Brain Imaging and Lie Detection
Last week, a federal judge in Tennessee blocked a defendant’s attempt to use fMRI lie detection technology to prove his innocence in a fraud case. While the decision does not directly affect any other courts, judges around the country could look to the decision as a guidepost for future rulings.
The technology behind using fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) to determine truthfulness is still in its early stages, and the scientific community has yet to embrace the technique as consistently reliable. As the theory goes, three areas of the brain become active when someone lies: the anterior cingulated cortex, the dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex, and the parietal cortex. Several companies claim that by watching these regions light up on fMRI scans, they can see a lie form inside a person’s brain.
This story shows that fMRI lie detection and mind-reading is going mainstream. Of course, the brain is an incredibly complex organ, and looking at brain activity as a means of detecting subtle human behaviors is neither particularly well-understood nor by any means foolproof.
Recently unveiled software succeeded with 90% accuracy on a more humble task: determining which of two words a person was thinking about. With only 90% accuracy on something seemingly far simpler than separating truth from lies, it would appear we have a long way to go in our understanding of the brain before we’re able to rely on neuroimaging to provide conclusive, irrefutable evidence of human behavior.
Nonetheless, it’s an exciting time in neuroscience, with new reports of advances in our understanding of the brain seemingly every day–and that’s no lie!
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Posted: Neuroscience, Odds and Ends
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