in detecting objects of significance amid overwhelming amounts of data. Conventional IMINT analysis requires deliberate investigation of data, wherein an analyst can spend a significant amount of time searching a sheet of data for an object of significance. NIA speeds up this process by using the ‘brainwave fingerprint’ (P300), a signal that occurs within 200-500 milliseconds of the onset of a stimulus, to quickly assess whether or not there is an object of significance in the package. With such an unconscious and rapid response, analysts can spot objects of relevance in IMINT before the thought of significance enters conscious awareness. Of course, analytical expertise is the key to the effectiveness of NIA; for only experts in IMINT analysis possess the wherewithal to detect useful signals (objects of interest) amid background noise. Interestingly, to this effect, brainwave fingerprinting can facilitate the distinction between expert and non-expert; for, presumably, the expert will recall elements of his occupation with rapidity, whereas the non-expert will not have the same working memory capacity. Farwell said that research into reverse engineering the P300 response to entrain expertise was underway, albeit handed off to other scientists. Perhaps such research is alive and well in DARPA’s Accelerated Learning program.

Of course, there is also a commercial application of the brainwave fingerprinting technology. It can be used for the purposes of determining whether or not marketing campaigns are memorable. It can tell whether this or that form of an advertisement has ‘staying power’ in the brain. I can think of pretty impressive spinoffs for this technology; including visual media, web site design, music, and movies – a sort of neuro-revolution brought to the doorstep of the entertainment industry. Independent movie makers, web site designers, campaign managers, artists, etc. how bad would you like to engineer your work to have maximum staying power in the brain? I suppose, for some, there are ethical issues associated with the use of this technology for such purposes. Perhaps this is why Farwell prefers to emphasize the applicability of his product to criminal justice and military operations. He told me he doesn’t really care about whether people consume Coke or Pepsi; he is interested in making the world a better place. God knows our world, which is at war in every quarter, could use a boost in this regard. Stay tuned to how Brainwave Fingerprinting plays out in theater. I expect it to be a mainstay.