lie detection

n. Meta-analysis of hundreds of studies has found that people can detect when others are lying at a rate only slightly better than chance. In addition, there is no significant correlation between people's confidence in their judgments and their actual accuracy. Use of the polygraph - a device that monitors heart rate, breathing, skin moisture, and blood pressure to track the physiological arousal presumably associated with lying - produces somewhat higher rates of accuracy. Development of an infallible method of detecting lies would have enormous practical implications, especially for the legal system. Unfortunately, it may never be possible to detect lies reliably. Although measures of physiological changes continue to improve and to become more precise (brain scans are the latest advance that has been applied to the study of lie detection), there appears to be no unique physiological signal or pattern of behaviors that consistently reveals whether or not someone is lying.

- MC