User authentication via evoked potential in electroencephalographic signals

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9942225-B2
Application number	US-201514867551-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 28, 2015
Priority date	Aug 29, 2007
Publication date	Apr 10, 2018
Grant date	Apr 10, 2018

Abstract

Techniques are disclosed for authentication and identification of a user by use of an electroencephalographic (EEG) signal. For example, a method for authenticating a user includes the following steps. At least one electroencephalographic response is obtained from a user in accordance with perceptory stimuli presented to the user. The user is authenticated based on the obtained electroencephalographic response. The authenticating step may be based on detection of an event-related potential in the obtained electroencephalographic response. The event-related potential may be a P300 event-related potential. The method may also include the step of enrolling the user prior to authenticating the user. The enrolling step may include a supervised enrollment procedure or an unsupervised enrollment procedure.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method for authenticating a user, comprising the steps of:
receiving a claim from an individual claiming to be an enrolled user;
retrieving a stored electroencephalographic response profile associated with the enrolled user, the electroencephalographic response profile being generated as a result of a supervised enrollment process based on a shared secret, wherein the shared secret comprises a sequence of visual elements which follows an explicit rule known by the enrolled user during the supervised enrollment process, wherein the explicit rule specifies at least one of a relationship between the visual elements and an allowed sequence of the visual elements;
presenting perceptory stimuli to the individual, the perceptory stimuli comprising the shared secret;
obtaining at least one electroencephalographic response from the individual in response to the perceptory stimuli comprising said shared secret presented to the individual; and
authenticating the individual's claim as being the enrolled user based on the obtained electroencephalographic response, wherein authenticating comprises;
detecting a pattern of P300 event-related potentials in the obtained electroencephalographic response;
comparing the detected pattern of P300 event-related potentials with an expected pattern of P300 event-related potentials as provided by the stored electroencephalographic response profile associated with the enrolled user, wherein an unexpectedly produced P300 event-related potential in the detected pattern is indicative of an imposter;
determining an authentication score based on results of said comparing; and
comparing the determined authentication score to a predetermined authentication threshold value to positively authenticate the individual as being the claimed enrolled user when the authentication score meets or exceeds the predetermined authentication threshold or to reject the individual as an imposter when the authentication score does not meet or exceed the predetermined authentication threshold.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising performing the supervised enrollment process, wherein the supervised enrollment process comprises:
presenting a set of perceptory stimuli to a user to be enrolled, wherein the set of perceptory stimuli comprises one or more sequences of visual elements that follow the explicit rule and one or more sequences of visual elements that violate the explicit rule, and wherein the user is informed of the explicit rule before being presented with the set of perceptory stimuli;
recording a set of electroencephalographic responses of the user in response to the set of perceptory stimuli presented to the user, wherein the set of electroencephalographic responses comprises at least one P300 event-related potential which corresponds to the occurrence of a violation of the explicit rule; and
analyzing the set of recorded electroencephalograph responses to generate a set of results which are stored as part of the electroencephalographic response profile of the enrolled user.

3. The method of claim 2 , further comprising the step of confirming the consistency of the set of results by repeating the supervised enrollment process.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the authentication score comprises a negative cumulative distance measure obtained using a dynamic time-warping process.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein authenticating comprises time-aligning the detected pattern of P300 event-related potentials with the perceptory stimuli presented to the individual.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein a P300 event-related potential comprises a prominent peak detectable in an electroencephalographic signal after about 300 milliseconds (ms) following a perceptory stimulus.

7. An article of manufacture comprising a non-transitory computer readable storage medium comprising program instructions which, when executed by a computer, causes the computer to execute a method comprising:
receiving a claim from an individual claiming to be an enrolled user;
retrieving a stored electroencephalographic response profile associated with the enrolled user, the electroencephalographic response profile being generated as a result of a supervised enrollment process based on a shared secret, wherein the shared secret comprises a sequence of visual elements which follows an explicit rule known by the enrolled user during the supervised enrollment process, wherein the explicit rule specifies at least one of a relationship between the visual elements and an allowed sequence of the visual elements;
presenting peceptory stimuli to the individual, the peceptory stimuli comprising the shared secret;
obtaining at least one electroencephalographic response from the individual in response to the perceptory stimuli comprising said shared secret presented to the individual; and
authenticating the individual's claim as being the enrolled user based on the obtained electroencephalographic response, wherein authenticating comprises:
detecting a pattern of P300 event-related potentials in the obtained electroencephalographic response;
comparing the detected pattern of P300 event-related potentials with an expected pattern of P300 event-related potentials as provided by the stored electroencephalographic response profile associated with the enrolled user, wherein an unexpectedly produced P300 event-related potential in the detected pattern is indicative of an imposter;
determining an authentication score based on results of said comparing; and
comparing the determined authentication score to a predetermined authentication threshold value to positively authenticate the individual as being the claimed enrolled user when the authentication score meets or exceeds the predetermined authentication threshold or to reject the individual as an imposter when the authentication score does not meet or exceed the predetermined authentication threshold.

8. A method for authenticating a user, comprising the steps of:
receiving a claim from an individual claiming to be an enrolled user;
retrieving a stored electroencephalographic response profile associated with the enrolled user, the electroencephalographic response profile being generated as a result of an unsupervised enrollment process based on an implicit rule, said implicit rule being learned from electroencephalographic signals obtained in response to the user being presented with one or more training sequences of visual elements, wherein the implicit rule specifies at least one of a relationship between the visual elements and an allowed sequence of the visual elements;
presenting perceptory stimuli to the individual, the perceptory stimuli comprising a sequence of visual elements that follow the implicit rule;
obtaining at least one electroencephalographic response from the individual in response to the perceptory stimuli presented to the individual; and
authenticating the individual's claim as being the enrolled user based on the obtained electroencephalographic response, wherein authenticating comprises:
detecting a pattern of P300 event-related potentials in the obtained electroencephalographic response;
comparing the detected pattern of P300 event-related potentials with an expected pattern of P300 event-related potentials as provided by the stored electroencephalographic response profile associated with the enrolled user, wherein an unexpectedly produced P300 event-related potential in the detected pattern is indicative of an imposter;
determining an authentication score based on results of said comparing; and
comparing the determined authentication score to a predetermined authentication threshold value to positively authenticate the individual as being the claimed enrolled user when t

Assignees

• IBM

Inventors

• Navratil Jiri
• Ramabhadran Bhuvana

Classifications

• G06F21/32 Primary

  using biometric data, e.g. fingerprints, iris scans or voiceprints · CPC title

• H04L67/306

  User profiles · CPC title

• A61B5/117

  Identification of persons (methods or arrangements for recognising patterns, e.g. fingerprints, G06F18/00, G06V40/00; identification of persons by analysing their voice or speech G10L17/00) · CPC title

• H04L63/0861 Primary

  using biometrical features, e.g. fingerprint, retina-scan (cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for entity authentication using biological data H04L9/3231) · CPC title

• G06F21/445

  by mutual authentication, e.g. between devices or programs · CPC title