An Aggregator for Blogs About Social Engineering and Related Fields
Feelings are often associated with physical reactions: terror can send chills down your spine, and love can leave you weak in the knees. A recent study has linked specific emotions to physical sensations. Researchers tested emotional responses in hundreds of subjects and then created maps identifying locations in the body where emotions cause physical changes.
Click here to view the embedded video.
Somewhat unsurprisingly, the movies have painted a highly inaccurate picture of the power of polygraphs, or so-called lie-detector tests. While many crime dramas showcase a seemingly miraculous technology for distinguishing truths from lies, this portrayal, itself, is far from true.
However, a new study published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry suggests that polygraph tests may yet have a role to play, alongside MRI machines and brain scans.
Subjects were asked to write down numbers and then lie to researchers about what they had written down. While being interrogated, each participant was subjected to both an MRI scan and a polygraph test, and the researchers attempted to evaluate when they were being lied to.
While the MRI test proved to be about 24 percent more effective than the polygraph, both tests employed in tandem were able to determine deception in almost every case: a remarkable achievement.
Previous studies on MRI testing found them to be up to 90 percent accurate, while the accuracy of polygraph tests ranged wildly from perfectly accurate to completely unreliable. Even 90 percent accuracy falls short of being reliable enough for criminal proceedings. However, with this study, the doors have opened towards justifying more research into lie detection testing.
As Dr. Daniel Langleben, a study author, said: “While the jury remains out on whether fMRI will ever become a forensic tool, these data certainly justify further investigation of its potential.”
In order to appreciate the significance of this study, it is important to understand the limitations that both MRI machines and polygraph tests face in detecting deception.
MRI machines generate images of the subjects’ brains. These images allow researchers to see any physical abnormalities or changes in blood flow, revealing which parts of the brain are currently active. Some of the earliest studies on MRIs as lie detectors had subjects select playing cards and then lie about which ones they had picked. This helped narrow down which parts of the brain light up when a person is being deceitful.
However, there may be confounding factors, as these MRI images often just reveal when the subject has to think quickly about how best to respond. While this does detect lies, it may also indicate uncertainty, or it could be easily misled by a well-rehearsed story that took no effort to recite.
Based on this uncertainty, every attempt to introduce MRI-based lie detection as evidence in court proceedings has failed. In fact, they often show false signs of deception, which would be a major flaw in court proceedings.
Polygraph tests, on the other hand, work by tracking the subject’s heart rate, blood pressure, respiration, and other physiological responses. Law enforcement personnel ask “control” questions that are only tangentially related to the investigation at hand, as well as “relevant” questions which probe for details on the subject’s involvement in the crime.
If the subject shows a higher heart rate when asked the “relevant” questions, this indicates that they are attempting to conceal their guilt. However, there are significant underlying problems with this approach. In fact, there is little evidence to show that these physiological responses are even unique to the practice of deception.
Between the theoretical flaws and the fact that polygraphs can be outsmarted, it is understandable that they are currently not admissible in court proceedings.
For more information on polygraph tests, read our blog here. Also, check out this post to learn how you can be a better lie-detector.
By Humintell Director David Matsumoto, Ph.D
“A politician is someone who can tell you to go to hell in a way that makes you look forward to the trip.”
Along my travels around this country and around the world I came along the quote above and it has always stuck in my mind. Now with the crazy 2016 presidential election winding down (or winding up to a frenzy, depending on your point of view), I have been thinking about this quote a lot.
I believe what we have all been witness to in the last few months is truly the power of nonverbal behavior in shaping perceptions, preferences, and opinions. How the presidential candidates behave in terms of their nonverbal demeanor – their facial expressions, tone of voice, gestures, body postures, positioning and interpersonal spacing – all have provided important cues to not only each candidate’s personality, motivations, and intentions, but also to the quality of their interpersonal relationships and the dynamics of that relationship. But while this is true most of the time in general, I believe that these perceptions have come to far outweigh any other factor that may (or should) be considered when making decisions about who to vote for. These other factors, for instance, might include the policies they are advocating for the future, how policies have worked or not in the past, and evidence concerning the candidates’ competence and effectiveness in their positions in the past. Surely, these other factors should also be given consideration in making voting decisions. This election, far more than any other election in recent history, seems to be more about impressions of the personalities of the individual candidates rather than factors such as future intended policies or previous competence or effectiveness. And judgments about the impressions of their personalities is largely driven by nonverbal behavior.
In fact there is a large research literature spanning several decades that has examined the influence of nonverbal behavior on voting preferences, election outcomes, and judgments of trustworthiness and credibility (click HERE for sampling of these studies). These studies have shown that people reliably make judgments of trustworthiness, credibility, and liking from facial expressions, tone of voice, gestures, and overall demeanor and style. Moreover, these judgments have direct effects on voting preferences and election outcomes.
Many politicians know this and surround themselves with consultants who help politicians change or adjust their nonverbal behavior so as to look and sound more credible, trustworthy, and likable than they truly are. And many are very good at that game, especially polished politicians with years or decades of experience. Some politicians also strategically attempt to degrade the perceived trustworthiness, credibility, or suitability for office of their opponents, rather than debate on future policy or past competence or effectiveness. In this election cycle, it sure seems we are inundated with these perceptions, and NOT focusing on issues concerning future directions, policies that work or don’t work, and how exactly life will be better for all of us.
Don’t get me wrong; I am of course a large proponent of the power of nonverbal behavior. But it seems to me that elections, especially this one, should be about more than our impressions of people that may or may not be artificially produced. Perhaps we should spend more time examining what kinds of policies they advocate that would affect positive change, which ones would not, what has been effective in the past, and what has not, over and above the rhetoric. I think the American public deserves that.