Lie-Detection Brain Scan Could Be Used in Court for First Time

[The Straight Story]

Lie-Detection Brain Scan Could Be Used in Court for First Time

A Brooklyn attorney hopes to break new ground this week when he offers a brain scan as evidence that a key witness in a civil trial is telling the truth, Wired.com has learned.

If the fMRI scan is admitted, it would be a legal first in the United States and could have major consequences for the future of neuroscience in court.

The lawyer, David Levin, wants to use that evidence to break a he-said/she-said stalemate in an employer-retaliation case. He’s representing Cynette Wilson, a woman who claims that after she complained to temp agency CoreStaff Services about sexual harassment at a job site, she no longer received good assignments. Another worker at CoreStaff claims he heard her supervisor say that she should not be placed on jobs because of her complaint. The supervisor denies that he said anything of the sort.

So, Levin had the coworker undergo an fMRI brain scan by the company Cephos, which claims to provide “independent, scientific validation that someone is telling the truth.”

Laboratory studies using fMRI, which measures blood-oxygen levels in the brain, have suggested that when someone lies, the brain sends more blood to the ventrolateral area of the prefrontal cortex. In a very small number of studies, researchers have identified lying in study subjects (.pdf) with accuracy ranging from 76 percent to over 90 percent. But some scientists and lawyers like New York University neuroscientist Elizabeth Phelps doubts those results can be applied outside the lab.

Read More http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/05/fmri-lie-detection-civil/#ixzz0n51aSPQc

[WeDidIt]

1. It'll never stand up.

Accuracy is not 100%. It cannot stand up in a court of law.

[dipsydoodle]

2. Fat lot of good that would if they got the Chimp in court

Not much you can tell from a vacuum.

[Cronus Protagonist]

3. If my uncle was a woman she'd be my aunt

I guess they have run out of stories at Wired and now they have to make them up.

[The Straight Story]

4. They deal with tech stories. This is a tech story (nt)

[Cronus Protagonist]

5. Yeah, with a manufactured, alarmist premise n/t

[DerBeppo]

6. I guess the problem will always be lie vs. delusion

I imagine it would be quite difficult to tell what is from what is perceived to be in many cases.