Call for papers: Biosignals for User Authentication/Identification

The inaugural issue of International Journal of Cognitive Biometrics

The inaugural issue of the journal will focus mainly (but not exclusively) on the deployment of biosignals such as EEG and ECG as tools for user authentication/identification. However, authors wishing to submit papers on other topics within the IJCB remit should please do so.

Biosignals have the potential to yield a window into the current cognitive and emotional state of an individual. Natural variability between individuals provides a basis from which one can expect a reasonable level of uniqueness across individuals. A primary research effort must engage in examining exactly how unique biosignals are, not only across individuals but within individuals across repeated measures. Secondly, how are biosignals influenced by task performance – are there specific tasks that can facilitate the extraction of potentially unique features embedded within a particular biosignal? This of course begs the question of determining the depth of the feature space of biosignals, a topic that is central to this inaugural issue. This step may be explored by utilising a variety of authentication methods – such as textual based password systems, graphical and VR based mechanisms, game playing based mechanisms, and as yet additional mechanisms awaiting disclosure.

Once this set of basic research steps have been examined in a thorough and comprehensive fashion, we can begin to properly claim to have added a new approach to user authentication, that we term Cognitive Biometrics. This call is dedicated to setting this examination into action, and we solicit submissions on the following set of topics, which include but are not limited to:

• Quantitative methods for feature extraction from EEG, ECG, and related biosignals
• examination of the individuality of biosignals – such as their heritability
  
• the reproducibility of biosignals under a variety of experimental conditions
  
• Various technology based approaches to biosignal extraction – such as dry electrodes and related technologies
  
• Machine learning approaches to biosignal feature extraction
  
• The effects of physical health, mental status, and ageing on the feature space of biosignals
  
• The influence of task performance – are there specific tasks that elicit more stable biosignal features?
  
• The influence of multi-tasking on biosignal stability
  
• Multi-modal biosignal based approaches to user authentication and/or identification
• Incorporating a biosignal based approach into more 'traditional' authentication schemes
• Any other topics that are related to biosignal acquisition within a context suitable for biometric applications
  

Important Dates
Manuscript Due: 1 July, 2010
First Round of Reviews: 1 September, 2010
Publication Date: 1 January, 2011