Neurocognitive processing steps during remembrance
Neurocognitive processing steps during remembrance

Summary/Abstract: A method of recording several of the electrophysiological changes seen during remembrance of experiential components of autobiographic episodes has been developed for use in forensic investigations of suspects and accused persons. The technique has called Brain Electrical Oscillations Signature BEOS profiling and has been successfully used in several hundreds of cases as aid for investigation. The two important facilitating aspects of the test are that1 remembrance can be automatically cued by presenting short verbal statements referring to various components of an experience, and remembrance is automatic and mandatory when a cue is presented, in normal individuals.2 There is also no need for any response from the subject while receiving the cueing information. Knowing the occurrence of an activity in the past does not trigger any remembrance of own participation. Remembrance of participation in an activity occurs only if the person has participated in the activity referred by the probe. Remembrance has several neurocognitive components, which are reflected in the scalp EEG of a person. Sets of verbal probes representing different formulations of the episode and the different roles of individuals, as they are essentially possibilities arrived at by an investigating team, when more than one person is suspected to be involved in the activity are presented to the suspected persons. Each multichannel epoch of EEG time locked to each probe, acquired with its pre-probe baseline, is acquired and analyzed to determine the statistical significance of the differences in the different components across the EEG channels of each epoch, related to each probe, is analyzed and statistically compared. Presence of Experiential Knowledge is arrived at if all the changes indicating multiple neurocognitive processing components are significantly present.

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