Original reporting and commentary about polygraphs, voice stress analyzers, and other purported "lie detectors."
Science journalist Sarah Scoles reports for the digital magazine Undark on the shortcomings of polygraphy and explores proposed alternative methods of lie detection based on eye movement, electroencepholography (EEG), and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). AntiPolygraph.org co-founder George Maschke is among those interviewed for this article.
Noah Schachtman reports for Wired News. Excerpt: The military may have ways — gruesome ways — of making people talk, as the Abu Ghraib prison scandal has shown. But it still doesn’t have a reliable method for figuring out whether those people are telling the truth or not. Nearly 75 years since the introduction of …
Julia Scheeres reports for Wired News. Excerpt: U.S. investigators are facing the daunting task of sorting through more than 700 suspects in connection with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. A neuroscientist from Iowa says he’s got the perfect tool to help them do it. Lawrence Farwell says he has devised a test that will ascertain …
Boston Globe staff writer Patricia Wen reports. Excerpt: Former CIA agent Aldrich Ames easily fooled lie detector tests, concealing his work as a Russian spy. But could he have duped a ”brain fingerprinting” exam, which probes what people know by checking their electrical brain waves? … Iowa-based neuroscientist Lawrence Farwell…is eager to see his ”brain …