Page 28 - Deception at work all chapters EBook

Introduction 19

THE SILENT TALKER good enough to aid in many situations, to
change a line of questioning, to reinterview
In late January 2003, Dr Zuhair Bandar, someone and such things. For example, the
Dr Janet Rothwell and her colleagues Yorkshire Ripper was interviewed at least
at Manchester Metropolitan University five times. I’d like to think that it wouldn’t
announced a new lie detection machine, happen with the Silent Talker around.’ The
called the ‘Silent Talker’ which was ‘fast, system has a claimed accuracy of 80 per
cheap, non-invasive and works virtually in cent.
real time’ The system consists of a television
camera focused on the subject’s eyes, linked Supposedly banks and insurance
to a computer. It detects tiny movements of companies have already expressed an
muscles around the eyes and mouth, cheeks interest in the Silent Talker, which could be
and forehead, which are continuous when a used in everything from job interviews to
person is being deceitful (i.e. micro tremors police investigations.
see Chapter [xref]). ‘The current results are

It’s a nice story that again raises the reluctance to provide applied solutions and the parti-
tioning of some academics from reality.

THE REAL WORLD legislation; and so what if the machine
does say – with 80 per cent accuracy – that
It is true that Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire someone is lying? What does the interviewer
Ripper, was interviewed a number of do with this knowledge? Perhaps he says,
times, in the dead of night, in the street ‘Eh by gum, Peter lad, it is obvious from this
by uniformed officers. Is the suggestion gizmo that you are telling porkies’ to face
that every police office should be given a the riposte: ‘No comment except stick the
Sainsbury’s trolley to wheel the Silent Talker machine where the sun don’t shine’.
equipment around? Does anyone really
believe that such equipment would get past
human rights and the other smelly-socked

In deception there is an absence of applied solutions

Most academics hold firm in their belief that unless something can be measured, dissected
and scientifically proven down to the last microdot it is of no value. This is why they dismiss
the polygraph, VSA SCAN and some good suggestions in relation to exculpatory lies made
primarily by American training agencies such as John E. Reid.5 People who use the polygraph
or the Reid method know they work but applied knowledge seems to count for nothing with
academia. This is a great shame.

5 See www.reid.com