Social Engineering Blogs

An Aggregator for Blogs About Social Engineering and Related Fields

Magnet Magic: “The Truth of the Matter”

A new study suggests that magnets can be used for more than just pinning your kid’s artwork to the refrigerator.

Magnetic fields have been used in science for quite a while for a plethora of things ranging from fMRI’s to the simple navigational compass.  It has long been known that magnetic fields, which are invisible to the human eye, can have effects on the tangible world.

What if magnets could effect our ability to deceive people?

Well, Smartplanet has reported on that very idea.  Researchers, Inga Karton and Talis Bachmann from Estonia, revealed that magnets, strategically placed, can affect a person’s proclivity to lie.  Scientists stimulated a part of the brain labeled DPC or dorsolateral prefrontal cortex with magnets.  This same type of scientific technique is used to study elusive qualities of human nature, such as morality and memory.

Law enforcement everywhere would love to procure an instrument as beneficial as a truth extractor.  What could be better or easier than placing an innocuous item such as a magnet on someone and being able to extract the truth?

This study, published in Behavioural Brain Research, has a long way to go to prove that magnets directly influence a person’s propensity to lie.  The sample size of this group was very small (16 participants) and there was no real motivation for the subjects to lie.

However, the preliminary findings are interesting and further studies could prove beneficial for how lie detectives try to extrapolate the “truth of the matter”.

What do you think? Could a simple magnet be used as a lie detection tool?  If lie detection were that easy, wouldn’t we have figured it out by now?

Related articles

Researchers find magnetic brain stimulation appears to make lying more difficult (medicalxpress.com)
Study Suggests Magnets Can Force You to Tell the Truth (science.slashdot.org)
After A Magnetic Pulse to the Brain, Study Subjects Cannot Tell a Lie By Rebecca Boyle (imullins89.wordpress.com)

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Missing Woman 911 Call/Radio Interview

Lie detection is not just about being able to detect deception but also focuses on being able to detect truthfulness.  When someone goes missing everyone should start out as a suspect.  Being able to detect truthfulness as well as deception could help an investigation progress more quickly.

Katelyn Markham, a 22 year old college student from Fairfield, Ohio, disappeared on August 14th, 2011.

John Carter, the fiance of Katelyn Markham, is a prime suspect in the investigation.  In a radio interview Carter stated that he understands that the Fairfield Police Department have not ruled out any suspects and that anyone close to her will be under investigation.

The couple, who have been together for 6 years, was planning on getting married after Katelyn graduated from college this September.

Carter has yet to do an in-person interview.  Below is the 911 call and a radio interview he gave a week after the mysterious disappearance of his fiance.

In the radio interview Carter stated,   “I don’t need a lawyer because I did not do anything”  He also uses the past tense in reference to Katelyn, “They [her parents] really loved her…”

We blogged in the past about  “statement analysis”.  Our Determining Mental States from Tone of Voice Part 1 and Part 2. talks about the analysis of verbal statements to identify meaningful content areas where “there is more to the story than is being told”

To listen to Carter’s radio interview with Sloanie and Tracy click the video below.

Click on the video below to listen to the 911 call from John Carter reporting his fiance missing.

Also take a look at another statement analysis, from Susan Constantine, of a recent 911 call.

What are your thoughts on the 911 call and the interview?

Do you detect Truthfulness or something else?

Related articles

Fiance Has ‘Gut Feeling’ Missing Woman’s Alive (abcnews.go.com)

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