Brain electrical oscillation signature profiling.

1. Brain Electrical Oscillation
Signature Profiling(BEOS)
And
Polygraph
Submitted To- Dr. Sapna Sharma
Submitted By- Nitesh
Roll.No-1323
Class-M.sc Forensic Science
(Previous)

2. BEOS
• It is an EEG technique by which a suspect’s
participation in a crime is detected by eliciting
electrophysiological impulse.
• This diagram showing a field potential
recording from rat hippocampus.

3. • It is a non-invasive, scientific technique with a
degree with a degree of sensitivity and a neuro-
psychological method of interrogation which is
also referred to as Brain Fingerprinting.
• Neuro-psychology is the study of the brain
related to the specific psychological processes
and behaviors and aims to understand how
behavior and cognition are influenced by brain
functioning .

4. • This technique is not for interrogation .It does
not require any questions or any answer. It
reveals objectively whether information is
present in the brain, regardless of whether
any false or truthful statements are made by
the subject . The brain does the talking. The
FBI agents were identified with 100%
accuracy.

5. Brief History
• The methodology was developed by
Champadi Raman Mukundan , Neuroscientist,
former professor and head of Clinical
psychology at the National Institute of Mental
Health And Neuro science( Banglore).
• While he worked as a Research Consultant to
TIFAC-DFS Project on ‘ Normative Data for
Electrical Activation Profiling’.

6. The Concept
• Mukundan had some data on the links
between the brain and memory , and he
translated it into a set of 11 physiological
variables. If all eleven variables come up
positive on an electroencephalogram, then
the statement being read out to a suspect was
assumed to be true.

7. • Knowing and Remembering are two Neuro-
cognitive processes, of which-
• Knowing refers to the cognitive process of
recognition with or without familiarity,
• Remembrance is the recall of episodic and
autobiographical details from a person’s life.
• Recognition or knowledge is a conceptual
representation ,acquired through various means
of communication.
• Remembrance is the neuro-cognitive process of
bringing personal past to the present and thus
involve personal experience of an individual
which was gained by personal participation.

8. Role in Detecting Deception
• In BEOS test a EEG cap attached with 32 electrode ,32
channels recording of the electrical activity of the brain
was carried by placing30 cephalic electrode with
reference electrodes in the ear lobes and 2 channels
for recording the eye movements.
• Initially the baseline recording was done with eye
closed and opened. Then neutral probes were
presented before presenting crime/event related
probes in different scenarios to the subject and the
EEG is acquired and analyzed electrical oscillation from
the brain were picked up using electrodes placed at
standard position .

11. • BEOS contains:-
Experiential Knowledge[EN]
 Primary Processing[PP]
Encoding[EN]
Emotional Response[ER]
Activation Suppression[As]
Inattention[IN]
Probes

12. PROBES
• A probe is a short sentence used in BEOS
recording for referring to a specific component of
an action or a proposed sensory motor
experience that is expected to have taken place in
a person, involved in a episode.
• The numbers of words used in a probes decides
its length, with a minimum of 2-3 words, and the
maximum length not exceeding. 3 sec. for thir
presentation.

13. TYPES OF PROBES
• Neutral Probe:-
Which are mere sematic presentation not
referring to any experiential event, and they
are not expected to cue any remembrance.
• Control Probe:-
It referring to verified autobiographic episode
in the life of the suspect, which are
unconnected with the episode being
investigated.

14. • Positive findings using control probes are
considered a process of self validation of the
test procedure as they represent verified.
• Target A Probe:-
These probes are presented in different
scenarios and they are designed to present
the various event starting with the happening
antecedent to the main episode related to the
crime. The scenarios then shift to unfolding
the crime and the activities following the
crime .

15. • Target B Probe:-
They refer to the activities of the suspect
according to his own version, which he
considers could give him immunity as they
could demonstrate his innocence.

16. How it works??
• The BEOS profiling program uses verbal
probes to trigger remembrance of specific
events investigated, which from the
autobiographic episode of a suspect or
individual who was present when the related
event took place.The aim of verbal statement
uses as probe is to cue an individual to
remember a specific associated sensory an or
/ motor response and other component of
the event.

17. • BEOS profiling is a technique for extracting an
electrophysiological signature of an
experience during its remembrance from the
electrical oscillations of the brain of a suspect,
whether the experience relates to the
significant personal episodes or participation
in a criminal activity.
• The awareness of the remembered episode is
called Experiential Knowledge.
• The electrical oscillation/activity related to
remembrance is called the Signature of the
experience.

18. • An extensive normative study has already
been completed by TIFAC,New Delhi and
DFS,Gandhinagar and the data on the
sensitivity and specificity which supports its
use in the forensic scenario.
• Mukundan says the BEOS test has a 95%
accuracy rate.

19. Criticism
• Supreme court judgment on DDTs:-
DDT ( Deception Detection Tests) like Narco test,
Brain Mapping, and BEOS.
May 5,2010 SC states related to the involuntary
administration of DDTs for the purpose of
improving investigation efforts in criminal cases
are questioned on the account of violation of
fundamental rights like Right against self –
incrimination [article20(3)]and right to life and
personal liberty (article21).

20. • New York Times reported, leading North
American Neuroscientist call its use Fasinating
, Ridiculous, Chilling and Unconscionable and
Indian scientists agree.

21. Drawback
• Recognition may arise in a variety of ways some
quite innocent.
• This test appears to misunderstand with
memory, which does not record and recall
information like a video recorder, but layers
memory over memory , changes,losses,
restructure and adapts to continual additional of
new informations.
• Its true that there may be some people who
succeed in forgetting, either intentionally or
otherwise.

22. Cases related to BEOS
• Maharastra v. Sharma
In which Aditi sharma and Pravin Khandewal are
the suspects.
After conducting BEOS aditi revealed the
presence of experiential knowledge on probes
depicting her having an affair with udit. Also aditi
have experiential knowledge about having a plan
to murder udit by giving him Arsenic and having
knowledge about buying Arsenic from a shop,
calling up udit and giving him the poison laced
Prasad.

23. • Chembur case:-
Amin was accused of hammering Randullar
singh. Reports of amin’s tests were positive.
The intentions was clearly to murder R. singh.

24. POLYGRAPH
• Polygraph is a combination of instruments
combined such that they measure bodily
activities and record any minor change
occurring in those activities and a graph is
drawn for these activities from which it may
be concluded if a person is lying or not.
• Polygraph is made of two words ; Poly which
means Many and graph means writing.

25. HISTORY
• In 1878 when Angelo Mosso developed an
instrument Plethysmograph. Lombroso is
credited as the first criminologist who used
an instrument called Hydrosphymograph
designed to measure physiological response in
criminal investigation in 1895.
• B sticker developed a method to measure
Galvanic skin response in 1897 which later
became a component of polygraph.

26. • In 1906, Dr. James MacKenzie developed Ink
polygraph which was for clinical use. Vittorio
Benussi develop breathing based detection in
1914. This led to development of an early form of
liedetctor by Dr. William Morston in 1915.
lindbergh’s kidnapping case is an important in
which Dr. Marston offered his services to
Lindbergh’s family in 1930. The modern
polygraph was developed by John A.larson in
1921.
• Later on it was further modified by Leonarde
Keeler. He opened keeler institute which was the
first institute in the world devoted specifically to
polygraphy.

27. Principle of Polygraphy
• Polygraph is based on a simple Principle that
changes in bodily activities occur if there are
some emotional changes. These changes are
involuntary and automatic ;caused by the
automatic nervous system which is a part of
peripheral nervous system .Autonomic
nervous system comprises of nerves that lead
from brain and spinal cord to the smooth
muscle in many parts of body,glands,heart

28. Component of Polygraph
• Polygraph contains three basic components:
The Pneumograph: It is also known as
Pneumatograph or Spirograph. It records the
force of chest movement and its velocity while
the subject breathes
The galvanograph: This unit of polygraph
records the variation sweating pattern while
answering the questions asked.

29. • The cardio sphygmograph:
This unit of polygraph is same as the one used
to record blood pressure for clinical use. Its
purpose is to measure blood pressure and
record heart beat pattern and any changes in
these during in test phase are very sensitively
recorded.It is a very sensitive device consisting
of a cuff which is wrapped around a subject’s
arm.

31. Procedure of Polygraph
• Polygraph conducted in three or four
interview phases:-
The Pre-test interview: The examiner provides
information about the examination
,equipment and ensure that person is familiar
of his legal rights.This interview is generally
focused on collecting information on subject’s
backround and is used for desiging questions.

32. • The stimulation test phase:-
 In this phase examiner demonstrate how a
polygraph works. Its goal is to make subject
believe that this combination can each their
lies and differentiate between truth and
deception. It is also known as stim test and
acquaintance test. There are two common
methods which are cureently in use for this
purpose .1 Deck of card method,2 Number
method.

33. • The in-test phase:-
After the end of pre test interview, the actual
response recording starts. Subject’s initial
baseline response is recorded for 10 to 15 sec
before the questioning starts. The examiner
waits for 15 to 20 sec after completion of each
question before he asks another question. In
general , examiner conducts this test in series
and each series consists of 10 questions and
each question being repeated 2 to 3 times.

34. • The post-test phase:-
 It is done after in-test phase. This phase may
or may not be conducted. In this subject may
be asked questions about his response to any
particular question. This is mostly done when
the examiner thinks that subject is employing
some countermeasures or result is
inconclusive.

36. Polygraph Questioning Techniques
• Relevant/Irrelevant Test(R/I):-
 It was the earliest form of polygraph questioning
technique introduced by William Marston. Larson
used this technique with some modifications.
 In this test only two types of questions are
asked;relevant and irrelevant.Relevant questions
are named as such as they are relevant to the
issue for which polygraph is being conducted.

37. • Control Question Test(CQT):-
CQT was introduced by john E.Reid during
1945-1947 as an improvement to the existing
method of R/I test. There are three types of
questions in this method; irrelevant, control,
relevant question.
 control questions or comparison question are
designed such that they arouse a subject who
is non-deceptive more compared to a subject
who is deceptive.

38. • Directed Lie Test (DLP):-
 It is a more standardised form of CQT and it
was developed to remove the problem of non-
standardisation associated with CQT. In this
form of test, the subject is asked to lie to the
questions asked. In this method examiner
instructs the subject to think before answering
which is also one of the major fallacy of this
test.
• Guilty Knowledge Test(GKL):-
 Concealed information Test and peak of
tension test are the other names of this test.
This test is one of the more accurate method
of polygraph test.

39.  The biggest advantage of this test is that
answers to the questions asked are only known
to the interrogator and culprit and not an
innocent suspects.The limitation of this test is
that not always, the concealed information is
available to interrogator.
• Searching Peak of Tension Test(SPOT):-
This test removes the limitation of GKT,i.e.
unavailability of concealed information to
interrogator.
Other form of testing methods used are Mixed
General Question Test(MGQT),Slient Answer
Test(SAT).

41. VIOLATION OF CONSTITUTIONAL
RIGHTS
• Right against self- incrimination:-
People of India has been provided a right
under Article20(3) of The constitution of India
which states that no person accused of an
offence shall be compelled to be a witness
against himself/herself.
Case study: smt. Selvi and others v. state of
karnatata

42. • Right to life and personal liberty:-
Article 21 of constitution of India provides this
right to all Indian citizens.
Recently courts have shown a positive attitude
towards these tests, recently Tamil high court
ruled in favour of polygraph in Dinesh Dalmia
v.State of Tamil Nadu stating that scientific
method of investigation may be used to descover
the truth if accused refuses to cooperate.

43. Ethical issues
• This test has been called unethical due to
following reasons:-
 Polygraph is seen as a psychological third degree
torture used by investigators to extract
confession.
During the pre- test and stim test; subject is told
that this test is capable of detecting lies which is
not true as it can only detect emotional
responses which can be controlled.
Some people have reported that personal
questions not related to the case whatever was
asked to them during polygraph.