October 29, 2002
Wanna hear the truth? ... Let's take five with Moira Gunn. This is "Five Minutes".
Anna Deveare Smith is an actress, author and teacher, and one of her specialties is solo performances. She researches the people she portrays by meeting with them in person, taping them, and trying to find their "authentic voice."
From the famous to the ordinary, she says that people speak from their authentic selves when she asks them to describe an experience in which they were accused of doing something they didn't do. She focuses on their choice of words, their cadence, speed, tone, body posture and the expression on the person's face.
There is something so primal that even the most polished politicians and guarded personalities become incensed and let down their defenses.
And why? Well, that's a very good question.
If being lied about is so intense, and can lying itself cause the same degree of reaction?
Here's the place that gives science fits.
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With all the massive strides in science and technology, you'd think there would be some major progress on the development of lie detectors. But we always hear the same thing: They are not admissible in most courts. Some person took the test and passed. Another took a test and failed. Or someone refused to take the test altogether and that makes him look rich, guilty or both.
But lie detectors have also taken on another role. They are being used to screen potential candidates for jobs and verify the trustworthiness of existing employees. And it is this use that was examined by a blue ribbon panel formed by the National Academy of Sciences.
They found that 57 scientific studies had been performed on the subject, but that most of the applicable efforts were low in quality, and certainly did not meet sufficient criteria to be considered for funding by such organizations as the National Science Foundation or the National Institutes of Health.
They found that the physiological states being measured when a person is lying could also be produced when from other causes, such as fear, and this led to many false positives.
They noted that there may or may not be classified government research on the subject to which they are not privy, but most of all, they cautioned that humans could learn to take certain "countermeasures." This would surely be the case if someone intended to lay low and later do harm.
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Now, all of this got me to thinking. Why have we focused on lies? Why not build joy detectors? Or sadness detectors? How about pain-o-meters?
But have you been in a hospital lately? The hospital staff depends on you to tell them how much pain you're in, and how well you can tolerate the pain that you have. So, if technology can't figure out how much pain you're in, how is it going to tell if you're lying?
While we have accomplished great feats with technology and science, let's not get ahead of ourselves here. No matter how much we humans want to know who's lying and who's not, it may not be a question that science can answer - just as science cannot answer the question: "Why do we exist?"
I'm Moira Gunn. This is Five Minutes.
