I have watched the show "Lie to Me", and have found it really interesting. The book talked about its basis in Paul Ekman's work and its inaccuracies. The basis is the idea of body language and micro-expressions. I personally am a terrible liar, so pretty much anyone who knew me would be able to tell. According to Ekman's work, most people have certain split second expressions that show what they are feeling. The study of micro-expressions can be valid at times, but others, especially with people on drugs, with certain psychopathic disorders, or those who have had facial surgery, even the best trained readers have trouble. Due to what the book calls, barely better than chance accuracy, I decided to look into a more scientific way of lie detection. After reading in the book about the use of fMRIs to test for lie detectors, I went looking for myself. I saw a video about the use of fMRIs. The speaker said that across the board, there is more mental activation when lying. One of the areas of the brain that is activated is the prefrontal cortex. The speaker said that the technology his company uses is for sure effective for people from 18-50 (older than 50 have not been tested). One of the things that I wondered about was how accurate this test was for people under 25, since we learned in class that 25 is about when the prefrontal cortex of the brain (site of thinking, planning, and decision making) fully develops. Many tests are difficult to judge the validity on due to human ability to manipulate and rehearse what they are going to say.
http://sackler.nasmediaonline.org/2011/uk/laken/laken.html
Does your face or brain say you are lying?
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I found this post to be very insightful, connecting a complex idea, lying, with a seemingly simple way of showing a real life example, the show "Lie to Me". I also like the fact that you were able to dig deeper, finding different more effective methods of lie detecting, rather than just settling for face reading. The fMRI's seem like a great new way to detect lies, but as you mentioned above, they do not work on all people, seeing that the pre-frontal cortex is not yet fully developed in those of us who are not yet 25. I now wonder what would happen if a younger child, say 10-12 were tested using the fMRI, how would they respond, and test to lying about simple things like not eating their veggies, or what that did at school that day.
I have never seen the show "Lie to Me" but it does raise an important question. Can body language and micro-expressions really be used to tell if someone is lying? On this basis, should we use people trained in this field in courtrooms or interrogations? I think using Paul Ekman's work and applying it to real situations should not happen. Although very interesting I do not believe it is very accurate. However using fMRI's appears to be a more accurate device. Both have their positives and negatives, but there is not a 100% certainty to know if someone is lying.