Person authentication from neural activity of face-specific visual self-representation

• Published in: Pattern recognition Vol. 46; no. 4; pp. 1159 - 1169
• Main Authors: Yeom, Seul-Ki, Suk, Heung-Il, Lee, Seong-Whan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Kidlington Elsevier Ltd 01.04.2013; Elsevier
• Subjects: Applied sciences; Authentication; Biological and medical sciences; Biometrics; Brain; Channels; Computerized, statistical medical data processing and models in biomedicine; Cryptography; Electroencephalography (EEG); Exact sciences and technology; Face-specific visual self representation; Information, signal and communications theory; Intervals; Medical management aid. Diagnosis aid; Medical sciences; Pattern recognition; Person authentication; Signal and communications theory; Signal processing; Telecommunications and information theory; Visual; Biometrics; Face-specific visual self representation; Electroencephalography (EEG); Person authentication; Discriminant analysis; Psychology; Visual evoked potential; Electroencephalography; Pattern recognition; Authentication; Database; Time interval; Automatic recognition
• ISSN: 0031-3203; 1873-5142
• DOI: 10.1016/j.patcog.2012.10.023

In this paper, we propose a new biometric system based on the neurophysiological features of face-specific visual self representation in a human brain, which can be measured by ElectroEncephaloGraphy (EEG). First, we devise a novel stimulus presentation paradigm, using self-face and non-self-face images as stimuli for a person authentication system that can validate a person's identity by comparing the observed trait with those stored in the database (one-to-one matching). Unlike previous methods that considered the brain activities of the resting state, motor imagery, or visual evoked potentials, there are evidences that the proposed paradigm generates unique subject-specific brain-wave patterns in response to self- and non-self-face images from psychology and neurophysiology studies. Second, we devise a method for adaptive selection of EEG channels and time intervals for each subject in a discriminative manner. This makes the system immune to forgery since the selected EEG channels and time intervals for a client may not be consistent with those of imposters in terms of the latency and amplitude of the brain-waves. Based on our experimental results and analysis, it is believed that the proposed person authentication system can be considered as a new biometric authentication system. ► A new EEG-based biometric system using face-specific visual self representation. ► A novel stimulus presentation paradigm to induce unique brain patterns. ► A selection method of subject-specific EEG channels and time intervals.