Functional MRI-Based Lie Detection Summary

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“Functional MRI-based lie detection: Scientific and societal challenges” is an article written by Martha J. Farah, J. Benjamin Hutchinson, Elizabeth A. Phelps and Anthony D. Wagner in the journal Nature Reviews Neuroscience. This article is about how Functional MRI (fMRI) are started to be studied for use in lie detection in at least trials in the United States. The authors of this article address five main themes: the science of fMRI-based lie detection, how these studies apply to the real world, how they can be used, the legal, social, and ethical issues in these studies, and the policy recommendations, all of which will be looked at in this critique. The journal Nature Reviews peer reviewed journal that is greatly respected and the article …show more content…
Recalling highly emotional events can be traumatic and takes more control to lie or tell the truth than just answering questions for a study. With this in mind cognitive, personality, and brain factors of the individual need to be taken into account.
How fMRI-based lie detection can be used Using fMRI-based lie detection is being citizen for assessing the truthfulness of people in court. The first time fMRI lie detection was used was in 2010 in a case of employee discrimination. The judge ruled this evidence inadmissible and it was not used in the case.
Legal, Social and Ethical Issues The fMRI lie detection has to fit in the criteria of the United States legal system to be used in court. The largest problem with this type of lie detection is the fact that there is not yet a way of knowing its accuracy and validity. There is an amount of false positives in fMRI results that will have a negative impact on this being used and the amount of accuracy of this type of detection will depend on how many people are falsely accused for an occasional correct identification of deception. Another issue of the fMRI is that it can interfere with one’s privacy. Since the accuracy cannot fully be determined, people taking this method need to know the questionable
…show more content…
Second, research to explore the potential of fMRI-based lie detection should be done while thinking about the different companies involved. Then lastly, one has to remember that the scientific idea of truth is not necessarily that same as that for legal

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