Researchers in Britain and the Netherlands have made a breakthrough, developing a method with a success rate in tests of over 70% that could be in use in police stations around the world within a decade. Rather than relying on facial tics, talking too much or waving of arms – all seen as tell-tale signs of lying – the new method involves monitoring full-body motions to provide an indicator of signs of guilty feelings.
The basic premise is that liars fidget more and so the use of an all-body motion suit – the kind used in films to create computer-generated characters – will pick this up. The suit contains 17 sensors that register movement up to 120 times per second in three dimensions for 23 joints.
Anderson said: “The takeaway message is that guilty people fidget more and we can measure this robustly.”
Anderson added that the research had a special significance at this time,
Anderson said: “Our first attempt looked at the extent to which different body parts and body signals indicated deception. It turned out that liars wave their arms more, but again this is only at the 60% level that you can get from a conventional polygraph.
“The paydirt was when we considered total body motion. That turns out to tell truth from lies over 70% of the time, and we believe it can be improved still further by combining it with optimal questioning techniques.”
Another advantage is that the total body motion is relatively unaffected by cultural background, anxiety and cognitive load (how much you are thinking) that confound other lie-detection technologies, Anderson said.
The use of all-body suits is expensive – they cost about £30,000 – and can be uncomfortable, and Anderson and his colleagues are now looking at low-cost alternatives, such as Kinect, used in computer games.
Source: British Guardian
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