The Next Generation of Lie Detector Tests Has Arrived

Professor Yael Hanein, an electrical engineer and nanotechnologist at Tel Aviv University, has worked with colleague Professor Dino Levy, a psychobiologist, to create a lie detector system that uses a test subject’s microexpressions to determine the truthfulness of a statement. Using electrodes attached to the subject’s face, the test looks for involuntary eyebrow and lip movements—two signs that Hanein and her colleague say occur with a majority of liars.

“It’s very, very hard for you to conceal a lie with this technology,” Hanein told the BBC.

The concept of the lie detector test has been around for centuries, but the method we know today is at least 80 years old. The type of test we currently rely on uses a psychogalvanometer to detect autonomic activation of sweat glands in the skin, as well as a pneumograph that identifies thoracic movements (AKA changes in the subject’s breathing). The test administrator then uses what’s called the Reid Control Question Technique to ask questions that are designed to be “emotionally arousing for truthful subjects and less emotionally arousing for deceptive subjects.” Virtually the only improvement the modern polygraph has received since its invention in 1938 is the addition of computers, which now record and help analyze the subject’s physiological data as it comes in.

Hanein and Levy say their new software and its companion algorithm can detect 73 percent of lies—a statistic they hope to improve upon as they continue to develop the system. While not exactly foolproof, their technology certainly seems to hold more promise than what law enforcement agencies and private entities use today, which typically has about a 55 percent success rate.

This raises a question I’m certainly not the first to ask: how realistic (or ethical, even) is it to consider polygraphs to be reliable methods of lie detection? With a relatively low success rate, many would consider it unfair to use polygraph results to dismiss one from job candidacy or prove one guilty in the courtroom. Though the United States allows employers to do the former—something the United Kingdom does not allow—polygraph results are considered inadmissible in US courts. And outside of employment or the legal system, where else would polygraphs be relevant?

Hanein and Levy told the BBC that they hope their technology will someday utilize video cameras instead of electrodes and be able to spot liars from a greater distance. “In the bank, in police interrogations, at the airport or online job interviews, high-resolution cameras trained to identify movements of facial muscles will be able to tell truthful statements from lies,” Levy said. So, uh, that’s where.

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