Avatar Knows If You Are Lying
March 3, 2011— -- How do you know if someone is lying?
You usually don't. Research has shown that even professional law enforcement agents are very poor at recognizing liars, and scientists and engineers across the country are trying to give them a mechanical helpmate that can detect even tiny and incredibly brief clues that a person is less than truthful.
It's called "Avatar," not to be confused with the movie by the same name. Avatar looks like an "ATM on steroids," according to Doug Derrick, a researcher at the University of Arizona who is helping develop a machine that may someday ask what you really have in your bag. If it thinks you are lying, it will signal a real person to step in and pick up the interrogation because a twitch in a tiny facial muscle aroused suspicion.
At least that's what scores of researchers at 14 leading institutions across the country are hoping will happen. They are part of an ambitious multi-disciplinary effort to bring high technology to border patrols and airport screenings.
A consortium called "BORDERS," sponsored by the Department of Homeland Security and headquartered at the University of Arizona in Tucson, is focusing attention on everything from bureaucracies to sophisticated sensors to move security into the 21st century.
Avatar is rapidly becoming the poster child of the program, although it is only one of many projects. It's a kiosk with a computer screen that will show an animated representation of a border agent, and it will ask a series of questions to see if there is any reason for concern about some chap trying to cross the border from Mexico or Canada.
The idea behind it has gained momentum as various labs have zeroed in on how the human face, or body, changes if a person is lying. For example, researchers at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., found that lying sends excessive blood flowing to certain areas of the face, and they could detect that about 80 percent of the time with thermal imaging technology.
Other researchers at Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia used brain imaging equipment to show that parts of the brain light up when a person lies. Computer scientists at Rutgers University used sensors to identify certain body movements that indicate a person is lying. These are largely beyond our control.
