科学美国人60秒:Miley Cyrus and Macaroni Combo Enables Brain-Based ID

In what may be hailed as one of the most significant scientific advances of all time, researchers have discovered a use for Adam Sandler and Brussels sprouts. Because when you look at pictures of celebrities like Sandler along with dishes like sprouts, your brain responds differently than anyone else’s. That unique pattern of brain activity—the neural equivalent of a fingerprint—can be used to identify you with perfect accuracy. So say scientists in a study in the journal IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security. [Maria V. Ruiz-Blondet, Zhanpeng Jin and Sarah Laszlo, CEREBRE: A Novel Method for Very High Accuracy Event-Related Potential Biometric Identification]

Last year this same team published work in which they recorded subjects’ responses to a series of words, like “podiatrist” or “sluice.” Because people’s brains respond differently to terms with which they are familiar—and no two people have the exact same vocabulary—showing someone enough words should produce a pattern of neural responses, in other words a brain print, unique to that individual. Indeed, the researchers found they could pinpoint one person out of a group of 32 with an accuracy of 97 percent.

But given the work’s potential security applications—think Pentagon entry or nuclear weapons command—the researchers wanted to push the technique further to achieve absolute certitude. So they decided to throw in pics of foods and famous folk about which people were likely to harbor strong personal preferences. Like liver and Angelina Jolie or halibut and Anne Hathaway.

Fifty volunteers looked at 400 images while wearing a cap decorated with sensors that record the brain’s electrical activity. The resulting brain prints, which included the neural activity produced in response to celebs, foodstuffs, vocabulary, and some repetitive visual patterns, allowed the researchers to recognize each and every participant with no slipups.

Brain prints would beat fingerprints because fingerprints can be borrowed or stolen. Whereas no one can on Earth can ever know, much less replicate, exactly how your brain reacts when you see the word “mammoth” and pictures of mushrooms and Miley Cyrus.

—Karen Hopkin