Armstrong, B. C., Ruiz-Blondet, M., Khalifian, N., Jin, Zanpeng, J., Kurtz, K. J., Laszlo, S. (2015). Brainprint: Assessing the uniqueness, collectability, and permanence of a novel method for ERP biometrics. Neurocomputing, 166, 59-67. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neucom.2015.04.025
Download:
Author's self-archived version (.pdf) (42 pages)
Official version in Neurocomputing [external link]
Abstract
The human brain continually generates electrical potentials representing
neural communication. These potentials can be measured at the scalp,
and constitute the electroencephalogram (EEG). When the EEG is
time-locked to stimulation-- such as the presentation of a word--, and
averaged over many such presentations, the Event-Related Potential (ERP)
is obtained. The functional characteristics of components of the ERP
are well understood, and some components represent processing that may
differ uniquely from individual to individual--such as the N400
component, which represents access to the semantic network. We applied
several pattern classifiers to ERPs representing the response of
individuals to a stream of text designed to be idiosyncratically
familiar to different individuals. Results indicate that there are
robustly identifiable features of the ERP that enable labeling of ERPs
as belonging to individuals with accuracy reliably above chance (in the
range of 82-97%). Further, these features are stable over time, as
indicated by continued accurate identification of individuals from ERPs
after a lag of up to six months. Even better, the high degree of
labeling accuracy achieved in all cases was achieved with the use of
only 3 electrodes on the scalp-- the minimal possible number that can
acquire clean data.
Keywords: Biometrics; EEG; Event-Related Potentials (ERPs); Pattern classification
Copyright Notice (borrowed from David Plaut): The documents distributed here have been provided as a means to ensure timely dissemination of scholarly and technical work on a noncommercial basis. Copyright and all rights therein are maintained by the authors or by other copyright holders, notwithstanding that they have offered their works here electronically. It is understood that all persons copying this information will adhere to the terms and constraints invoked by each author's copyright. These works may not be reposted without the explicit permission of the copyright holder.