1. Brain Fingerprinting

2. Can it really see the truth locked in the murderer’s memory?
A new computer promises to read a killer's mind.
Can it really see the truth locked in the murderer’s memory?
When evidence can’t be seen with the naked eye, investigators must use extraordinary means to find it.
  As technology develops to tease out clues, it is providing detectives with an Infallible Witness.

3. Dr. Lawrence Farwell, Chairman and Chief Scientist at Brain Fingerprinting Laboratories in Seattle, Washington, has developed a new computerized system known as Brain Fingerprinting.
It reads the memory centers of the human brain. He believes that Brain Fingerprinting will one day be used to positively link perpetrators to their crimes.

4. "Brain Fingerprinting is a scientific method that determines whether certain specific information is stored in a brain - or is not…
If the person did commit a crime he will have specific information relevant the crime stored in his brain.
If so, we can use Brain Fingerprinting to determine scientifically whether he committed the crime or not."

5. Brain Fingerprinting seeks to reveal that memory, by showing the suspect evidence taken from the crime scene.
A head band with sensors is placed on the subject.
A series of pictures or words is flashed on the screen.

6. The computer records the brain waves produced in response to what the subject sees.
The responses are recorded as a wave form.
By analyzing the pattern of waves, Farwell can determine if the subject is recognizing what he is seeing.

7. "So when you have a situation where a crime has been committed, and there are certain details only the suspect with know, then we can test: does this brain have these details stored in it? If so, then the suspect committed the crime. If not, then not."

8. The FBI is at the forefront of developing and evaluating new technology. After hearing of Farwell’s system, they put it to the test. The FBI tested Brain Fingerprinting on their own agents at the Bureau’s training facility at Quantico, Virginia.

9. "We conducted a study on FBI agents, and the purpose of this study was to see if we could determine whether an individual is an FBI agent based on their brain waves. If we could determine an FBI agent, then we could determine if somebody is a member of, say, a foreign intelligence organization or a criminal group, just based on their brain responses."

10. Each agent was presented a series of words on a computer screen
Each agent was presented a series of words on a computer screen. Many were FBI acronyms or terms familiar only to agents. The FBI agents were specifically told to do everything they could to conceal from Farwell that they were in any way connected with the Bureau. The participants' responses to each stimuli were picked up by electrodes.  The electrodes were wired to the brain wave analysis software of Farwell’s system.

11. So what we did was to present stimuli, phrases, that only the FBI agents, because of their training, would know, mixed in with others. The FBI agents recognized them. We picked up the brain responses. We knew they were FBI agents."

12. The principle behind the Brain Fingerprinting system is very simple. Dr. Farwell has discovered that the memory centers of the human brain respond to the sight of familiar stimuli with a distinct change in electrical activity. He calls this change a MERMER.

13. "And that is the specific brain response that we measure and we analyze with a computer in order to determine whether an individual recognizes the words or pictures that we flashed on the screen that are relevant to the crime, or whatever it is we are investigating."

14. When the subject sees anything on the screen it creates a pattern of brain activity. A MERMER is increased brain activity produced when the subject recognizes what he is seeing to. The test participants who did not work for the FBI did not recognize the specific FBI stimuli. So no MERMERs were detected.

15. Researchers with the United States Navy also heard the claims made about the system. They devised a test of their own to see if Brain Fingerprinting could distinguish military medical students from civilians. They used a list of acronyms specific to medicine and the military. Lt. Cmdr. Rene Hernandez conducted the test.
Lt. Cmdr Hernandez: "The test was 100 percent accurate. They were able to tell each and every one, because the brain will always answer it honestly."

17. In most cases Brain Fingerprinting a witness or accomplice can reveal knowledge of all kinds of crimes from espionage to terrorist plots. At least, that is the promise of this technology. It might be only a matter of time before it becomes a routine tool. The relatively new technique of DNA profiling is known to be so dead on accurate that genetic evidence is readily accepted.