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Brain Scans to Identify Liars?
dotc writes "After a bunch of sci-fi stories and rumors, now it looks like the future has become a reality -- a reliable, unbiased test using functional MRI brain scan to detect lying. The article author details a first-person account of undergoing the MRI 'deception task'. And the test is available now - use it to prove your innocence." From the article: "Laken said he's aiming to offer the fMRI service for use in situations like libel, slander and fraud where it's one person's word against another, and perhaps in employee screening by government agencies. Attorneys suggest it would be more useful in civil than most criminal cases, he said."
I think this works better then a Polygraph because rather then look at symptoms and signs of lying this examines whether you are looking in your memory when recounting a story, or you are looking at your "creative" part of your brain. However if this is the case I suppose you could fool it by having someone tell you your false story and attempting to remember them telling you it.
You raise an important point, but note that I said for those that are able to LIVE the lie, then it will be less effective. The ability to trap someone in a current lie is part of the interview process and in that case, it *might* be possible. However, to someone who has rehearsed the lie and is able to live it by recalling the lie from memory as if it had actually happened, then regionality of blood flow or glucose utilization in the brain becomes a much less useful measure.
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I think this works better then a Polygraph because rather then look at symptoms and signs of lying this examines whether you are looking in your memory when recounting a story, or you are looking at your "creative" part of your brain.
Basically, you're looking for signs of psychological stress. The same things that polygraphs look for, except this is more exact. But what happens if someone has difficulty recalling events? Various thoughts, including unrelated memories, oddball thoughts, and stressful attempts to retreive the memory, can all occur in a short period of time. Is this sudden use of various brain facilities indicitive of lying, or is the person just trying to recall? When this is compared to brain patterns of a question that the person is sure of (e.g. Did you skip work yesterday?), then the scan of the person trying to remember would look suspicious in comparison.
I REALLY do not trust this technology. Let's hope it sees just as many blockades as regular lie detectors.
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Amen. My ex was like that. She'd make up lies, and manage to make herself BELIEVE it - and not just small things... She managed to make herself believe her father had raped her, and once also that he was dead... Anything! There's some REALLY sick people out there that lie about EVERYTHING non-stop, no reasons needed, they just do, some sort of obsessive compulsive thing about lying I guess... No one could tell when she was lying (not even herself it seems). I always wondered how she could stick to all these thousands of lies reliably, all the time, everyday, for years... It just seems something impossible to do to me, but she sure managed to do it. (No I don't miss the psycho bitch)
I doubt this would be useful at all against her...
It is likely there are disorders which "disable" parts of the neurological response. Pathological liars who show no remorse or guilt - even using the best scientific equiptment available - may still show up nothing. Conversely, there may be disorders which abnormally trigger responses. Synesthesia, for example, routes data to completely the wrong part of the brain. If it is possible for a related disorder to shunt signals into this "lie indictator", then a lie will be declared even if no lie has been given.
These are going to be rare problems involving the most extremes in society. In fact, the very people most likely to be put through such tests. I could be wrong - I'm not a neurologist - but I'm not going to be convinced of its safety as a lie detector until it has been proven effective on people who are naturally on the fringe of society anyway.
I would point out something else here, too. This test is going to seriously screw with the insanity plea. As I said, some mental disorders are extremely visible on fMRIs - I believe acute depression is one. Prosecution psychs (who absolutely do NOT want people being declared insane) are likely to fight tooth-and-nail to not have such devices used in such cases. The data would be far more vauable to the defence if any level of insanity was shown, as juries are more likely to be swayed by pretty pictures of abnormalities than technobaffle from an expert. They also couldn't get away with accusing the defendent of copying Law & Order, as the defence would have them strapped to the fMRI in no time flat.
Prosecutors would also likely be wary of it. They want high success rates, media glory and a shot at promotion up the legal system's ladder. Anything that might show that many witnesses are liars themselves would hurt their chances. That goes double in the UK if the West Midlands Serious Crime Squad are involved.
A bit of history for those who don't know it: West Midland's Serious Crime Squad was caught altering "confessions" and witness statements after the fact, torturing suspects and other things generally considered not very nice. I believe almost 200 people were released on appeal, after that was discovered.
A bit of tech history: It was discovered by using a device that contained a magnetic resonator, along with some very fine powder that was affected by magnetic fields. I think it was iron, but I'm not certain. Anyway, the statements are all typed up and then signed at the end by the witness or defendent. Paper that should not have shown very faint depressions was, and paper that should have did not, indicating that the sheets had been added after the signature had been written.
Apparently some investigation showed that this was indeed the case, and that most of the signed statements were totally different from the statements presented in court. After that, as they say, all hell broke loose.
It is certain that corruption in the UK police runs far, far deeper than was ever discovered. It is equally certain that American police (where pay may be affected by performance, and where the poor have no legal aid to speak of, so nobody to speak for them) are far worse. Introduce a machine that can actually prove that in court, and you risk blowing the lid of the entire system.
Even if everyone is intending to play fair (ha!), the number of appeals courts ruling for a wrongful conviction will almost inevitably go up. That's going to be expensive, as most States pay up in such cases. If it turns out that such rulings are likely to be common, I susp
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