Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don’t know about the techniques but the theory isn’t prima facie impossible. A paintbrush can act like a microphone just like anything else, and if the paintbrush (more likely a putty knife or more rigid object) picked up a sound while applying paint, that could manifest in the paint layer.
And...someone was saying “blue” the instant they applied the blue paint? That’s certainly not impossible to believe, it just seems like a bit of a stretch.
Article is behind a paywall:
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/1449244/?arnumber=14492...