The two companies marketing the technology are not waiting for more data. Cephos is offering scans without charge to people who claim they were falsely accused if they meet certain criteria in an effort to get scans accepted by the courts. Allowing scans as legal evidence could open a potentially huge and lucrative market. “We may have to take many shots on goal before we actually see a courtroom,” says Cephos chief executive Steven Laken. He asserts that the technology has achieved 97 percent accuracy and that the more than 100 people scanned using the Cephos protocol have provided data that have resolved many of the issues that Greely and Illes cited.
But until formal clinical trials prove that the machines meet safety and effectiveness criteria, Greely and Illes have called for a ban on nonresearch uses. Trials envisaged for regulatory approval hint at the technical challenges. Actors, professional poker players and sociopaths would be compared against average Joes. The devout would go in the scanner after nonbelievers. Testing would take into account social setting. White lies—“no, dinner really was fantastic”—would have to be compared against untruths about sexual peccadilloes to ensure that the brain reacts identically.
The potential for abuse prompts caution. “The danger is that people’s lives can be changed in bad ways because of mistakes in the technology,” Greely says. “The danger for the science is that it gets a black eye because of this very high profile use of neuroimaging that goes wrong.” Considering the long and controversial history of the polygraph, gradualism may be the wisest course to follow for a new diagnostic that probes an essential quality governing social interaction.
Note: The article was originally published with the title, "Lighting Up the Lies".
Already a Digital subscriber? Sign-in Now
If your institution has site license access, enter here.
See what we're tweeting about
6 Comments
Add CommentHaving read this article, 'on line', I am surprised that the author found it necessary to call me at my office, on my cell phone and at my home in the evenings, in Britain, on so very many occasions, often repeatedly, again and again on the same evening, when so little science was destined to enter the article. I understand that our conversations were taped to enable transcription but that hardly seems to have been necessary.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAssuming Scientific American readers may be interested in the science as it stands, and the brain processes implicated, may I offer these articles which provide both the pros and the cons of the techniques outlined:
Spence SA, Kaylor-Hughes CJ. Looking for truth and finding lies: the prospects for a nascent neuroimaging of deception. Neurocase 2008; 14: 68-81.
Spence SA, Kaylor-Hughes CJ, Farrow TF, Wilkinson ID. Speaking of secrets and lies: the contribution of ventrolateral prefrontal cortex to vocal deception. NeuroImage 2008: 40: 1411-1418.
Spence SA. Playing Devils advocate: the case against fMRI lie detection. Legal and Criminological Psychology 2008; 13: 11-25.
Spence SA, Kaylor-Hughes CJ, Brook ML, Lankappa ST, Wilkinson ID. Munchausen syndrome by proxy or miscarriage of justice: An initial application of functional neuroimaging to the question of guilt versus innocence. European Psychiatry 2008; 23: 309-314 on line 29th October 2007.
Spence SA, Hunter MD, Farrow TFD, Green RD, Leung DH, Hughes CJ, Ganesan V. A cognitive neurobiological account of deception: evidence from functional neuroimaging. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London series B 2004; 359: 1755-1762.
It seems strange in these sorts of pieces that we are repeatedly offered quotes from other authors stating that the science cannot work but then informing us that they have graciously accepted large grants to study the same question. I suspect the issue has less to do with the science than with the 'problem' that the initial work was not performed in USA. If the MacArthur Foundation really has 10 million dollars to spend on this area of research then it might wish to spend that money at centers that have experience of the science concerned and have had to grapple with the very real challenges in this area. But sometimes that means the work might be done outside USA...!
This piece was not very Scientific, but it was very American.
Bravo Mr Stix!
Sean Spence
PS, I was promised a PDF but it hasn't arrived. Was the promise less than truthful?
RE: Can fMRI Really Tell if You're Lying? -- Will brain scans ever be able to tell if you're really being deceptive? In addition to Sean’s valid arguments above, my short answers to the good titled questions are: No, and No! This is because at the current states of our art, science, and technology of ME (Mind & Emotion, including morality and ethics) research, the reading of fMRIs is still not much refined than the more crude form of a polygraph (or even EEGs)! Unless the Quantum Mechanics (or Memophorescenicity) of our memory and thought processes could be further (contextually) defined, identified, and localized in our brain (like those fine pixels on a screen), the current neuroimaging technology is still unable to decipher the contents of our memory or a thought process; let alone identifying them (in context and content) as a lie or truth, under any circumstances (intellectual, spiritual, emotional, or mixed feelings)!? -- Author "Gods, Genes, Conscience" (iUniverse 2006; please see more arguments in Chapter 15: The Universal Theory of Mind).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell if Bush administration wants to rpove someone is terrorist and the dubious technique helps in their claim, the tabloid corporate media will make it appear as though it works. They will find huge number of scientists to prove their point. The corporate media will make sure that public beleives that the techniques works (TELL LIES REPEATEDLY SO IT BECOMES TRUTH). However, if one of their own neocon comrade is established guilty using the method, they will deny that techniques works. The story will go on to discredit the technique. So it depends whom you ask and on whom it is used.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe distressing aspect of this article is that it further proved that if someone will fund the research, there are people out there who will take the money no matter how misguided the proposal.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think that it would be impossible to detect lie as claimed by sheffield group.For that to br feasible first the types of lies and their effect on brain should be mapped out and that would be quite tedious as different people lie in a different way for the same situation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLet's not be t0o quick to judge this as a failure. The research is just getting started. They have some dramatic results already, i.e., the ability of the fMRI to determine when someone is thinking about a particular object.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt will be hard to determine a lie with complete certainty, but achieving a high rate of detection could be very useful.
As for the idea that this research should not even be done, that is so naive. IF we don't understand the technology, only our enemies and competitors in this wolrld will potentially have it. We should not fear knowledge