Social Engineering Blogs

An Aggregator for Blogs About Social Engineering and Related Fields

False Memories and Bad Feelings

New research has been formulated regarding a physiological marker for false memories  (not to be confused with lies), bad feelings and sleep.

The Guardian has reported on new research that claims false memories have a psychological marker that can be determined via a simple test that measures the conductance of the skin.

The results of the study are still in their infancy and additional studies should and need to be conducted to completely understand the body/brain’s physical response to memories that never happened.

German researchers used a variation of the Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm (DRM), a widely used method for establishing false memories, in their experiment.

They used visual stimuli in lieu of word association, used in the regular DRM experiments, to determine the body’s physiological difference between real and false memories.   They found that a stimulus that has already been encountered (a true recollection) will be more significant, to the participant, than one that has not because it is more familiar.  This familiarity can be measured via increased skin conductance; thus, false memories are associated with decreased skin conductance.

One thing to keep in mind in the study’s findings is that false memories are very different than deception.  This difference lies in the person’s awareness.  People are unaware of a false memory; whereas,  they are fully aware of the truth (real memory) when concealing information or lying.

On another note Science News reports that sleep embeds bad memories into the brain while remaining awake after a traumatic event lessens the emotional toll of the event.

The study’s findings published in the Journal of Neuroscience suggest that people who slept well after an unpleasant experience had a better recollection of that event while those that stayed awake did not.

Cognitive neuroscientist Jessica Payne of the University of Notre Dame, points out an observation that sleep deprivation leads to increased stress, which can profoundly influence emotions.   She states, “In most cases, it’s better to sleep than to not sleep.”

This is can be relevant to post-traumatic stress disorder.  The bigger question in this research is whether sleep just embeds the memory of the event or has a greater impact via changing how you feel about the event if you experience it again.

It is important to point out that there are other studies that have conflicting findings suggesting that sleep can help emotionally with traumatic experiences.

Finding Universal Markers for Deception

Dr. Matsumoto, director of Humintell and renowned psychologist has been appropriated by the Air Force Research Laboratory (who is also funding this endeavor) to find universal markers for deception.

Dr. Matsumoto, a current Professor of Psychology at San Francisco State University and co-creator of the original microexpression training tool, has been researching human emotions and nonverbal behaviors for several decades.

Wired Magazine recently reported on this new venture that is backed by the chief Air Force scientist, Dr. Mark Maybury.  Dr. Maybury envisions a social radar military program that will aid in the diversion of wars by delineating the societal and cultural elements of war.

“We’re supposed to provide ISR [the military acronym for intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance}. But our constituents, ‘Don’t just give me a weather forecast, [they] give me an enemy movement forecast.  ‘What’s that about?’ That’s human behavior. And so [we need to] understand what motivates individuals, how they behave,” Maybury purports.

The military has probed into all other types of information gathering prospects, human behavior is the constant throughout; therefore, tapping into the “human domain” rather than just relying on advanced machines (which do have their advantages) is possibly the next step in world peace.

This new type of program will concentrate on human behavior and include computer technology that will analyze aspects of social media such as Twitter feed, Facebook timelines and political polls.

It is only fair to note that there is much criticism from high ranking officials in the military who think that being able to see a person’s intention is not realistic.

Maybury retorts, “Just like nobody could imagine seeing through the night or seeing through water, nobody can imagine seeing attitudes. And actually, in my view, that’s very much a future reality.”

What are your thoughts? Do you think this social radar really is a practical tool that the military should be actively pursuing?

Physiological Factors of Lying

How can we effectively tell when a person is lying?

If it is someone we are close to, then we likely already have their base line personality/characteristics and can detect (even if we are not always aware of it) when they verge from those characteristics telling us that something is off.

Most people do this daily with their kids, spouses and close friends.  This is why many moms just “know” when their children are not being truthful.

Besides having a good baseline there are other factors that can help us recognize when someone is trying to hide something or conceal certain information.  These factors are micro and subtle facial expressions.

But, what exactly does the human body do when a person is being deceptive?

How can we accurately gauge a person’s deception.  For years, we have used psychological markers such as heart rate, perspiration and general anxiety to measure deception, but with advanced technology we are now focusing on functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to delineate how our bodies react to the act of lying.

fMRI’s measure the cell activity of the brain by tracking blood flow.  This new concept “shows” when a person lies by highlighting the changes in their brain activity.

We have blogged on the importance and relevance of fMRI’s in the past.  Scienceline.org has recently added to the commentary on this technology.  They state that Joel Huizenga, the CEO of No Lie MRI claims that his fMRI machines are able to “detect deception” with 90-99% accuracy.

“If this technology was accepted, people would have to stop telling lies,” Huizenga affirms.  fMRI’s have revealed a lot of new, exciting, and useful information that was previously unattainable.  However, the research is still preliminary and many scientists believe that even with this technology we still don’t understand how the brain processes many things.

Steven Hsiao, a neuroscientist at Johns Hopkins University and one such specialist verifies, “The more complex those aspects of perception and cognition, the more difficult it is to isolate them.”

Huizenga believes that it is a money issue and not the science offered up by fMRI’s that keeps this research from being widely used and accepted as deception detection technology.  He states,

“There is huge opposition to this. It’s because people are fearful of the government sticking their heads into an MRI and asking if they paid their taxes. They don’t even want people to know that anyone’s heard of it. People want to be able to lie.”

What is your opinion of Huizenga’s perspective on the fMRI?

Do you believe it is just a matter of money and not the scientific results that keep the fMRI from being a scientifically  accepted deception detection method?