Two companies believe that they have created the ultimate truth-revealing technology to help accurately determine who should go to jail and who should be freed.

Instead of relying on polygraph tests (see above image), which use pulse and breathing measurements to catch liars, the companies are using brain-scanning fMRI (functional magnetic-resonance imaging) scanners, which work by detecting the change of oxygen levels in response to neural activity. If a section of the brain is working hard, it will use more oxygen and glow brighter on the scan.

When a person is working to come up with a lie, the part of the brain they are exerting will light up. Theoretically, this type of test would be much harder to fool than a polygraph one. Researches are developing deceit patterns to determine what a deceitful brain looks like in a fMRI scan, but because no two brains are exactly alike,  mapping the deceitful brain will be no easy task.

[PopSci]

Image: A polygraph test, the original lie detector

Filed under: Biomedical, Computer, e-News, Electrical

Tags: Biomedical, Computer, Electrical