After A Magnetic Pulse to the Brain, Study Subjects Cannot Tell a Lie

By Rebecca Boyle Posted 09.07.2011 at 4:02 pm 12 Comments

Polygraph Vibragiel via Flickr

The act of deception is probably as old as civilization — not long after humans began communicating, they began communicating lies. Shortly after that, they probably started trying to force others to tell the truth. Modern technology has given us a few options in this arena, from dubious polygraphs to powerful drugs — and now a new study suggests brain interference can work, too.

Stimulating part of the front brain alters the simplicity of lying, according to Estonian researchers. Magnets applied to the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the area right behind your forehead, can have an amplifying or dampening effect on fibbing abilities.

Inga Karton and Talis Bachmann worked with 16 volunteers who submitted to transcranial magnetic stimulation, which can stimulate some parts of the brain and not others. Transcranial magnetic and electric stimulation is being used to study several complex aspects of human nature, like morality, memory and learning patterns that can impact autism, and even speech. The stimulation temporarily interferes with the affected area, causing it to function differently.

In this study, volunteers submitted to TMS to stimulate their dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which is thought to be involved in decision-making, complex thought and deception. Like most of the brain, it has a right and a left side, which are both responsible for different tasks. The volunteers were shown a series of colored discs, and told they could tell the truth or lie about their colors. Half were stimulated on the left, half on the right.

The eight people who had their left DPC stimulated lied more often, the researchers said. The ones with the right DPC stimulated were more likely to tell the truth. The experiment was repeated while a different brain region was stimulated, and that region, the parietal lobe, had no effect.

“Spontaneous choice to lie more or less can be influenced by brain stimulation,” the researchers write.

It wasn’t exactly a robust study — it involved just 16 people, and they had nothing at stake when they were asked to lie — but it suggests a possible new method for truth-seekers.

Prefrontal Cortex: The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in the brain (shown in purple) is thought to be intimately involved with the process of decision-making. Wikimedia Commons

Most studies of deceptive behavior have examined brain activity during mock thefts or pretending not to recognize objects, the researchers write. Here, the subjects had no “criminal” reason to lie, yet they did anyway; the researchers were able to study the brain regions responsible for this behavior. This raises some interesting philosophical, if not physiological, questions. If there are no practical or moral benefits to lying, why do we do it? That's presumably a question for another study. This one is reported in the journal Behavioural Brain Research.

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12 Comments

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michaelgorby

09/07/11 at 4:32 pm

This doesn't seem like a very controlled experiment. I mean, the subjects were simply given the freedom of either lieing or telling the truth. The results could just be random or coincidental, like flipping a coin. It's quite feasible that if done on a larger control group, this experiment would return results of close to 50/50.

A cool outcome would be if magnetic pulses could somehow restrict a person's ability to lie at all.

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Julian

09/07/11 at 5:08 pm

No one lies if there are no practical or moral benefits to lying, unless it is a pathological condition

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-my name here-

09/07/11 at 5:13 pm

at first glance, I thought the guy to the right was supposed to be santa clause 0.O

why learn from your own mistakes, when you could learn from the mistakes of others?

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gizmowiz

09/07/11 at 7:17 pm

They obviously haven't met or tested my pathological liar step-son ha.

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inaka_rob

09/07/11 at 8:20 pm

yes curious. what about people who believe their lies. is that the same as pathological. Pathological is someone who cant control lying correct?
But some people lie and they actually believe what they lie about?

It would be nice if this worked for false truths as well.
we all (as in sane people) know creationism is a "lie" but plenty of believe in it as a false truth.

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thedoctor2031

09/08/11 at 12:36 am

I love the misleading headlines popsci can come up with. First they have a typo in a headline, now they completely distort the truth. "After a magnetic pulse to the brain, subject can not tell a lie," yet the actual article said that it was more likely for them to lie than tell the truth. This turns the discovery from a near-perfect lie detector to a small improvement on what we already have.

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drchuck1

09/08/11 at 7:25 am

@thedoctor2031, i thought the same thing when i read the headline-@inaka_rob, stop trolling

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Negathle

09/08/11 at 7:36 am

Deception is not a solely human characteristic. The first sentence should read something more along the lines of ‎"The act of deception is probably as old as communication - not long after life evolved forms of communicating, they began telling lies."

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drchuck1

09/08/11 at 2:27 pm

good point

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QIII

09/08/11 at 11:46 pm

Deception is often a better characteristic for survival than "telling the truth". That goes for both form and behavior.

Many primates deliberately deceive. Dogs do it, but it might be a stretch to say they do it "deliberately".

There is a very practical purpose in lying.

"Food? I don't have any food. What are you talking about?"

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lax4ever1

09/09/11 at 7:42 pm

@my-name-here: you mean the woman on the left?

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SideshowBob

09/12/11 at 8:43 pm

Very nice satire of a very sick and stupid "scientifically relevant" path.

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