Word: lie
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...question that Joshua Greene, 35, an assistant professor of psychology at Harvard University is trying to answer. More specifically, Greene is trying to identify the particular pattern of brain activity that distinguishes people who are simply telling the truth from those who are resisting the temptation to lie. His findings, which are based on functional-magnetic-resonance-imaging (fMRI) data, shed light not only on the workings of the human mind but also on the controversy over using fMRI technology outside the lab in the detection of lies. (Check out a story about how to spot a liar...
...Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Greene recruited 35 volunteers and told them they would be participating in a study to find out whether people are good at predicting the future when they are paid for it. The real purpose, of course, was to get people to lie without asking them to lie - and image their brains committing an act of deception...
...each toss, researchers asked them to reveal whether or not they had guessed accurately. A display mounted inside the scanner flashed the questions, and participants pressed a button in response. Each correct prediction was awarded up to $7; incorrect predictions were awarded nothing, but there was ample opportunity to lie and still win the money...
What does this mean? Greene suggests that in some circumstances, real honesty is not about overcoming the temptation to lie but about not having to deal with that temptation in the first place. On an fMRI image, at least, the lying brain may look no different from one that's simply contemplating whether to lie. "Within the dishonest group, we saw no basis for distinguishing lies from honest reports," says Greene...
That's the kind of statement that probably irks folks most at companies like No Lie MRI in California and Cephos in Massachusetts, both of which claim to offer some kind of lie-detection ability based on fMRI technology. No Lie MRI says it uses "unbiased methods for the detection of deception and other information stored in the brain," according to a statement on its website, although the site does not point to any specific scientific evidence to support the claims. (Read a story about how science solves crime...