Identifying the location of a concealed object through unintentional eye movements.

Yair Neuman,Navot Israeli,Dan Assaf

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00381

Abstract

In some investigative and interrogative contexts, the investigator is seeking to identify the location of an object (e.g., implanted bomb) which is known to a given subject (e.g., a terrorist). In this paper, we present a non-intrusive methodology for uncovering the loci of a concealed object by analyzing the subject's eye movements. Using a combination of eye tracking, psychological manipulation and a search algorithm, we have performed two experiments. In the first experiment, we have gained 58% hit rate in identifying the location of the concealed object and in the second experiment 56% hit rate. The pros and cons of the methodology for forensic investigation are discussed.

Highlights

Intelligence and law enforcement agencies are recurrently addressing the challenge of exposing the loci of a concealed object, by interrogating people who are suspected of knowing the object’s location
Applying the heuristics described in Experiment 1 on the 8 other cases, we have identified three additional targets, gaining an overall hit rate of 73%, at the price of searching on average additional 18 cells (8%) for each subject
The results present a significant improvement over a random search by using a non-intrusive methodology/tactic of investigation

Summary

Introduction

Intelligence and law enforcement agencies are recurrently addressing the challenge of exposing the loci of a concealed object (e.g., bomb), by interrogating people who are suspected of knowing the object’s location. While traditional interrogation tactics, such as using threat or sleep deprivation, are known to be effective, there are some serious ethical and practical difficulties in using them. In a democratic society it is illegal and unethical to use aggressive investigation tactics on subjects who are not “ticking bombs.”. The methodology we present in this paper is nonintrusive and doesn’t use aggressive tactics. Conventional interrogation tactics are well-known to terrorists’ organizations and suspects may use counter-strategies to mislead the interrogator. We present a novel methodology which is relatively resilient to the most common counter strategies that a suspect may use

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion