Yesterday afternoon I had a very enjoyable discussion with Professor Layne Kalbfleisch, on the Krasnow faculty, about the subject of deception detection. We returned to the subject partly out of the need to review some of the more recent imaging literature on the subject, but also partly because both of us are of the opinion that the field in at risk of going off-track. What do I mean by this?
Let’s think about different forms of lies: first there are the lies that are essentially related to omission of the truth (e.g. have you ever met the person in this picture); second there are lies on the fly–lies that are the spontaneous product of a non-planned decision to deceive a questioner. So called “white lies” are of this type: “did he mention my work when you met with him?” You answer no because he did mention his low opinion of the work in question and you feel the need to protect the feelings of the person being lied to. Finally there are the well-rehearsed planned lies of an intelligence agent under deep-cover (a professional liar) or alternatively the sociopathic liar (who lies as an avocation).
In truth the only lies we are really interested in (from the standpoint of practicality) are the well rehearsed lies of the professional liar. The lies of omission while potentially important from the standpoint of some criminal interrogations are far too embedded in a background of cognitive distractors (think Stroop tests) to be of much use.
So what about the well-rehearsed lie? What is it about such a lie that makes it both neurobiologically interesting and at the same time so challenging for the detector. Both Kalbfleisch and I start from the notion that in fact, the well-rehearsed lie is in fact a hidden altered state of consciousness. I speculate that such lies in fact become as much of an altered state for the individual doing the deception as any of the more commonly known altered states of consciousness such as dreaming or the effects of a hallucinogenic drug. They become altered states of consciousness (rather than say a lie as an “act”) because, only with an altered state of consciousness, can the deceiver avoid detection under a wide variety of non-predictable and mentally challenging conditions (e.g. a polygraph test).
If this is correct, then one might surmise two things: first that rather the spending our precious research dollars studying the unimportant versions of lying with expensive technologies (like fMRI) one might instead do better by studying other hidden altered states of consciousness (Kalbfleisch suggested those associated with eating disorders, I was thinking of the functional alcoholic). The second is that one might investigate the perturbation of one altered state of consciousness with another: imagine looking at the interaction of a well-rehearsed lie with the use of a hallucinogenic drug. It might even be that one altered state might be used to probe for the existence of another altered state. And it certainly might be empirical practice for professional liars to avoid situations whereby another altered state might unpredictably perturb the hidden altered state of the well rehearsed lie.
Finally one might think about the interface, voluntarily created by the deceiver, that stands between the hidden altered state, and the outside world. Seems to me that inevitably this would add a psychophysically detectable delay–on the other hand, if responses were coordinated and synchronized at the interface (think cerebellum), then perhaps such a delay would not, under normal circumstances be detectable.
Jim
Discoverers and Discoveries 