Title: Brain waves as biometrics in relaxed and mentally tasked conditions with eyes closed

Authors: Isao Nakanishi; Chisei Miyamoto; Shigang Li

Addresses: Graduate School of Engineering, Tottori University, 4-101 Koyama-minami, Tottori 680-8552, Japan ' Graduate School of Engineering, Tottori University, 4-101 Koyama-minami, Tottori 680-8552, Japan ' Graduate School of Engineering, Tottori University, 4-101 Koyama-minami, Tottori 680-8552, Japan

Abstract: In this study, we investigate the practical application of brain wave biometrics to operator authentication of a system where the operator wears a brain wave sensor, and is authenticated while using the system. The verification performance is examined for subjects under the eye-closed and relaxed condition, and the eye-closed and mentally tasked condition. In the latter case, we assume biometric verification of computer users, and we adopt a mental task that we call mental composition. In addition, this application is made more practical by using an electroencephalograph that has a single electrode. Further, we propose simple feature extraction and verification based on spectral information. Our experiments on a set of approximately 20 subjects yield an equal error rate (EER) of approximately 15%.

Keywords: biometrics; brain waves; EEG; relaxed condition; mentally tasked condition; eyes closed condition; continuous authentication; unconscious biometrics; electroencephalograms; mental tasks; feature extraction; computer users.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBM.2012.049732

International Journal of Biometrics, 2012 Vol.4 No.4, pp.357 - 372

Received: 03 Aug 2011
Accepted: 14 Oct 2011

Published online: 29 Nov 2014 *

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