May 20, 2004
Memory
The FBI is investigating “brain fingerprinting” in the hope that it will prove a more accurate alternative to lie detectors.
Unlike discredited lie-detecting techniques which measure changes in breathing, heart rate, and other variables to determine if suspects are trying to deceive their interrogators, brain fingerprinting is designed to discover if specific information is stored in a person’s brain. Some are concerned, of course, that such a procedure might be used coercively to intrude on one of the most private and intimate of human spheres, a person’s memory.
At this commencement time, however, a lot of parents and other benefactors — let alone college faculty — may welcome an opportunity such as this to discover if there are any residual side effects of their considerable investment over the past four years.