Lying seems to be the topic of the day. In the last month alone two popular articles have appeared covering recent attempts to unveil the brain signatures of lying. The first came out in the January issue of Wired. (You may find the electronic version here.) And today the NY Times Magazine follow up with their take on the story. Go read it here.
Both articles basically report the same story. Aftet 9/11 the American government has become highly interested in procuring a sure-fire method of spotting liers. The American military has a whole department, the Department of Defense Polygraph Institute (DODpi), working exclusively on inventing an easy-to-use device that in the future will be able to tell apart lies from the truth. Clearly such a device will have to be based on the ability to identify physical tell-tale signs that a person is lying. And to do so, DODpi will have to know the neural cause of lying. Reportedly more than 50 American labs are currently working on identifying these brain processes.
Not much, however, is known about the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying lying. Chances are that lying cannot be associated with just one “lie-module”. When lying you must be able to distinguish the lie from the truth; you will probably have to activate your ToM-system in order to organize your lie in accordance with what you think the other person knows and wants to hear; in some situations you have to remember what you have previously told other persons; you certainly have to plan ahead; and most probably you will have to control your emotional system. These cognitive mechanisms all rely on numerous neural processes.
So, what to do about structures that show up on statistical parametric maps in fMRI experiments? Dan Langleben – the first researcher to study lying with fMRI – have demonstrated that making a lie is associated with elevated activity in the anterior cingulate cortex. Yet, as I have previously noted in a post on this blog, the precise function of the ACC is still unclear. Thus, it may be the case that even though lying is associated with ACC activity, not all activity in the ACC is associated with lying! This opacity of the brain raises serious ethical questions, because will a DODpi-device made to detect ACC activity label some people liars who are not really lying? And will it, coversely, neglect liars who are lying using other neurocognitive mechanisms than just the ACC? These questions pose a serious challenge to the race for a neuroscience-based lie detector.
Another, more profound, ethical questions that this reserach raises is the following: do we really want to live in world without lying? Generally, lying is frowned upon. Yet, imagine if you had to tell the truth all the time. It is not only lawyers, such as the character Jim Carey plays in Liar Liar, that benefit from our ability to conceil our innermost thoughts and deceive. Lying plays an enormous role in human social life, some for bad, but some also for good. If lie detection devices should become succesful we will have to discuss when and where to use them. In the class room, at a job interview, in the minister’s office when we get married?
References
Langleben, D. et al. (2002): Brain activity during simulated deception: An event-related functional magnetic resonance study (PDF file). Neuroimage 15: 727-732.
Silberman, S. (2006): Don’t even think about lying. Wired 14.01.
Henig, R.M. (2006): Looking for the lie. New York Times Magazine. February 5, 2006.
The Central Intelligence Agency has recently approached two of the premier mind/brain research labs in the world (Center for the Study of Brain Mind and Behavior at Princeton, and the social-neuro lab at Harvard), with an offer to fund the joint-development of a ‘post-9/11’ lie detector. This new technology will utilize at least three technologies: fMRI, MEG, and a 3D body scanner (to detect minute changes in body position and facial expression).
I’ve personally attended CSBMB lab discussions at Princeton at which this CIA proposal was discussed. I can not speak specifically about what is happening at Harvard, but I know they’ve recieved a similar proposition regarding their willingness to fund this endeavor.
I don’t think either lab has committed to take on this project. At least at Princeton, the decision is being held up (in part) because of the ethical concerns of certain lab-members.
I hope this adds a new dimension to your discussion of both the timeliness and ethics surrounding the neuroscience of lying.
Nice post. At least for the moment, it seems likely that the cost and required infrastructure for “neuroscience lie detectors” will limit their use to high stakes uses like major criminal cases, terrorist interrogation, etc. Of course, once the neuroscience of lying is well understood, there will be a push to find simple and cheap ways to get the same data. The job interview of the future…
As your article suggests, some lies are good. Indeed, I was led here by Atran’s suggestion that the “God exists” lie may be a good one. I think that distinguishing good lies from bad lies is a very important subject that should be taught in college. Unfortunately, I have been raised to believe that all lies are bad. I am still trying to figure out whether that lie is a good one or a bad one.
“Some lies are good” isn’t really an arguement. Maybe the act of lying, in some circumstances, is a more efficient way of getting things done (for example, when some one suspects you of doing something bad that is really beneficial, and its easier to do so without their knowledge then explain why it’s good)
I think the problem really isn’t so complicated… it’s just a matter of studying things more systematically…
For example, the first thing that should be done is to differentiate intent from nonintent…
It’s not a problem, I think…. I think liars and people who tend to lie just don’t want to be terribly punished, which, should not happen.
The other wise, about accuracy…. that will be easy to determine in experiments but harder to do in practice… but I don’t think it is too bad if people actually focus on the problem and not think to much about the “ethics”…. actual ethics issues look nothing like this, this is just someone coming up with a new methodology… people constantly state its an ethical issue when in reality it’s just about people who are nervous because their success relies on error.
The issue is further complicated by our “complexes”, the psychological “hot buttons” that gets pushed all the time. I’m still analysing the fMRI data on a cohort of 14 Ss who did Jung’s Word Association test in a 4T magnet. Thus far, ??mirror neurone?? sites (peri Broca’s peri Wernicke’s, and the so-called superordinate mirror site in SMA) lit up big time…so the representation of the internal “Other” in relation to whom one dissembles, feels guilty/shamed whatever, is obviously an overlooked factor in the lying paradigm referred to in Langleben’s work.
ACC also lit up, as did parts of L Caudate (?? something to do with locked attention in the “complexed” state) and R medial thalamus (??emotional pain)….but hey, I need to crunch and critique the hell out of all this stuff pre-publication