New lie detector relies on full-body suit for better accuracy

When you are hooked up to a polygraph lie detector there is only a 60 percent chance a skilled examiner will spot a lie, giving you pretty good odds to get away with one or two untruths. However, Dutch and British scientists have found a way to amp up the accuracy of lie detection to 75 percent by monitoring a suspect’s movements with a full-body suit.

Current lie detection methods aided by polygraphs are only slightly better than what people can achieve on their own. Without a machine, most people can only tell truth from lies about 55 percent of the time.

But when using a full body motion capture suit which records the position, velocity and orientation of 23 points in the subject’s body, a better signal of deception can be achieved, according to scientists from the University of Cambridge and Lancaster University in the U.K., and the universities of Utrecht and Enschede in the Netherlands.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here