YOU DON'T MIND TAKING A LITTLE BRAIN SCAN DURING YOUR JOB INTERVIEW TO SEE IF YOU ARE RACIST, DO YOU, GOY?
'Every right-thinking person knows that racism is wrong - yet even today some people persist in their narrow-minded and bigoted beliefs. Pioneering research from Harvard University may soon detect even those who try to hide their views by publicly claiming to be "tolerant" while secretly harbouring racist thoughts.
"This is the next level in polygraph technology" says Julia ((Rubenstein)) of Harvard's Behavioral ((Psychology)) Department. "Current polygraphs measure stress indicators such as heart rate, blood pressure and perspiration. While it is true that lying under questioning usually raises stress levels, not all stress indicates lies - and for a practised liar, lies do not raise stress indicators. With this newly developed system we can see past the lies by monitoring brain activity."
Thanks to years of painstaking research the functions of various areas of the brain have been mapped out. When this knowledge is used in conjunction with sensitive monitoring devices it is possible to tell roughly what a persons brain is doing - even if you can't read the thoughts themselves.
"A person who is contemplating a math problem will show significant activity in the sections of the brain that deal with logic - whereas a person painting a picture will use entirely different areas" explains Rubenstein. "Someone who is answering a question truthfully will be accessing their memory centres - whereas a person who is lying will be using the creative portions of their brain to construct a falsehood. By monitoring brain activity we can easily tell if someone is lying. This will be particularly helpful when trying to detect thought patterns that racists are practised in keeping concealed. After all, who would want to hire a racist?"
While few employers today subject applicants to a polygraph, Rubenstein suggests that future developments of the technology would not require "invasive" testing procedures.
"Police investigators are trained to spot involuntary eye movements which indicate lying" she notes. "By careful study of subjects who are visually recorded while connected to the detection equipment we will be able to make correlations with subtle facial movements that even skilled interrogators would miss. This will give us a "facial map" that mirrors the "brain map" we already have. Recorded interviews are already common - all it would take is a high-definition camera and a computer with the right software to tell if the applicant - or criminal suspect for that matter - is a racist."
dailymail.co.uk
