How do you get information
from someone who wants to keep it from you?
Somewhere locked inside their brain
could be the truth about a crime
or the plan for a terrorist attack
or the password to a bank account
or nuclear codes.
To get information,
we often resort to violence,
but that often doesn't work
and can cause a person to close off even more.
But that's not to say there aren't other ways
of getting people to talk
or even of getting their brains
to talk for them.
In this episode, I'm going to be injected
with a truth serum.
I'm going to coerce people into giving false confessions,
and I'm going to try to hide the truth
from a mind-reading machine.
What's the best way to get the truth
or detect a lie?
Let's see if anybody can dig out the secrets
I've got locked up in my head.
[theme music playing]
[siren wailing]
[indistinct radio chatter]
It's a classic scene in spy movies.
Someone captures someone they want information from,
they inject them with truth serum,
and the person spills
all their secrets.
The serum used in almost all of these movies
is Sodium Pentothal,
which is an actual drug
that inhibits brain activity.
It was first used as a painkiller,
but was found to work better as an anti-anxiety drug.
It dulls your thoughts,
making it harder to perform cognitive tasks,
including the task of making up a lie.
The use of truth serums
began in 1915
when Dr. Robert House, a physician in Texas,
realized that scopolamine,
a drug given to women during childbirth,
had the effect of getting them to talk
without reservation.
Another drug, midazolam,
has been used to treat Iraq War burn victims
who suffer from PTSD.
Midazolam helps reduce their inhibitions,
allowing them to talk more freely
about their experiences.
Midazolam is also one of the drugs used
in lethal injections,
including several botched executions.
I arranged to be injected with midazolam
to see if it could make me spill my guts.
[music playing]
[cars revving]
[Dr. Malek] This is the midazolam,
the medicine we are going to use.
This is enough to put an elephant to sleep.
So we'll have to make it very, very, very dilute
and then give you very, very small amount
of the diluted drug. - Please, yes.
- You will be comfortable and happy.
It's euphoric. You will feel very cool.
- But I also wanna keep some secrets.
- That is...
It remains to be determined.
Okay. Michael, um, we'll introduce you to Dr. Pavlo.
- Hi. - [Michael] Nice to meet you.
[Dr. Pavlo] How are you doing?
[Michael]- Good. [voice-over] Dr. Pavlo is a police psychologist
and an expert in interrogations.
[Dr. Pavlo] Have you started the drip yet?
[Dr. Malek] Uh, we would like to start
with the amount of one, uh, milligram.
[Michael] Dr. Pavlo's objective was to get me to admit
to certain information,
one, that my sister's name is Melissa
and, two, that my job is hosting
Mind Field and Vsauce.
My objective... Not to admit the truth.
[Dr. Pavlo] Are you feeling more relaxed in your body?
[Michael] - I'm feeling warm all over.
It's amazing how quickly this came into effect.
- Let me just ask you a couple of basic questions.
- I'd love to. - [Dr. Pavlo] Okay.
Where are you?
What town? What city? - Uh, Pasadena.
- How old are you?
- Thirty-one. - Do you have any siblings?
- Uh, yeah.
How old is your sister, Melissa?
[chuckles]
- Uh,
That... That's not her name.
- Um... - [Dr. Pavlo] What do you do for a living?
- I am a choreographer by trade.
Um... - [Dr. Pavlo] What might be something
I'm familiar with that you did?
[Michael] - Have you heard of, um, The Lion King?
- Yes. - On Broadway?
[Dr. Pavlo] - I have.
I think he needs an extra dose.
- Absolutely. - [laughing]
- That means I got them right. - [Dr. Pavlo] You are too sharp.
[Michael] How much have I had total so far?
[Dr. Malek] - Two milligrams.
[Dr. Pavlo] - Question for you.
How do you feel now?
I feel like in order to feel like this,
I would have had to have had...
six drinks.
[Dr. Pavlo] - Tell me about Mind Field.
- Mine field? - [Dr. Pavlo] Yeah.
[music playing]
- Mine field?
Uh, they're... They're terrible.
There are places that we've got mines
still littered throughout the, um, the land,
Cambodia, Vietnam.
- You know, I think you misinterpreted my question.
YouTube show Mind Field that you host.
Tell me about that. Scientific?
- I am somewhat familiar with it.
[Dr. Pavlo clears her throat] - Can he get another dose?
Okay. We're just gonna get you even more relaxed.
Tell me your occupation.
- I'm a choreographer.
- Any siblings?
- I have a sibling in, uh, Colorado.
[Dr. Pavlo] - What's your favorite food?
[Michael] - Uh, rotisserie,
uh, Greek doner.
- Does your sister Melissa like that, too?
- She'll eat the meat by itself.
[bell dings]
[Dr. Pavlo] Trying to get Michael to admit
that he has a sister, Melissa, was no easy feat.
Luckily, he was anesthetized enough
and did admit that he has a sister, Melissa.
You ever think about being an uncle or a father yourself?
Do you want children?
- Ah, I would love to have children, yeah.
My... my wife and I are trying,
but I'm always doing stuff like this, you know.
- [Dr. Pavlo] Yeah, yeah. - It's like, "Hey, honey,
do you wanna make a little, uh, baby?"
And I'm like,
I got to go [sighs]
get interrogated
and pumped full of midazolam.
[Dr. Pavlo] - Are you gonna give him anymore?
[Dr. Malek] - Yeah, because I... He's not sedated enough.
[Michael] - I could do another one.
[Dr. Malek] - This would probably the last dose I wanna give him.
[Dr. Pavlo] - Yes. Do most people
at this dose fall asleep?
- Oh, yeah.
[yawns]
[Dr. Pavlo] How you doing, Michael?
- Good.
- Feeling a little bit more tired now?
- Yeah, heavy.
- And who's the president?
- President P... President Trump.
[Dr. Pavlo] - President Trump. Where are we?
What city are we in?
- Yo, Pasadena.
- Which show do you like to do more,
Mind Field or Vsauce?
Which one do you enjoy more?
[yawns] - Vsauce.
[Dr. Pavlo] - Vsauce?
- Yeah. - Why?
- Because they can be whatever I want them to be,
and there's no executive in control.
By the way, my eyes were closed, weren't they?
- Uh-huh. - [Michael] And I didn't realize
that you were still a real person asking me questions.
[Dr. Pavlo] I think had it not have been for the drug,
there's no way he would have admitted anything.
Before, you were pretending
to be a choreographer, weren't you?
- No, it's the drugs,
but I really am a choreographer.
[Dr. Pavlo] After a few minutes,
he got right back on track.
He's very strong-willed
and really believes in what he's doing
and was able to maintain the charade.
Okay. You're done.
How do you feel?
- Uh,
I feel ready to drive.
- [laughs] - Just kidding.
[Michael] While midazolam lowered my inhibitions
and my ability to lie consistently,
truth serums raise ethical concerns
about one's right against self-incrimination.
Furthermore, larger scale studies have shown
that truth serums can cause people
to reconstruct and fabricate memories.
So, truth serums are not very reliable,
but what about the techniques used by the police?
[music playing]
I'm gonna tear you apart
if you don't give us some answers.
- Michael, let me take a shot at this.
Look, we're all friends here.
If I was in your shoes,
I'd probably do the same thing.
- You're being too easy on this, scum.
Your fingerprints are all over the crime scene.
You make me sick.
- Michael, if you get him too scared,
he'll shut down.
We only wanna scare him enough.
- That's right.
And after I do that,
he's gonna give you relief,
and then we'll do that over and over and over again.
You're gonna be taken on an emotional roller coaster
that will deplete the finite cognitive resources
you'll need to keep withholding information.
- All right. I confess.
It really does work.
You see, at one moment, I'm terrified
but then I'm comforted.
The constant shifting from one emotion to another
fogs my critical thinking until I might confess to a crime
I didn't even commit.
It's called the fear-then-relief response.
[siren wailing]
The good cop/bad cop method of interrogation
evolved out of a psychological manipulation procedure
called the Reid technique,
developed in the 1950s
and used broadly by police departments
since the 1970s.
Now, under the Reid technique,
interrogators first assess
whether a suspect is withholding the truth.
If they think the suspect is lying,
interrogators then move to the second stage
in which they seek a confession.
Now, critics of the Reid technique say
that the first phase isn't reliable enough,
and that often,
someone who is completely innocent
makes it to the second stage
where it's assumed they're guilty
and police begin seeking a confession.
And they often get it.
But why would anyone falsely confess?
Well, to find out, I decided to learn
how to make someone confess
to a crime they didn't commit.
[music playing]
[Michael] Dr. Melissa Russano is an expert
in investigative research, including the process
of interrogation and confession.
Tell me about false confessions
and why people make them.
- In a nutshell, people confess to crimes
that they didn't commit because they come to believe
that it's in their best interest to falsely confess,
and that's really counterintuitive.
- Right, because confessing
is the worst thing to do, right?
Like that's what you need to avoid at all costs.
- Yes, when you're not in the situation
of being convinced that it's actually your best option.
- But that's kind of what I wanna do today.
I wanna see how easy it is
to get a false confession from someone.
How do I do that?
[Dr. Russano] One way is minimization techniques.
You've got to get them to believe
that their best option out of this situation
to make this end is to confess.
You can say, "Look, I really think
it's in your best interest to cooperate."
There are other techniques as well
- like maximization, right? - [Michael] Okay.
- So they have to believe that
if they don't confess, things are gonna be worse,
um, that the punishment will likely be more severe,
and so their best option in the moment is to...
Is to confess to you. One other technique
is befriending them,
um, where you're lulling the suspect
into a false sense of security to trust you.
- What about making a deal?
- So police officers are not allowed
to, um, make explicit offers of leniency or a deal.
So you cannot make any promises,
but you can say, "Look, I really think
it's in your best interest to cooperate."
You don't have to explicitly say something
for the message to be communicated.
[Michael] With all these tools in mind,
I was ready to try to get a false confession.
- [woman] All right. - [Michael] Our subjects answered
our online ad offering $75
to test a new logic exam
for an educational institution.
They didn't realize that the institution was fake
and the other participants taking the test
were actually actors working for us.
[woman] It's a pretty standard release form.
[Michael] Before the test, the participants were required
to sign a document stating that they would be
under breach of contract if they cheated on the test.
When you work on the individual questions,
it's very important that you work alone.
Don't talk about what you're doing,
don't share answers.
Good luck. See you soon.
[Michael] The subjects didn't know that there were several
hidden cameras around and that we were watching
everything unfold from another room.
During the testing, the participants and our actors
did not share information.
At no time did cheating take place.
I'm gonna collect these and put them in the database,
and I'll be right back to start the next phase, okay, guys?
- Thank you. - Thank you.
[Michael] I wore an earpiece so that Melissa could guide me
during the entire process.
A few minutes later, it was time
to set up a false accusation.
So, we actually might have a problem.
Um, I'll need to speak to each of you separately.
So, James, could you come with me just outside?
- Sure. - I'll take these now.
Thank you. And, um, Nicole,
you can just wait right here?
- Awesome. Thank you. - Mm-hmm.
You got to give them enough time to plausibly
be talking to you. - Believe that I'm talking to him.
- And calling the director.
- Hi, Nicole. - Hello.
- You and James both had
the same wrong answer
for the triangle problem.
It looks to me like there was information sharing.
Like, you guys spoke to one another about the answer
on that problem? - I didn't... I didn't do it.
[Brian] We didn't talk at all on the individual problems.
I kept my eyes on my paper because I knew
that would probably throw off the results.
- If I just write out here, like,
"I admit that I shared answers."
[Megan] I don't remember talking to him at all about,
like, while we're doing the individual... - Okay.
[Michael] First I tried to minimize the consequences of confessing.
I really think it's in your best interest.
I really think it's in your best interest
to sign this stating that you admit
to sharing the information.
I honestly believe that that is...
- But I did not... Look, I don't know
what's going on here. I really... that's... I don't know.
I came here to help. - I understand what you're saying and...
- And I never said, like, "Hey, there's..."
- Megan... - Please let me finish,
because I don't appreciate, like, over-talking and stuff.
[Michael] I was too aggressive at first. I had a lot to learn.
Next, I tried to maximize the consequences
of not confessing.
What we're looking at is... is possible
breach of contract here.
[Dr. Pavlo] If he comes down here,
he's going to be a lot more upset.
[Michael] If the director has to come down here,
he's gonna be even more upset
and annoyed than he already is.
- It did not happen. - Okay.
- And I... my... I put that on my dad,
and I have my dad around my neck, so...
[Michael] Once that was me agains't her familiy
I lost my chance to get a false confession.
I had to become the suspect's friend.
I also understand
you're a nice guy and, like, sharing information
or helping someone with a problem
is the nice thing to do.
It's what we normally do.
- But I didn't share any information,
so I can't sign that document.
[Michael] But I failed to convince this guy to be my friend.
I struck out with all of these test subjects.
But after my failed attempts,
I was ready to put everything I had learned
into my next encounter.
[Michael] Is there a strategy I should use?
- I think that you should proceed
with making sure that you're not overly confrontational.
- Yeah. - And making sure that she
sees you as someone who she can trust your advice,
and so I would... I would proceed
with that kind of approach.
- Okay. I'm going in.
Thanks for waiting.
- No problem. - So...
I think we do have a problem.
I was looking through your individual questionnaires.
- [Deja] Mm-hmm. - And you guys both had
the same wrong answer
on the triangle problem.
- Really? - So, it was kind of
this weird, like, okay, what's going on?
Like, statistically, what are the chances
that two people are gonna have
these very unique answers?
- [Deja] Mm-hmm.
- So, I called the project director
to see what to do because if, you know,
this is a sign that information were shared
during the individual section,
that's a major problem for the study, right?
We didn't look at each other's stuff.
That was like... We were, like, on...
Like, we didn't ask each other anything,
we didn't, like, you know...
We didn't talk to each other the whole entire time.
So I don't know how we got the same answer.
But I'm, like, a hundred percent sure that that was,
like, the answer that I came up with.
[Michael] Deja was resolute about her innocence,
but I was about to maximize the consequences of cheating
should she not cooperate.
And that's a really big deal because through this grant,
we need to have integrity of the data,
we need to always obey the rules of the experiment,
and it could even be a breach of the contract
that you guys signed when you came to do this study.
- Okay.
[Michael] Deja now knew what was at stake
My job was to convince her
that I have her best interest at heart.
I have to call the director back, right?
And I could either tell him I don't know what's going on,
we can't proceed, like,
you need to come down here. - Mm-hmm.
- I don't know who he's going to involve.
The easier... - I don't think any sharing was involved, though.
- All I know is that I can't explain what happened.
- Okay. - The easier option
is to just document that,
um, information was shared.
Okay? So, if I write out,
um, you know,
"I admit
that I shared,
uh, the answer..."
- But we didn't. - [Michael] "to the triangle..."
- Is that crazy to say
that we didn't share answers, though?
Because I'm like,
I don't know what he's saying
or if he said that he looked at my answer
or... but we didn't.
[Michael] Deja wasn't quite convinced.
So the next tactic was to minimize
the impact of confessing.
[Dr. Pavlo] I don't know exactly how it happened.
I just know that we've got to figure out
the best way forward.
- [Deja] This is so weird. - I don't know exactly
how it happened.
It looks like information sharing.
If you just tell us that that happened... - Say that?
- Then what we can do is I can call the director back
and say that you guys are cooperating
and I know him. - Mm-hmm.
- [Michael] That's the best thing. - Okay.
I mean, it's not true but I'll sign it.
- Okay. If you sign and date it,
I can go and call him back,
and I'll try to get you out of here.
Okay.
It's very weird,
but...
Okay.
- Thank you very much, Deja. - You're welcome.
- I will be... I'll be right back.
- Okay. - Thanks for your patience.
- No problem.
So you did an excellent job
of communicating to her
that it was in her best interest,
that the best way out of this situation
was to confess.
- But it feels so bad.
- Of course. - I mean, she knows the seriousness.
She knows that it's a lie.
I mean, I didn't cheat.
I did not cheat.
Those were all my answers.
- Hi. - Hi.
- Okay. Uh, this concludes the study.
I'm gonna give you a debrief now,
uh, to tell you about what we're studying.
- Okay. - So, first of all,
you're not in trouble.
Okay.
The other guy here works for us.
- [Deja] Okay. - This is not a study of logic problems,
it's a study of interrogation
and false confessions.
- Mm-hmm.
Good one.
- You falsely confessed today.
- Mm-hmm. I see that.
- How do you feel?
- I feel mad at myself
because I'm usually the one who, like,
you know, just...
sticks to what,
you know, what's right. I try to, at least.
- So, what happened today?
- It was just scary, I guess,
because it's an environment I've never been in before
and then just, like, all the pressure.
It was just like,
"Uh, well, I guess, I should just sign it
and say that I did it."
[Michael] Despite knowing she was innocent
and knowing she was admitting to breaching a contract,
Deja signed a confession that in a true criminal case
could be used as evidence in a trial against her.
Imagine if there were consequences
and this was a real crime... - Mm-hmm.
- How easy it is to get someone to confess
to something without even punching them
or waterboarding them,
just being nice and tell them that
it's in their best interest.
- Yeah. That's messed up, actually.
- [Michael] Isn't it? - That's really crazy.
'Cause there's a lot of people in prison
for crimes they didn't do.
[music playing]
[Michael] The Innocence Project,
an organization dedicated
to uncovering miscarriages of justice,
estimates that 20,000 people
are currently falsely imprisoned in the U.S.
The number one cause is faulty eyewitness testimony,
and the number two cause,
false confession.
Current interrogation techniques are unreliable.
They can fail to produce truthful information
from suspects who are good at lying,
and, perhaps worse, they can manipulate
innocent suspects to confess to crimes
they've never committed.
But neuroscientists may have discovered a method
for extracting the truth that's impervious
to good liars and bad interrogators.
Dr. Peter Rosenfeld and his team
at Northwestern University,
including Ph.D. candidate Anne Ward,
have developed a high-tech method
for lie detection.
You guys brought with you today
a P300-based concealed information test.
How does that work and how is it different
than a polygraph or traditional
verbal-only interrogation techniques?
- Well, we're looking at,
um, physiological responses of the brain
in response to information that's presented.
And if the information is meaningful,
like the murder weapon that a guilty person used,
he will recognize it,
and there's a brain signature to it.
And so, the machine that we brought with us
is basically an EEG machine.
- [Michael] So the way my brain, your brain,
all of our brains respond to things
that are meaningful that we recognize is different
than the way it responds to novel meaningless things?
- Right. - Has this been used in a court?
Has it been used by a prosecution?
- [Anne] Not in court, There are some Fifth Amendment issues
as far as betraying, um, yourself,
based on your brain waves.
But you could use it for witnesses,
or you could use it within companies
that are already using polygraph methods.
- [Michael] Okay. Well, I'm excited to see this in action.
I'm gonna step out, you guys are gonna prepare the first test.
- [Peter] Okay. - Excellent. All right.
See you soon.
Okay.
We're ready for the test.
Thank you for joining me.
Hannah from Vsauce,
Wren from Corridor Digital.
So, one of us today is going to be a thief.
[Michael] Per Dr. Rosenfeld's instructions,
we randomly determined who would be the thief
by seeing whoever drew the green chip.
Three, two, one.
- [gasps] - Hannah's the thief.
Oh, my God. I knew it.
[Michael] So, Hannah, go on in.
- Look at the item. - [Hannah] Okay.
[Michael] In this real-world scenario
designed by Dr. Rosenfeld,
the designated thief actually takes the item,
handles it, and gets a good look at it.
This activity causes the item
to register in their mind,
so they can't help but recognize it later.
The other subjects are also required
to enter the room and sign in to prove that they were there.
But they never get a look at the stolen item.
And, of course, Dr. Rosenfeld and Anne have no idea
who the thief is.
Then each of us is tested.
Go ahead and take a seat here
and we'll get you all set up. - Okay.
- Basically, I'm just gonna put a couple electrodes
behind your ears and a couple on your face,
and then, um, the EEG cap on your head.
What you're gonna do is you're gonna use
these two mice in front of you...
- Mm-hmm. - To respond to the images
that you see on the screen.
So you'll see an image, a string of numbers,
an image, a string of numbers.
Anytime you see an image, no matter what it is,
you're gonna press this button.
All right. Are you ready?
[music playing]
[Michael] The images we were shown
contained a variety of jewelry items,
including the stolen one.
Of course, Wren and I hadn't seen any of them before.
[music playing]
Hannah didn't consciously react to any of them.
But would her brain waves reveal
the one item she recognizes?
It was time for the results.
[Michael] So here we are.
Have you reached a conclusion?
- Well, based on what we know,
and we know that the stolen item was a watch.
And so we looked at the brain waves
in response to the watch
in comparison to the brain waves
in response to other things.
And, uh, we have two average brain waves,
uh, or event-related potentials in each frame.
The black one is the average
brain wave response to the watch.
The red trace there is the response
to the other stimuli all averaged together.
We look for the peak-to-peak difference,
the peak down here, versus the highest peak
following this peak.
And we measure that, and it's rather obvious
that the biggest response we found was,
uh, Hannah's.
- [Michael] Wow.
- [Dr. Rosenfeld] And interesting thing, Michael,
is that you had a special response
to the watch in comparison to the other items.
That would suggest that there's something special
about that stimulus, the watch,
that is meaningful to you. Is it?
- I collect watches.
I have about 40 or 50 of them.
But Hannah might not have that kind of excuse.
- I don't have that many watches.
- [Anne] And out of three of you, she definitely has the biggest response.
- So off to jail.
[music playing]
[Michael] The P300 concealed information test
correctly identified which one of us was a thief.
But in this next test, I will be the only suspect,
and they will know that I've stolen something.
But the question will be, what did I steal?
Inside this room are seven boxes,
and inside those boxes are seven different items
that I've never seen. My task is to open only one box
at random and steal that item.
All right. We've got a...
a camouflage hat.
And that's not all. During this next test,
I will be implementing countermeasures
to try to outsmart the test.
I will think a very strong thought
every time something comes up that's irrelevant.
Will that enable me to create brain waves
powerful and dramatic enough
to not be distinguishable from my response
to the actual item I'm trying to conceal?
- Anne. - [Anne] Hello. Welcome back.
I, uh, committed a crime.
[Michael] Wish me luck, because this time,
there will be punishments like in the real world
where getting caught in a lie can have consequences.
And my friend Adam Savage was happy to advise me
on my punishment.
- Adam. - Michael.
I am going to be taking
an EEG lie detection test.
- Okay. - If I lose,
- there need to be stakes. - Yeah.
- Okay? - Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Naturally, I thought of Chinese water torture,
which as you know from personal experience,
is when someone is restrained
while water is dripped on their forehead.
And then right after that, I thought, I know just the guy
to talk to about this. - Okay.
Because I... I want it to be
actually something that I'm fearing and dreading.
So, yeah, we did an episode
on Chinese water torture on Mythbusters,
and the creepiest thing that happened
after we did this episode
was that I got an email from someone
from a throwaway account.
He said, "We found that randomizing
when the drops occurred was incredibly effective."
That anything that happens on a regular periodicity
can become a type of meditation,
and you can then tune it out.
If you couldn't predict it,
you're... he said,
"We found, we were able to induce a psychotic break
within 20 hours."
- Sounds like the stakes that I want.
- All right. - Thanks.
You're welcome, sir.
[Michael] So now, under the threat
of Chinese water torture,
I was extra motivated to beat the lie detector.
[music playing]
[Anne] All right.
That is it.
- I was trying to think about all kinds
of frightening scenarios,
I was trying to tense up to make sure
I was really uncomfortable the way I was sitting.
- Well, for most tests, that would work.
But we will take a look at this data and see...
- [Michael] Yes, we will. - What it shows.
[sighs]
Wow. Okay.
I don't think they're going to be able to figure out
what item I stole.
I really kept my mind active.
I was going crazy with countermeasures.
I was sitting uncomfortably, I was thinking about
all kinds of really crazy things.
I was thinking about like,
"What if I have diarrhea right now?
How would that feel? How do I hold it back?
And maybe I do have diarrhea."
All these things that were sort of physical
in nature as well. I thought a lot about death
and dying and being dismembered.
And if they can get it right,
I would probably blame witchcraft as well as science.
[Dr. Rosenfeld] Well, it's... I would say that's it.
Yeah, okay.
[Dr. Rosenfeld] We're ready to give him our best guess.
Hello.
- Hi. - Hi.
- [Michael] Are you guys ready? - Yup.
- Let me ask you this. First of all,
how confident do you feel?
- Pretty confident.
- What did I take?
- [Anne] The camo hat.
- [Peter] Camo hat. - [Michael] Camo hat?
- [Anne] Yeah.
[music playing]
[Michael] - That's impressive.
Did you see any evidence of countermeasures being used?
- Not something I would swear to.
- Even while I was doing the test,
I thought, you know what?
I'm reacting too quickly to the actual item.
I should also treat it as though it's irrelevant.
I should treat them all the same.
[Dr. Rosenfeld] - If you are consistently
reacting to all of the irrelevance
with their specific countermeasure responses
that you formed in your mind,
they should produce bigger P300s also.
But the biggest will still be produced by the camo hat,
even if you were countering it also.
- That means I now have to be punished.
[music playing]
Science is improving in its ability
to read people's minds.
And that raises some difficult ethical dilemmas.
We would have nothing to fear from perfect lie detectors
if the people using them had perfect morals.
So, the prospect of a scientifically rigorous method
of extracting information, while exciting,
is also terrifying.
As we continue to probe interrogation methods
scientifically, we have to also continue
to probe them ethically.
You know, Chinese water torture isn't even Chinese.
Its earliest description comes from Italy
in the 15th century.
And the Chinese name was added later
to make it sound more mysterious.
Oh, man, these irregular drops
are supposed to drive you slowly insane.
You know, I think this is a lot less
about getting information and more about punishment.
And as always,
thanks for watching.
[theme music playing]