CHAPTER 2

MODERN TECHNIQUES OF LIE DETECTION

INTRODUCTION

“At the time polygraph testing was not widespread, and the process was not well known. The idea
that physiological changes in people when they lie was not new, but the idea of these changes
would be measured and used as the basis of determining the truth or deception was only
beginning to gain acceptance”.

1. OBSERVATION METHODS (Physical Symptomatic Reactions)

(From: Hindus Sanskrit Commentary Detection)

OBSERVATION METHODS

In psychological research entail the observation and description of a subject's behavior.

Researchers utilizing the observational method can exert varying amounts of control over
the environment in which the observation takes place. This makes observational research
a sort of middle ground between the highly controlled method of experimental design and
the less structured approach of conducting interviews.

A. Thru Facial Expression,

Such as:

1. Blushing. paling or profuse sweating of forehead;

2. Dilation of the eyes, protrusion of eyeballs and elevation of upper eyelids;
3. Squinting of the eyes (showing envy, disdain, distrust, etc.);
4. Twitching of the lips;
5. Excessive winking of eyes;
6. Failure to look the inquirer “straight into the eyes”;
7. Excessive activity of Adam’s apple and the vein at the temple due to dryness of throat
and mouth;
8. Quivering of nose or nostrils;
9. A peculiar monotone of the voice;
10. A forced laugh;
11. Rolling of eyeballs from one direction to another.
B. Thru Postural Reaction,
Such as:

1. Fidgeting, tapping or drumming of fingers on the chair or other surfaces; of legs or one
leg over the other;
2. Unnecessary movements of hands and feet (like scratching, nail-biting, thumb-or finger
sucking etc.);
3. Pulsation of the carotid artery in the neck;
4. Incoherence, trembling and sweating of the whole body;

C. Thru Cause-and Effect Process, such as the stimulation-reaction or response test.

2. REGULAR POLICE METHODS

This method sought to answer the legal investigation processes to the following:

1. The “Five Wives and One Husband” (5 W’s and 1 H)—which stands for – What?
When? Where? Who? Why? and How? (NEOTHY)

2. The “Three Eyes” (3 I’s) of Investigation—which stands for—

A. Information – thru Interview, Records Check, Surveillance and Intelligence Check;

B. Interrogation – thru Interrogation or Interview, this is to obtain Admission or

Confession;

C. Instrumentation or Criminalistics (Police Sciences) – with the use of the different

investigative (forensic) sciences such as:

1. Medico-legal or Forensic Medicine;

2. Forensics Chemistry;
3. Police (or Investigative Photography;
4. Forensic Ballistics (Firearms Identification);
5. Questioned Document Examination;
6. Dactyloscopy;
7. Police (or Investigative) Communication; and
8. Polygraphy (Lie-Detection Test/ Deceptography)
3. TECHNIQUES OF HYPNOTISM

HYPNOSIS – has been defined as "...a special psychological state with certain
physiological attributes, resembling sleep only superficially and marked by a functioning
of the individual at a level of awareness other than the ordinary conscious state.”

FRANZ ( FRIEDRICH) ANTON MESMER (1734-1815) – Austrian Mystic and Physician;

born on May 23, 1734 at Iznang, a village near Lake Constance, Austria; he was the first
to introduce hypnotism as a method of deception detection in 1778.

Mesmer believed in animal magnetism, by which his own personal electro-magnetism

for therapeutic effect influenced other persons. Actually, these instructed to sit quietly and
gaze at flashing light or shiny object dangled before his eyes and to cooperate with
whatever the hypnotizer would like him to do. In this case, conscious cooperation by
subject is a must.

The basis of hypnotism is through the recovered memory by the use of increased
dissociative functions, hyper-amnesia, and at times regressive and para-regressive
experiences. The Subject, is not actually asleep but at complete comfortable state of
relaxation and that he will be doing whatever the hypnotist may tell him to do.

One suggestion is that hypnosis is a mental state, while another links it to imaginative role-
enactment. The earliest definition of hypnosis was given by Braid, who coined the term
"hypnotism" as an abbreviation for "neuro-hypnotism", or nervous sleep, which he
opposed to normal sleep, and defined as:

“A peculiar condition of the nervous system, induced by a fixed and abstracted

attention of the mental and visual eye, on one object, not of an exciting nature."
“the real origin and essence of the hypnotic condition, is the induction of a habit of
abstraction or mental concentration, in which, as in reverie or spontaneous abstraction,
the powers of the mind are so much engrossed with a single idea or train of thought, as,
for the nonce, to render the individual unconscious of, or indifferently conscious to, all
other ideas, impressions, or trains of thought. The hypnotic sleep, therefore, is the very
antithesis or opposite mental and physical condition to that which precedes and
accompanies common sleep”. - James Braid, Hypnotic Therapeutics, 1853

4. TECHNIQUES OF TRUTH SERUM TEST (NARCOANALYSIS) and INTOXICATION

The so-called “Truth-Serum” Test was introduced by DR. EDWARD MANDEL
HOUSE (1858-1938), a U.S. Pres. Woodrow Wilson, (born on July 26, 1858 at Ferris,
Texas, USA).

This method involves intravenous injection or oral-taking of various drugs, such as hyocine
bromide, morphine, ether, chloroform, sodium ammytal and scopolamine which may
produce a condition of anesthesia. There must be properly determined and supervised to
produce required results.

A “TRUTH SERUM" is a colloquial name for any of a range of psychoactive medications

used to obtain information from subjects who are unable or unwilling to provide it
otherwise.

Any information from the truth serum report is corroborated by further investigation. They
are lawfully and productively used in investigation in select civil and all criminal cases and
the evaluation of psychotic patients in the practice of psychiatry.

That application was first documented by Dr. William Bleckwenn in 1930, and it still has
selected uses today. mania. In the latter context, the controlled administration
of intravenous hypnotic medications is called "narcosynthesis" or "narcoanalysis.”

ACTIVE CHEMICALS

1. Sedatives or hypnotics that alter higher cognitive function

include: ethanol, scopolamine, 3-quinuclidinyl benzilate, potent short or
intermediate acting hypnoticbenzodiazepines such
as midazolam, flunitrazepam, temazepam, and

2. Various short and ultra-short acting barbiturates including: sodium

thiopental (commonly known as sodium pentothal) and am barbital (sodium
amytal).

TRUTH SERUMS have been used by the Central Intelligence Agency as seen in
the U.S. Army and CIA interrogation manuals declassified by the Pentagon in 1996.

In 1963 the US Supreme Court ruled that confessions produced as a result of ingestion
of truth serum was "unconstitutionally coerced", and therefore inadmissible.
The viability of forensic evidence produced from "truth serum" has been addressed in
lower courts – judges and expert witnesses have generally agreed that they are not
reliable for lie detection.

"Early in the 20th century physicians began to employ scopolamine, along with morphine
and chloroform, to induce a state of "twilight sleep" during childbirth. A constituent of
henbane, scopolamine was known to produce sedation and drowsiness, confusion and
disorientation, incoordination, and amnesia for events experienced during intoxication. Yet
physicians noted that women in twilight sleep answered questions accurately and often
volunteered exceedingly candid remarks.

In 1922, it occurred to Robert House, a Dallas, Texas, obstetrician, that a similar

technique might be employed in the interrogation of suspected criminals, and he arranged
to interview under scopolamine two prisoners in the Dallas county jail whose guilt
seemed clearly confirmed. Under the drug, both men denied the charges on which they
were held; and both, upon trial, were found not guilty.

Of all the deception detection methods, are the ““Truth-Serum” Test is considered
most favorable effective if all the conditions proper to the conduct of the test must
be observed.

However, its effectively is upset by several objections raised as to its application. These
objections are as follows:
1. Was the test performed by a skilled experimenter, operator, technician or physician?
2. Was the dosage of drugs applied or injected necessary for acquiring desired results?
3. Was there an appropriate amount of time consumed in the test?
4. Was there certainty of results acquired to determined truth from deception?

Statements taken from the Subject under the process is not adminissible as
evidence in court because its very nature is involuntarily, but its application to criminal
investigation is rather very useful because of its psychological effect, before, during and
even after. Just well, a person not knowing the fallacies of the test may even before, during
and even before the test is done, tell the factual truth to avoid pain of needles and
brain destruction.

INTOXICATION TECHNIQUES (“Vino Veritas”) –

This method employs alcoholic beverages as stimuli to obtain truth. The person or Subject
whose statement is to be taken is allowed to take alcoholic beverages to intoxication
point.
When under the influence of alcohol, the power of control is diminished and the
investigator begins propounding question. Interrogation must be made only during the
excitatory effect of alcohol.

During this stage, therein noted is the sensation of well-being and the actions. Speech
and emotions are less strained due to the lowering of the inhibition normally exercised by
the higher brain centers. There is eventually lack of self-control.
 When the Subject is already in the depressively state, due to excess alcohol intake, he
will not be able to answer questions anymore and perhaps fell asleep. Confession
made by Subject while intoxicated is adminissible if he is physically able to recollect the
facts and state them truly and exactly even after the influence or “spirit” of alcohol has
disappeared. But in most instances, the Subject cannot recall his utterances or usually
refuses to admit the truth of the statement given.

5. TECHNIQUES OF WORD ASSOCIATION TEST (W.A.T.)

WORD ASSOCIATION is a common word game involving an exchange of words that are
associated together. The game is based on the noun phrase word association, meaning
"stimulation of an associative pattern by a word" or "the connection and production of other
words in response to a given word, done spontaneously as a game, creative technique,
or in a psychiatric evaluation."

Here is another method of deception detection which was introduced in 1879 by SIR
FRANCIS GALTON (1822-1911) an English Scientist Explorer and Anthropometrist,
born on Feb. 16, 1822 at Sparkbrook, Birmingham, London, and the cousin of the famous
Charles Darwin.

Then Galton’s work and experiment was later on developed by DR. CARL GUSTAV
JUNG (1875-1961), a Swiss Psychologist and Psychiatrist and Founder of the
Analytical Psychology, (born on July 26, 1875 at Basel Switzerland).

Accordingly, attached to a Sphygmomanometer, the process is done by giving the

Subject a long list of carefully selected stimulus words or objects with other
pictures interspersed with other irrelevant words, objects or pictures with the instructions
to respond with the very first word that may come to Subject’s mind.

Dr. Jung was able to observe how the thinking reactions were linked into the emotional
habit of his Subject. The theory behind this method is that one word or idea is reflective
of another word or idea and the expression of their association forms a meaningful
picture to the subject mind.
6. THE POLYGRAPH TEST TECHNIQUE or LIE DETECTOR TEST

This known method is based upon the theory that once a lie has been made or that an
emotion evoking stimulus (question) has been given, a conscious mental effort on the
part of a normally conditioned person causes physical and physiological changes in the
body which are capable of being recorded, diagnosed and interpreted in a recording
machine or instrument called, the “Polygraph”, “Deceptograph” or the “Pheumo-
Galvo-Cardiograph”.

In this method, the Subject is comfortably seated on a chair and then the blood-pressure
cuff, pneumograph tube and electrodes are placed on his body with the instrument being
set in motion.

The basic theory of polygraph testing is only partially developed and researched. The most
commonly accepted theory at present is that, when the person being examined fears
detection, that fear produces a measurable physiological reaction when the person
responds deceptively. Thus, in this theory, the polygraph instrument is measuring
the fear of detection rather than deception per se.

And the examiner infers deception when the physiological response to questions about
the crime or unauthorized activity is greater than the response to other questions.
However, the examinee’s intelligence level, state of psychological health, emotional
stability, and belief in the “machine” are among the several other factors that may, at least
theoretically, affect physiological responses.

7. SPECTROGRAPHIC VOICE RECOGNITION (VSA or PSE)

In the 1960s, a scientist named Lawrence Kersta, working with an invention called the
sound spectrograph created back in 1944 by Bell Laboratory scientists, claimed that
"voiceprints" were a unique way to identify individuals.

He trademarked the word "voiceprint", founded his own company (Voiceprint

Laboratories), and established a professional association, the International Association of
Voice Identification (IAVI) which eventually was absorbed in 1980 by the International
Association for Identification (IAI), mainly a group of fingerprint experts.
 VOICE STRESS ANALYSIS (VSA) technology is said to
record psychophysiological stress responses that are present in human voice, when a
person suffers psychological stress in response to a stimulus (question) and where the
consequences may be dire for the subject being 'tested'.

The technique's accuracy remains debated. There are no independent research

studies that support the use of VSA as a reliable lie detection technology, whilst there are
numerous studies that dispute its reliability.
The basic idea behind “lie detectors” based on voice analysis is that there are
properties in the voice signal that may be reliably correlated with stress, and as a
consequence with lie and deception.

Voice stress analysis (VSA), also called Perceptual Stress Evaluation (PSE), based
on the monitoring of so called micro tremor is such a method. But whereas there are
scientifically established correlations between stress and the indicators used by the
Polygraph, there is no scientific basis for the voice stress analysis at all.

Today, nobody uses the word "voiceprint" anymore because of its erroneous
association with "fingerprints." The former is a method of expert interpretation and
opinion while "fingerprinting" is a matter of absolute certainty and infallibility. To use the
word "voiceprint" gives the method more scientific credibility than it deserves. At best,
voiceprint identification is like polygraphy (lie detection) and only admissible in 35
states, although it (like polygraphy) makes for a valuable investigative tool to screen
potential suspects. Even the phrase "voiceprint identification" may be improper and should
probably be abandoned in favor of the broader term, spectrographic voice recognition.

8. P300 – BRAIN WAVE FINGERPRINTING OR BCI (fMRI)

Neuroscientist Lawrence Farwell, who runs a Brain Wave Institute in Fairfield, Iowa
patented this technique in 1995, which has attracted the attention of the FBI and CIA
as a better way to detect moles. Iowa judges are also fond of admitting the technique,
even though Iowa is a state where the polygraph is outlawed.

The basic principle is that different regions of the brain light up when people tell the truth
or lie, and further, that different regions are activated depending upon the type of lie.

The P300 looks different in response to novel vs. familiar images. This is an involuntary
response. Thus, it is possible to determine whether someone has seen a certain image
via the EEG. The EEG alone is NOT telling you whether someone is being deceptive.
Dr. Lawrence Farwell (Larry Farwell) is an American scientist, inventor, and
entrepreneur. He invented brain fingerprinting and the first EEG-based brain-computer
interface (BCI). He discovered the P300-MERMER brain response and applied it in
forensic neuroscience, brain-computer communication, and other fields.

In addition to his brain fingerprinting research at the CIA and the FBI and elsewhere and
his publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals, he has applied brain fingerprinting to
detect the presence or absence of concealed crime-relevant information stored in the
brains of suspects in criminal cases, and has testified as an expert witness on this
science in court.
He holds patents on brain fingerprinting, the P300-MERMER, and applications of
this technology in the early detection of Alzheimer’s disease and other cognitive
deficits. He has conducted and published research on neuroscience, psychophysiology,
physics, mathematics, and the relationship between consciousness and matter. fMRI
based lie detection may be possible as well.

Dr. Farwell's research, however, looks at a specific type of electrical brain wave,
called P300, which activates when a person sees a familiar object.

For example, if a murder suspect is claiming an alibi, then their P300 wave won't activate
when they are shown the murder weapon. The technology is promising in that the research
indicates the brain stores visual images. In the P300 test, a subject wears a headband of
electrodes and faces a computer screen.

The technique doesn't have anything to do with emotions, or whether a person is

sweating or not; it simply detects scientifically whether certain information is stored
in the brain.

Since 1995, brain fingerprinting has been extensively tested by the FBI. For
example, FBI agents who would only know certain key words or phrases associated with
a crime were tested, and the results had 100% accuracy in distinguishing agents who
knew about the crime from those who didn't.

Sometime around 2003, brain fingerprinting became admissible in court for use in
identifying or exonerating individuals in the U.S. A 2004 case, involving the exoneration
of a convicted killer in Oklahoma was a critical test case for the technique.