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Lie detection
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Lie detection is the practice of determining whether someone is practicing deception. Activities of the body not easily controlled by the conscious mind are compared under different circumstances. Usually this involves asking the subject control questions where the answers are known to the examiner and comparing them to questions where the answers are not known.
Lie detection commonly involves the polygraph but voice stress analysis may be more common because it can be applied covertly and to voice recordings.
The polygraph detects changes in body functions not easily controlled by the conscious mind such as skin conductivity.
An FMRI can be used to compare brain activity differences.
Electroencephalography is used to detect changes in brain waves.
Brain fingerprinting uses electroencephalography to determine if an image is familiar to the subject. This could detect deception indirectly but is not a technique for lie detecting.
Truth drugs such as sodium thiopental are used for the purposes of obtaining accurate information from an unwilling subject. Information obtained by publicly-disclosed truth drugs has been shown to be highly unreliable, with subjects apparently freely mixing fact and fantasy. Much of the claimed effect relies on the belief of the subject that they cannot tell a lie while under the influence of the drug.
Cognitive chronometry, or the measurement of the time taken to perform mental operations, can be used to distinguish lying from truth-telling. One recent instrument using cognitive chronometry for this purpose is the Timed Antagonistic Response Alethiometer, or TARA.