Neuroscience and the Detection of Deception

Social Neuroscience, 2009

Functional brain imaging has been considered a new and better technique for the detection of deception. The reasoning is that there is a neural locus or circuit for lying that is sensitive, specific, generalizable across individuals and measurement contexts, and robust to countermeasures. To determine the extent to which the group results predicted lying at the level of the individual, we reanalyzed data on 14 participants from a study that had previously identified regions involved in lying (thus satisfying the criterion for sensitivity). We assessed the efficacy of functionally determined brain regions based on the lieÁtruth contrast for N Á 1 participants to detect deception in the Nth individual. Results showed that no region could be used to correctly detect deception across all individuals. The best results were obtained for medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), correctly identifying 71% of participants as lying with no false alarms. Lowering the threshold for a response increased hits and false alarms. The results suggest that although brain imaging is a more direct index of cognition than the traditional polygraph, it is subject to many of the same caveats and thus neuroimaging does not appear to reveal processes that are necessarily unique to deception.

The authors attempted to replicate prior group brain correlates of deception (F. Kozel et al., in press) and improve on the consistency of individual results. Healthy, right-handed adults were instructed to tell the truth or to lie while being imaged in a 3T magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner. Blood oxygen level-dependent functional MRI significance maps were generated for subjects giving a deceptive answer minus a truthful answer (lie minus true) and the reverse (true minus lie). The lie minus true group analysis (n ϭ 10) revealed significant activation in 5 regions, consistent with a previous study (right orbitofrontal, inferior frontal, middle frontal cortex, cingulate gyrus, and left middle frontal), with no significant activation for true minus lie. Individual results of the lie minus true condition were variable. Results show that functional MRI is a reasonable tool with which to study deception.

European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 2009

Psychophysiology, 2016

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Behavioral Neuroscience, 2004

The authors attempted to replicate prior group brain correlates of deception (F. Kozel et al., in press) and improve on the consistency of individual results. Healthy, right-handed adults were instructed to tell the truth or to lie while being imaged in a 3T magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner. Blood oxygen level-dependent functional MRI significance maps were generated for subjects giving a deceptive answer minus a truthful answer (lie minus true) and the reverse (true minus lie). The lie minus true group analysis (n ϭ 10) revealed significant activation in 5 regions, consistent with a previous study (right orbitofrontal, inferior frontal, middle frontal cortex, cingulate gyrus, and left middle frontal), with no significant activation for true minus lie. Individual results of the lie minus true condition were variable. Results show that functional MRI is a reasonable tool with which to study deception.

Deception detection studies have become a trending topic over the past 34 years. Lie detection seems to have moral, ethical, methodological, clinical, and legal implications. Although researchers have studied the P300 (P3) Event-Related Potential (ERP) component towards an understanding of the phenomenon extensively, deception remains a well-hidden cognitive process. The basic set-up of most of the deception detection studies contains a mock-crime scenario and the use of a Concealed Information Test (CIT). The same design requires a deceptive response from the participants. Towards this direction, the present study employed a fundamental research question via examining if meaningful stimuli can modulate the P300 component compared to target & irrelevant stimuli in guilty participants. The aim of the present study was: a) to check if a non-deceptive design could produce similar results to previous ERP-based deception detection studies, and b) to raise interest concerning the set-up of the experimental design of previous applications. In line with the literature, and with no deceptive behavior, P3 results revealed similar patterns and statistical significance. The unexpected findings of Early Posterior Negativity (EPN) and P100 (P1) provide a new index to be further explored in future deception detection studies. While the present results should not be taken as a new index for deception, they appoint a new path against the phenomenon. Future research suggestions are also addressed.

Biological Psychiatry, 2005

The ability to accurately detect deception is presently very limited. Detecting deception might be more accurately achieved by measuring the brain correlates of lying in an individual. In addition, a method to investigate the neurocircuitry of deception might provide a unique opportunity to test the neurocircuitry of persons in whom deception is a prominent component (i.e., conduct disorder, antisocial personality disorder, etc.). Methods: In this study, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to show that specific regions were reproducibly activated when subjects deceived. Subjects participated in a mock crime stealing either a ring or a watch. While undergoing an fMRI, the subjects denied taking either object, thus telling the truth with some responses, and lying with others. A Model-Building Group (MBG, n ϭ 30) was used to develop the analysis methods, and the methods were subsequently applied to an independent Model-Testing Group (MTG, n ϭ 31). Results: We were able to correctly differentiate truthful from deceptive responses, correctly identifying the object stolen, for 93% of the subjects in the MBG and 90% of the subjects in the MTG. Conclusions: This is the first study to use fMRI to detect deception at the individual level. Further work is required to determine how well this technology will work in different settings and populations.

This paper will examine how advancing neuroscientific technologies may impact on the fundamental human rights of the citizen accused. The paper takes an exploratory approach to analysis; the techniques explored throughout the paper are in their infancy and yet to permeate the criminal justice process of England and Wales. As such technology develops, other jurisdictions may start relying on the technology and they may be utilized more frequently in criminal trials in countries around the world; which may influence the techniques use in England and Wales. The paper will argue that adversarial criminal justice process of England and Wales should be concerned with both the domestic and international developments in “lie detection” technology. Furthermore, England and Wales should resist any advances to utilize the technology at the pre-trial investigation or trial stage. The paper will conclude that there is a role for neuroscientific evidence to play in the criminal justice process; we just need to ascertain the parameters for its use.

There has been much hype about the implications of contemporary developments in neuroscience for the law. Pardo and Patterson are skeptical of this hype. They argue that a good deal of the hype stems from simple philosophical errors and conceptual confusions. In the course of this critique, they offer particular objections to the forensic use of brain-based lie detection methods. Although agreeing with the authors about the need for skepticism and conceptual clarity, this chapter argues that they get things wrong when it comes to their skepticism of brain-based lie detection. This is for three reasons. First, in their critique they focus too heavily on the problems associated with the more speculative and less empirically grounded fMRI-based methods, not enough on the more robustly grounded EEG-based methods. Second, when focus is switched to these methods, their main philosophical critique of the use of neuroscience in law – the neurolaw mereological fallacy – has much less bite. And third, they neglect to address the merits of brain-based lie detection methods relative to existing methods for inferring what a witness does or does not believe. When these three critiques are factored in, the future looks brighter for this particular use of neuroscience in law.

European Polygraph, 2007