Scientific Grounds

Human personality has been continuously investigated as a configuration of traits that reflect an individual’s way of acting, feeling, thinking and adjusting to the environment. The continuous process of understanding human nature and nurture is vital for predicting an individual’s way of acting in specific contexts and in different life areas such as work field, social interactions, family functioning or attitudes towards health.

Psychological research is making progress in linking personality traits with specific behaviors and actions 8, 10, 11, 33 looking for individual differences in brain anatomy and physiology, in bodily functions and self-regulation processes, in sensation and perception, in information processing and thinking styles, in behavior and emotion regulation, interpersonal interaction and so on1,2. Using biological26 and physiological data9, 7, 4, the connection between human personality traits and behavior is now investigated through individual differences5 in brain functioning. A recent cybernetic model of global personality traits34, 32 is examining how specific personality traits exert control over human behavior. These traits are seen as self-regulatory controls that underlie behavior patterns rather than manifest behavior itself7. It seems that human beings mentally incor­porate propensities of action into personality traits 29, 30, 6. These traits encode all the actions and controls necessary for a person to achieve a goal.

Various psychological traits have been investigated with psychophysiological measures3, including electrodermal activity. Placing electrodes on the skin surface, especially in the palmar surface of the hand, is an ideal way to monitor the autonomic nervous system27 through the sweat glands, which are controlled by sympathetic nerve activity. The electrodermal response is seen as a peripheral manifestation of neural activation7, entrained by demands on cognitive capacity25. Although research in the field has made significant progress in explaining how personality and individual differences impact a person’s behavior and adjustment to specific contexts, measuring these aspects of personality is far more complicated. The inventor of MindMiTM System, Dumitru Grigore12, 15, 17, has experimentally demonstrated that all these psychological traits and indicators can be measured through a non-invasive hand scanning device, using the active principle of sweat gland activity as a peripheral manifestation of neural activation13,16,19.

After 15 years, following a continuous process of modelling, developing and shaping his prototype, based on testing more than 5,000 subjects31, 21, 15, Dumitru Grigore patented the MindMiTM System, which measures biopotentials from the skin surface (skin potential response and skin potential level) through a dual hand scanner with monopolar electrodes that gather all the necessary data in 5 minutes. After the scan, the system uses the collected data to acquire psychological information through an innovative algorithmic procedure. The algorithm combines multiple variables of key relevance for their corresponding personality traits (e.g. the amplitude, the lability of the electrodermal response, the level of cortical arousal, and others). This core set of variables goes through a cybernetic modelling process, resulting in a numerous set of psychological indicators that reflect cognitive, emotional and social abilities, but also specific aptitudes and tendencies. The psychological indicators obtained are further used to create extensive psychological reports that comprise information about an examinee’s personality, cognitive intelligence, emotional intelligence, cognitive pattern, and interpersonal or group compatibility. MindMiTM System also provides scores for specific psychological indicators (e.g. creativity), the interpretation related to the statistical average in general population, and the conceptual explanation of these indicators.

These results can be used as an extensive source of information, having a key relevance for psychological assessment processes18, 19, 21. The reports provided by the MindMiTM System, along with results from other assessment tools, thus become pieces of a puzzle that a specialist is assembling on behalf of the examinee. MindMiTM facilitates more comprehensive data gathering and it can act as a decision support technology22, 23. It is important to note that MindMiTM reports do not treat or diagnose, but the information obtained with the system can be successfully integrated with other sources (e.g. interview, other psychological tests, practical activities or assessment centers).

Aside from the innovating process of developing the MindMi™ System, Dumitru Grigore conducted an intensive research activity regarding the cognitive and behavioral patterns, fractal intelligences, psychological relevance of text structures24 and the indicators of social stability14. He is also concerned about the psychological applications of the general systems theory, psychophysiology and biofeedback measuring methods, cybernetic modelling in psychology and psychological engineering. He also presented a series of novel research findings at Romanian and international conferences. Since 1999, he is a member of Commission of Cybernetics of the Romanian Academy.

References

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