On Mon, 11 Dec 2000, Jonathan Roberts wrote:
> I must admit when I first heard the words "Brain Fingerprinting" I was also
> quite concerned. The claims were a bit outrageous, but the science behind
> them is fairly sound. The brain will respond differently to information that
> is familiar than to information that is novel. (this is where the hundreds of
> studies they were talking about came from, similar to an "oddball" paradigm
> that is prevalent in the ERP literature). I must assume they were using an
> ERP procedure, and by presenting both familiar and novel information a
> baseline within each subject can be created. Then, when information that is
> either new or novel (this is the interesting part) is presented, the brain's
> reaction is compared to the baseline data. Therefore, they are not confirming
> the null. This is more like a fancy polygraph than anything else, but still
> could be useful.
There's a big, big, BIG difference between demonstrating
something under lab conditions and being able to identify a
real-life killer, especially with the absolute accuracy this guy
is claiming. I'd expect a bit more than three subjects in a
contrived experiment which hasn't even been published yet.
Perhaps you're not aware that Farwell is claiming to have
detected (or not detected) in this supposedly wrongly-convicted
person's brain something the innocent man saw (or didn't see) 20
years earlier. Not bad for a few brain wave measurements.
But what really gets me is the claim that the brain is a video
camera and records all, an assertion repeated in his
to-be-published article (which tells us something about the
quality of the "peer review" this article received). If we know
anything about how memory works these days, it's that memory is
reconstructive and fallible. Shades of Elizabeth Loftus!
-Stephen
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stephen Black, Ph.D. tel: (819) 822-9600 ext 2470
Department of Psychology fax: (819) 822-9661
Bishop's University e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Lennoxville, QC
J1M 1Z7
Canada Department web page at http://www.ubishops.ca/ccc/div/soc/psy
Check out TIPS listserv for teachers of psychology at:
http://www.frostburg.edu/dept/psyc/southerly/tips/
------------------------------------------------------------------------
