Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Could Brainwaves Predict Terrorism?

Imagine technology that allows you to get inside the mind of a terrorist to know how, when, and where the next attack will occur. That’s not nearly as far-fetched as it seems, according to a new study.

In a mock terrorism scenario, when researchers knew in advance specifics of the planned attacks by the make-believe “terrorists,” they were able to correlate P300 brain waves to guilty knowledge with 100 percent accuracy in the lab, says J. Peter Rosenfeld, professor of psychology at Northwestern University.

For the first time, researchers used the P300 testing in a mock terrorism scenario in which the subjects are planning, rather than perpetrating, a crime. The P300 brain waves were measured by electrodes attached to the scalp of the make-believe “persons of interest” in the lab.

The most intriguing part of the study in terms of real-word implications, Rosenfeld says, is that even when the researchers had no advance details about mock terrorism plans, the technology was still accurate in identifying critical concealed information.


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