In a newspaper I stumbled upon this, which appears to be unknown in this forum: Two professors of Stockholm University had a research article entitled "Charlantry in forensic speech science: A problem to be taken seriously" accepted for publication in the (allegedly) serious scientific journal International Journal of Speech Language and the Law. Abstract:
Quote:A lie detector which can reveal lie and deception in some automatic and perfectly reliable way is an old idea we have often met with in science fiction books and comic strips. This is all very well. It is when machines claimed to be lie detectors appear in the context of criminal investigations or security applications that we need to be concerned. In the present paper we will describe two types of “deception” or “stress detectors" (euphemisms to refer to what quite clearly is known as “lie detectors”). Both types of detection are claimed to be based on voice analysis but we found no scientific evidence to support the manufacturers’ claims. Indeed, our review of scientific studies will show that these machines perform at chance level when tested for reliability. Given such results and the absence of scientific support for the underlying principles it is justified to view the use of these machines as charlatanry and we argue that there are serious ethical and security reasons to demand that responsible authorities and institutions should not get involved in such practices.
The issue (Vol 14, No 2 (2007)) was printed and the printed edition distributed. However, the publisher "... received complaints from Mr Liberman and Nemesysco Limited about the content of this article and particularly that the allegations made against them in it were highly defamatory, containing many inaccuracies and misleading statements.". See
http://www.equinoxjournals.com/ojs/index.php/IJSLL/article/view/3775. It seems fairly clear to me, that the publisher (Equinox) accepted commercial interests to excert pressure and to censor scientific results. Since the publisher owns the copyright of the article, it is not (at least presently) possible to publish e.g. on the Internet. However, the authors are free to distribute "personal copies", and, allegedly, will do so to anyone asking (
http://ling-map.ling.su.se/blog/ English version near the bottom of the page). (My comment: note that personal copies may not be published, doing so in, e.g. this forum may give its owner a problem...)
Nemesysco
http://www.nemesysco.com/ is the manufacturer of "Voice Analysis" products, like
http://security.nemesysco.com/ and the "Love detector"
http://www.love-detector.com/.
This was brought to my knowledge through an article in one of Sweden's major newspaper,
http://www.dn.se/DNet/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=597&a=868300 (in Swedish).
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Research Article "Charlatanry in forensic speech science: ..." withdrawn from scientific journal after pressure from Nemesysco (Read 16589 times)
