Big ideas for TED talk

• "Human lie detector"
• Changes in lying habits as you age
• Lying disorders
• Catch the liar

But the biggest part..... make it INTERACTIVE

Polygraph One Pager

Have you ever watched a movie or a TV show and wondered how the lie detectors work? Have you ever questioned whether or not those lie detectors are completely accurate? Most people claim that these lie detectors can’t possibly be wrong. It’s a very common assumption considering how we see these being used as proof in multiple shows and movies, but you will soon come to find that these devices may not be as accurate as you originally thought.

While looking on the American Psychological Association, I found an interesting article on the reliability of polygraphs (also known as lie detectors). As the author writes, “Evidence indicates that strategies used to "beat" polygraph examinations, so-called countermeasures, may be effective”. In other words, the author is trying to get across that the polygraph tests may not be as accurate as you think. As the author said, you can fool a polygraph test using common countermeasures to ensure not getting caught. Some of these countermeasures include, simple physical movements and manipulation. The author also states that “A particular problem is that polygraph research has not separated placebo-like effects (the subject's belief in the efficacy of the procedure) from the actual relationship between deception and their physiological responses”. This proves that the polygraph tests aren’t accurate a majority of the time due to outside factors that could cause physical reaction. These outside factors could cause the polygraph to detect lies even when the participant is telling the truth.

As for me, I, like many others, used to think that polygraph tests were more accurate than not when it came to detecting lies. But after reading this article, I’m starting to have different thoughts. The evidence in this article led me to realize that more goes into detecting lies than what I originally thought. I never realized that outside factors could influence the data, causing the results to be skewed. In conclusion, I came to find that I was wrong about the accuracy of the polygraph and came away having learned some valuable new information that will help me and my partner further our research in lying.

Field Experience

Me and my partner Ali decided to focus more on field experience for this part of our 20 time project. We focused more on doing field experience because our project focuses on a topic where it is essential that we do experiments on people of all different ages. So far we have been able to get field experience at the middle school and are hoping to get field experience here at Kennedy High School in the coming days. At the middle school we ended up getting some great footage of liars and non liars, and this footage helped us to go back and review the physical signs of the liars in order to better explain to the class how to tell if a person is lying by using physical body language. I feel as though all of the videos we have taken will be TED talk worthy because it's easier to explain the signs of lying by testing yourself with some real people. By doing this field experience, I feel as though it gave us a renewed excitement for our project. (Please see email with videos for a glimpse of our experiences)

Week 3 - 3-05-17

Many people say that our project isn’t worth the time and effort. Many ask why we can’t just look up the information online. Some may ask us why even bother with this project. What’s the point? Why go through the work of it? Just take the easy way out and look it up. We think differently than what most in society would think about researching and experimenting with this topic.

Stanford University’s Anthony Wagner disagrees. He makes a good point about how lie detection is studied in lab settings. The big picture statement is that they aren’t able to model them well. Wagner says that, “laboratory studies involve instruction to tell a low-stakes lie about an action they recently performed. However, in the real world, lies are self-generated, often high risk and emotionally charged, and lie detection may occur years after the event in question”.

I would first like to address the fact that some people may say that this project isn’t worth the time. Me and my partner disagree with that. Because there are so many conflicting ideas between scientists and no complete and reliable ideas as to why people lie and I think that this is an excellent topic to do my own personal research on. Because the use of lie detectors is so controversial as to whether or not it works,  I feel as though it would be very useful to see if me and my partner can become our own human lie detectors.

I also find it interesting that as a person grows up they lie for different reasons according to one of the articles I have read. I feel as though this is important because it can be useful information to know when raising a child. The Truth About Lying states that, “if you can step back and view lying as a part of your child’s emotional and intellectual development, you will find that telling lies doesn’t condemn your child to a life of betrayal or serious behavior problems”. This supports the “Why do this project?” argument. If we can learn more about how and why children lie we can possibly get the basics as to why people lie in general and it can be our first stepping stone into research on how lying disorders are different from what we call “normal lying” and maybe gain insight on if lying disorders could possibly be related to the brain being stuck in a phase that a child might grow out of.

Overall I find this 20 time project to be extremely interesting due to the many factors that we must consider. I also find this project very interesting because of how this topic has no definite rhyme or reason and how scientists still disagree among themselves on this topic. Who knows, maybe one day we will use this research to change the world.

Week 2- 2/26/17

So far what we have done for our 20 time project includes...

1. Do some preliminary research on our topic
2. Decide what age groups we are going to test
3. Create a plan for how we are going to test our subjects
4. Contact the elementary school, middle school, and Mr.Kline with information regarding our project

What we are planning to get started with this week for 20 time...

1. Creating a permission form to give to participants to ensure that we are able to use their photos for our project
2. Set up conference/testing dates with the principals of each school

Questions to ask

1. What are the signs of a true liar and how are they different between children and adults?
2. If so at what ages do the signs of lying start to change?
3. Does a person who is a pathological liar have different physical cues as normal people?
4. When children lie are the physical signs more strongly focused on one area?

Week 1 - 2/2/17

The proposal I originally came up with was an idea to try to see if people lie differently when certain senses are stimulated. I got a lot of feedback on this project that includes questions like, how would you test this and comments about the time it would consume. With this feedback I got I decided to change my 20 time project idea just slightly. Instead of testing if people lie differently with different senses stimulated, me and Allie are deciding to test and see if children and adults lie differently.
The process I used to modify this idea consisted of brainstorm, propose, modify, and start research. What helped me to move forward in this process was discussing things with my partner Allie. This helped to get many ideas "on the table" and helped by throwing in a new perspective.
So far I have accomplished choosing an idea that will work as well as starting effective research. The only thing that has "gone wrong" so far is the fact that we had to modify our idea a little bit to make it more achievable.
During next week's 20 time I would like to accomplish more research as well as possibly start practicing how to be a human lie detector and determine how to tell if someone is lying based on not only verbal ques but also physical ques.