• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • The Newspaper
  • Our Team
  • PDF Books
  • Archive
  • Gallery
  • Contact Us

Scena Criminis

L'Informazione al servizio della Legalità

  • EnglishEnglish
    • ItalianoItaliano
    • EnglishEnglish
    • EspañolEspañol
  • News & History
    • History of Crime
    • Criminal Words
    • Gender Violence
    • News
    • Organized Crime
  • Quotes, Interviews, Videos
    • Interviews
    • Quotes
    • Videos
  • Crime & Art
    • Recommended Books
    • Criminal Portraits
    • The Eye that Kills: Cinema and Crime
    • Violent Art
  • Criminal Biographies
    • Caserta: Crimes from the Past
    • Criminal Biographies
    • Most Wanted
    • Mysteries and Unsolved Crimes
    • Serial Killer
    • Snapshots from a Crime
  • Forensic Sciences
    • Criminalistics
      • Ballistics: Rifles and Guns
    • Criminology
      • Psychology
      • Sociology
    • Law
    • Nonverbal Communication
You are here: Home / Forensic Sciences / Fighting crime by reading minds

Fighting crime by reading minds

26 March 2015 da admin Leave a Comment

0Shares

What if we could read the mind of a terrorist? Researchers at Northwestern University in Chicago say they have taken a step closer to that reality with a test that could uncover nefarious plans by measuring brain waves.

In a study published in the journal Psychophysiology, psychologists John Meixner and Peter Rosenfeld used electrodes to measure the brain waves of 29 undergraduates who had been told to mock-plan either a terrorist bombing in Houston in July, or a vacation in a different city in a different month. The researchers then presented the students with the names of various cities, methods of terrorist attack and dates. As they did so, they scanned the subjects’ brains with electroencephalography (EEG), which records electrical activity along the scalp produced by the firing of neurons. They watched for a particular brainwave — dubbed the P300, because it fires every 300 milliseconds — which signals recognition of something familiar.

“The P300’s amplitude is very large when you see an object that is rare and personally meaningful to you,” Meixner says. “So the amplitude of P300 was large when we presented the word ‘Houston,’ the city where the attack was planned. In total we were able to identify 10 out of 12 ‘terrorists.'” The investigators also correctly matched 20 out of 30 crime-related details, such as types of explosives and specific sites and dates.

The P300’s potential as a method for confirming concealed information was first recognized in the 1980s. But while it has long been touted as a possible substitute for the polygraph lie detector test, it has yet to be used by law enforcement anywhere in the world — although Japan is experimenting with it. One of the reasons is that it becomes difficult to use if investigators do not know the information they are trying to confirm. For instance, in Meixner and Rosenfeld’s study, the researchers would have struggled had they not known that the city in which the attack was planned was Houston, since it would be only by luck or guesswork they would have included it in the sample list of names.

“The test has limited application,” Rosenfeld admits. “In the case of anti-terrorism, you’d need to have some chatter and intel to know what you are looking for.”

What’s more, the P300 is vulnerable to what scientists call “confounding factors.” For instance, if the mock-terrorists in the study were raised in Houston, which was also the location of the attack, the researchers would not know for sure what was causing the P300 spike. This makes the test particularly unreliable once details of a crime or plot have been released to the public. Anyone who then read about a planned attack in Houston would have a spike at the name. The same false positive would be triggered if, say, a picture of a murder weapon had been released to the press and then was shown to a suspect.

But Meixner and Rosenfeld say that despite these shortfalls, the technology holds more potential than the polygraph, which is admissible in the courts of roughly half of American states but which is rarely used due its unreliability. The polygraph measures such parasympathetic responses as respiration and sweating, which can certainly be triggered by a lie, but can also result from any high-stress situation — including the mere experience of being interrogated by a police officer.

While there is nothing that can correct for this problem with polygraphs, P300s can at least be made more accurate by increasing the number of details you show a suspect. Even people who follow the news very closely would not be likely to know every single detail of a crime, such as weapon, date, exact address of the crime and the victim’s clothing. But such details would be burned in the mind of the perp.

How far out is P300 as a viable law enforcement tool? Maybe not too far, judging by the company the researchers behind the new study have been keeping. Rosenfeld says the work was funded by the Defense Academy for Credibility Assessment — part of the Department of Defense — which trains federal polygraph operators. Certainly, even such friends in high places will not do much to win the P300 technique many friends among civil libertarians, who do not relish the specter of Big Brother peering into a private citizen’s mind. Rosenfeld counters that in some cases, the civil liberties of suspects will in fact benefit, since a painless but comparatively reliable way of getting at the truth makes it harder to justify harsh interrogation techniques.

For his part, Rosenfeld would like to get past all these theoretical arguments and simply have the opportunity to put his technique to the test. “I say give me a chance to prove it,” he laments. “I would really like to use this on some real perps.”

Source: content.time.com

Related posts:

Father of kidnapped Zaharias children pleads for location of Christopher and Lisa Mae
"Constructive Anger" Excerpt from Emotional Awareness
Revelations - Melanie Rothman
Emotions affect the Body in different Ways
0Shares

Filed Under: Criminology, Forensic Sciences, Psychology

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

Make a donation to support our activities

Stay updated in real time

Subscribe to the Newsletter
Loading

Follow us

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Search

Safe and prudent use of Internet

Categorie Articoli

Last Articles

Info

  • Business Contacts
  • Disclaimer

Tags

America american most wanted art artist Chicago crime crimen crime scene criminal Criminalistics criminology disorder Dna fbi fingerprints forensics forensic science homicide killer law most wanted Murder Nonverbal Communication oil on canvas painting paintings police prison psicólogia psychology psychology today research reward scena criminis science sciencedaily serial killer sex offender terrorism terrorist treatment US USA violence violent art

Footer

Privacy Policy
Cookie Policy

Scene Criminis aims to bring together – around a “round table” – experts, students and simple onlookers, who want to confront, update and find new stimuli.

The largest Italian Community on Forensic Sciences that collects news, studies, curiosities and contributions on Criminology, Criminalistics, Crime Report and Law.

Scena Criminis is also a Non-profit Association, active throughout the province of Caserta (Italy), which has 3 fundamental purposes: Defense of Legality, Fight against all forms of Violence, Education to Gender Differences.

Follow us

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Instagram

scenacriminis

Secondo voi, è davvero così? 👺 Secondo voi, è davvero così? 👺
Mi sembra giusto... 🤣

👉 scenacriminis.com 👈

#Napoli
😱😱😱 👉 scenacriminis.com 👈 😱😱😱

👉 scenacriminis.com 👈
Finché morte non ci separi... 🙄 👉 www.scen Finché morte non ci separi... 🙄

👉 www.scenacriminis.com 👈
#McDonald's ti dà di più... 🤣 👉 www.scena #McDonald's ti dà di più... 🤣

👉 www.scenacriminis.com 👈
"Politica e mafia sono due poteri che vivono sul c "Politica e mafia sono due poteri che vivono sul controllo dello stesso territorio: o si fanno la guerra o si mettono d’accordo."

(Paolo #Borsellino)
😆😅🤣 👉 scenacriminis.com 👈 😆😅🤣

👉 scenacriminis.com 👈
Commovente ma non troppo... 😂 Commovente ma non troppo... 😂
Com'era? Chi trova un #amico trova un... ? Com'era? Chi trova un #amico trova un... ?
Carica altro… Segui su Instagram

Copyright Scena Criminis Testata giornalistica registrata presso il Tribunale di Santa Maria Capua Vetere (CE) n. 849 del 26/04/2016 © 2022 ·

Direttore Responsabile: Gianfrancesco Coppo

Created by BDM | Log in