Richard Wiling of USA Today reported on Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI)-based lie detection in the 27 June edition in an article titled, “MRI tests offer glimpse at brains behind the lies:”
Two companies plan to market the first lie-detecting devices that use magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and say the new tests can spot liars with 90% accuracy.No Lie MRI plans to begin offering brain-based lie-detector tests in Philadelphia in late July or August, says Joel Huizenga, founder of the San Diego-based start-up. Cephos Corp. of Pepperell, Mass., will offer a similar service later this year using MRI machines at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, says its president, Steven Laken.
Both rely in part on recent research funded by the federal government aimed at producing a foolproof method of detecting deception.
The new devices differ from polygraphs in key ways. The polygraph detects stress brought on by telling a lie. The MRI-based devices purport to measure the lie itself, and not changes in breathing and pulse rate brought on by lying or by some other cause.
“We’re at the beginning of a technology that’s going to become more and more mature,” Huizenga says. “But right now, we can offer (customers) a chance to show they are telling the truth with a scientific basis and a high degree of accuracy. That’s something they haven’t been able to get before.”
Potential customers: law enforcement, accused persons, spouses under suspicion and job applicants. Huizenga says a 1988 law that bars private employers from giving polygraphs to potential employees appears not to apply to MRI tests.
No Lie MRI plans to charge $30 a minute to use its device. Cephos has not yet set a price.
The new products are being introduced as the polygraph is under fire. In 2002, a National Academy of Sciences study concluded that polygraph results are too unpredictable to be used for security screening at national labs. Yet the Department of Defense, as well as the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency, continue to administer thousands of polygraph tests each year to job candidates and others seeking security clearances.
The Department of Defense administered about 12,000 tests in 2002, the most recent year in which it made data public.
“They haven’t found anything yet that they think can top (the polygraph),” says Britton Chance, a University of Pennsylvania researcher who has studied brain-based lie detection.
Some scientists and privacy advocates criticize the new lie detectors. They note that they haven’t yet proved themselves in real-world tests and face prolonged scrutiny before they are admitted in court.
“They are going to be deployed to read people’s thoughts,” says Barry Steinhardt, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s technology and liberty project. “Little if any attention has been paid to potential misuse and the devastating impact it would have on our civil liberties.”
The new tests work this way: A subject lies with his head in an MRI machine and pushes a button to answer yes-no questions as they are flashed on a screen. The machine measures brain activity, focusing on areas that are believed to show extra exertion when a lie is generated. Specially designed software grades the test. The two lie detector companies use similar test techniques, but different software.
Most American courts do not admit polygraph evidence because differences in examiner skill make it hard to determine accuracy rates.
MRI machines are used by hospitals on a daily basis to diagnose tumors and other disorders.
After the 9/11 attacks, the FBI, CIA, Department of Defense and other agencies began funding research into how changes in brain activity correlate with truth telling.
Daniel Langleben, a physician and professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and Frank Andrew Kozel, a brain image researcher at the Medical University of South Carolina, received funding for research into MRI-based lie detection.
Langleben’s research was used by No Lie MRI to help develop its lie detector. Cephos’ lie detector is based in part on Kozel’s research.
David Heeger, professor of psychology and neural science at New York University, opposes using MRI for lie detection until more research is done. Among the many gaps in the research, he says, is whether a false or imagined memory will show up as a true response or a lie.
MRI-based lie detection “says changes happen (in the brain of a liar) but it doesn’t say why,” says Heeger. “There’s a lot more work to be done … before we have a deep understanding of what goes on when people lie.”
Gregg Bloche, a medical doctor and a law professor at Georgetown University, says scientists, lawyers and ethicists should conduct a “high profile discussion” of the new technology’s potential uses and pitfalls before it is made available to the public.
The start-up companies say the technology is ready now. Both say they will focus on winning acceptance in court for tests taken by customers. No Lie MRI already is working with a defendant in a California criminal case, Huizenga says.
“We understand that there are further ethics conversations (needed) when science pushes the envelope,” says Cephos’ Laken. “But we don’t see these (tests) being set up in dressing rooms and shopping malls. That’s not going to happen.”
Joel Huizenga of No Lie MRI is dead wrong in supposing that the Employee Polygraph Protection Act of 1988 would not apply to his company’s fMRI-based “lie detector.” The law defines “lie detector” as follows:
(3) Lie detector
The term ”lie detector” includes a polygraph, deceptograph, voice stress analyzer, psychological stress evaluator, or any other similar device (whether mechanical or electrical) that is used, or the results of which are used, for the purpose of rendering a diagnostic opinion regarding the honesty or dishonesty of an individual.
As happened with the polygraph and voice stress analyzers, the marketers of fMRI-based “lie detectors” are making claims that go well beyond the scientific evidence. Caveat emptor.