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A Lie Detector in your Pocket

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PCQ Bureau
New Update

You might have been intrigued by the concept of lie

detectors, as shown in Hollywood thrillers, courtroom dramas, or the various

detective series on TV, and may have wanted to take the test. A device called

Handy Truster now makes this easy for you.

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While traditional polygraphs detect lies by measuring

physical responses, like your breathing rate, pulse, blood pressure, or

perspiration, Truster’s polygraph works by analyzing your voice.

Truster analyzes the emotional (indicates the level of

excitement and emotion with which the words are being said), cognitive

(indicates the amount of conflict or agreement with the words that are being

spoken), and physiological (indicates stress, physiological alertness, and

general physiological condition) patterns in the human voice to derive results.

The interesting part about these three elements is that it’s difficult to

control them while you’re speaking. This means that the analysis is based on

elements that are difficult to fake.

To use this device, you have to first input a truthful

statement by the person you’re testing it on. This is called ‘calibration’,

and acts as the benchmark on which Truster would base its subsequent analysis.

Truster creates a multi-dimensional voice profile of this statement using a

mathematical model, and then uses it to benchmark its subsequent results.

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You can use this device with a microphone, over a cellphone,

or in face-to-face conversations. Results are displayed on Truster’s LCD

screen using two icons–an apple and a pot with a lid. The apple tells you the

degree of truth in a person’s statement–the more bitten the apple, the more

the likelihood that the person is lying. This goes up to nine levels, from a

full apple which indicates truth to just the apple core which indicates that the

person is lying. The lid on the pot tells you the stress level. This also goes

up to nine levels–the highest level indicates a stress condition of 90 percent

or more while the lowest indicates 10 percent



or less.

So, now you can arm yourself with the knowledge of how

truthful or otherwise somebody is, whether your spouse, friend, colleague, child

and even how stressed you are in a particular situation. In fact, Truster was

used by Time magazine reporters in a debate between the two US Presidential

candidates. The device registered 57 lies by George Bush and 23 by Al Gore. To

read a full report on this, go to: www.time.com/time/campaign2000/story/0,7243,58092,00.html.

The manufacturers of Truster, however, have positioned the

device as something to entertain yourself with rather than one to use for

serious decision making. So, you need to exercise caution while interpreting its

results and applying them to your situation. For more details on Truster, go to:

www.911co.kr/Truster/en_index.htm.

Pragya Madan

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