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Progress In Brain-Based Lie Detection
A Cognitive Neuroscientist writes "A new study, led by Harvard Psychologist Joshua Greene and forthcoming in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, may represent progress on the front of using brain imaging techniques, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging, to detect lies. According to Harvard's press release, Greene's is 'the first study to examine brain activity of people telling actual lies,' as opposed to prior studies in which subjects were merely instructed to lie. The results suggest that one key step in distinguishing honest from dishonest individuals may involve focusing on a small set of brain regions that are responsible for executive control and attention. However, given that the actual paper is yet to be published, it's unclear whether the study is prone to some of the methodological and interpretive complications that have recently plagued similar brain imaging studies."
Back to savage beatings and waterboarding, I guess.
I don't understand why the contributor of this story is so skeptical of it...it seems all we would need to do is hook the scientists up to an fMRI and we'd know for sure if they were lying about the study!
I understand that it takes significant testing to confirm that the machines are working correctly for each individual. I would bet that many individuals - such as psychopaths - could easily beat the machine if they refused to cooperate/pretened to cooperate with the 'set-up' phase.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
...to find out the location of the Hidden Rebel Base.
Let's pretend we had a non-invasive, 100% reliable method of detecting lies. Assume that it is proven to the point where no one argues that it has failures.
Would it be ethical to use them to prove innocence or guilt in a court of law?
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
I hear it works much better than the old rectal lie detectors from the 1970s, and light years beyond the foot based scanners from the 50s. At least they are moving in the right direction, although Wonder Woman's magic rope is still the standard to beat.
Maybe the guys who make Brain Age for the Nintendo DS can write the software interface.
The results of an MRI scan are composite images of increasing spatial resolution taken over a time span of minutes to tens of minutes. If a person's "liar region" of the brain lit up during a scan, that only means that region was active at some point during the scan, which could have occurred for any number of reasons during that time span.
MRI cannot be used as the sole means of evidence for this kind of study, and papers that rely solely on MRI are seen as untrustworthy or "merely-interesting" at best.
I'd like to compare the fMRI of a researcher telling a subject the actual purpose of a study, with the fMRI of a researcher deceiving a subject on the purpose of the study.
If the Mythbusters team can beat it (as Grant did in Episode 93) then who can't?
Truth and lies are simply a matter of acceptance and denial. Our perceptions of right and wrong are merely an assimilation of experiences in life. What is a lie for some is truth for others. Some people have mastered the notion of changing lies into truth and truth into lies in public, in private and even in their own hearts and minds.
Defeating such testing may well be as trivial as defeating traditional polygraph tests as they both rely on the same principle -- metabolic and other reactions in the body to the conflicts that reside in the brain when the logical loops result from the mix of truth and lie. I know that lawyers are especially skilful at transforming or even abandoning their own personal beliefs and convictions in order to serve the needs and interests of their clients. This is an art that can be learned by anyone with the patience to learn.
No. The body of law was constructed under the knowledge that it is not possible to verify your actions to 100% certainty. Think punitive deterrents etc. When the laws were written there was an implicit expectation of leeway guaranteed by the uncertainty of events. Not to mention that people are entirely capable of creating delusional fantasies that have replaced reality to the point that even if they thought they were lying( or telling the truth) that is still insufficient to prove that events occurred as reported.
-- The morphemes of your disquisition are ascertainable, but they have eschewed an ambit of transpicuous exposition.
The truth is apparently easier for a person to relate than a lie is.
Memories are easier for a person to relate than is made up stuff. That's part of the problem with eyewitnesses. After an event, their brain fills in the blanks of their memory, making a coherent narrative.
There was a long term study done where they asked people right after the challenger explosion, where they were. Then, years later, they asked about the same thing and compared results. Some people had completely different stories, or the details wrong, but they swore they knew what they had been doing.
If a defendant can convince himself that a story is true, no lie detector will be able to tell. There are drugs that are used in the treatment of PTSD that keep traumatic memories from being fixed in the brain. I could see someone taking one of these, doing a crime, then rehearsing over and over the alternate history. After the drugs wore off, the alternate history could become the truth in the defendant's brain.
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)