As the government plans to extend the use of lie detectors to terrorism and domestic abuse, our science editor puts himself in the hot seat
“Did you plant the bomb?” It’s not a question I’ve been asked before but I’m comfortable enough denying it. Truth is – I didn’t plant a bomb. I planted a pretend bomb – a shoebox filled with webcams and wires – and I’m relying on my physiology to share the pedantic, but surely relevant, distinction. “No,” I answer. There is no bomb.
I’ve been told to look straight ahead at the wall so have no idea what Amanda – not her real name – makes of my response. A trainee polygraph examiner, she is hunched over a laptop monitoring my reaction to her questions via sensors on my hand, arm and around my chest. She tells me to sit still. The seat pad has detected a shuffle – a warning I may be deploying “countermeasures”. One such trick, I learn too late, is to firmly clench the buttocks.
