Tuesday, September 16, 2008

India's use of brain scans in courts dismays critics





The software tries to detect whether, when the crime's details are recited, the brain lights up in specific regions -- the areas that, according to the technology's inventors, show measurable changes when experiences are relived, their smells and sounds summoned back to consciousness. The inventors of the technology claim the system can distinguish between peoples' memories of events they witnessed and between deeds they committed.


Theoretically, one could apply a very similar technique to gauge the veracity of alleged alien abductees. Confabulated memories, for example, could be revealed as such while memories of objectively real events could be vindicated in a laboratory setting. The implications for paranormal research shouldn't be understated.

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