Potentially offering a powerful new tool against terrorism, researchers have found a novel way to detect deception: in the liar's blushing face.
The technique, described in the journal, Nature, uses a thermal camera to detect sudden, involuntary shifts of blood flow in the face. The system performed as accurately as a traditional polygraph, the scientists report.
Yet the camera can provide answers instantly, and does not require a highly trained specialist to operate it or interpret its results. This makes it far better suited than the polygraph for a new, high-tech approach to security that is already raising the hackles of civil libertarians: the screening of large numbers of citizens, at airports and other sensitive areas, who have done nothing wrong.
"The next decade is going to see the development of truly accurate lie detectors," said Stephen M. Kosslyn, an expert on detecting lies and a professor of psychology at Harvard University.
The prototype, built by researchers at the Mayo Clinic and Honeywell Laboratories in Minnesota, is at least 2 years from being ready for general use. But other scientists said the discovery of previously unknown physiological changes in the face was itself an important step forward.
"This is potentially very important work, which may open a new window on the mind," said Kosslyn.
Pushed by technological advances, and with fresh interest, since Sept. 11, the discovery is part of a boom in the scientific study of deceit and its detection. Although the lie remains a mysterious phenomenon, researchers in recent years have found a number of new approaches that might replace the polygraph, from brain scans, to subtle changes in eye movement, to sparks of electrical activity that signal a person has seen a victim or a crime scene before.
The new finding, though, is remarkable for its simplicity. When a person tells a lie, the team found, there is a sudden rush of blood to the area around the eyes, according to the Mayo Clinic's Dr. James A. Levine. Although the change is not: ordinarily visible, the blood warms the skin, causing hands of color to appear through a camera sensitive to heat.
The team devised a computer program that can identify the telltale changes based on the camera images. In testing at the US Department of Defense Polygraph Institute, which trains federal polygraph examiners, the device performed better than polygraphs, with 85 percent accuracy compared with 70 percent for the polygraph.
Compared with a traditional polygraph a thermal camera ______.
A．can show accurate results
B．can easily be handled by anybody
C．is a high-tech approach to security
D．is used to fight against terrorism
此题为多项选择题。
In crime novels the mysteries seen in detective stories are retained, but the investigation focuses more on character
than on physical clues or on fooling the reader. Police officers had been detectives in fiction ever since Dickens, but with the police-procedural novel, beginning with V as in Victim by Lawrence Treat, the focus became the grim realities of police work—corruption, bribes, lying, and the necessity for informers.
An emphasis on police work and on criminal psychology (understanding the motivation for a crime) characterized
much British detective fiction beginning in the 1920s. This can be seen in the works of P. D) James, who introduced Inspector Adam Dalgliesh in Cover Her Face (1962); Ruth Rendell, with Inspector Reginald Wexford in From Doon with Death (1964); and Colin Dexter with Inspector Morse in Last Bus to Woodstock (1975). Other successful writers in this school, including Catherine Aird, Reginald Hill, Patricia Moyes, and June Thomson, have at the center of their works an imperfect though sensitive detective whose life and attitudes are of almost equal importance to the mystery. This style. became so popular that the formula has occasionally been reversed, most notably in the darkly comic novels of Robert Barnard and in the works of Joyce Porter, whose Inspector Wilfred Dover is as unsympathetic as he is slovenly.
Contemporary crime-fiction writers have been strongly influenced not only by Ross Macdonald, but by Mickey Spillane and John D) MacDonald. MacDonald's stories about salvage expert Travis McGee shed light on the corruptions of modern life. In the 1970s many American writers of detective fiction began to focus, at least in part, on their detective's personal life. Among the most notable creators of private investigators whose character extends beyond the case they are probing are Bill Pronzini, Robert B) Parker, Lawrence Block, and Loren D) Estleman.
At the same time, some writers have avoided graphic violence and explorations of the criminal mind, and have returned to the time-honored device of hooking the reader by slowly revealing a series of clues. Works of this kind, most of which have a lighthearted flavor, have been granted cozies. Charlotte MacLeod's two series about Peter Shandy and Sarah Kelling made her one of the most popular of the cozy writers. Other writers in this school include Carolyn Hart, Nancy Pickard, and Jane Langton.
The crime novels of the 1980s saw increasing numbers of female investigators who, like their male counterparts, were quick-witted and capable of dealing with dangerous situations. Marcia Muller was described by fellow writer Sue Grafton as the "founding mother" of the form. for her creation of Sharon McCone in Edwin of the Iron Shoes, (1977). Grafton's wisecracking private detective Kinsey Millhone is featured in a series of alphabetically titled mysteries, starting with "A" Is for Alibi which was published in 1982, the same year that the self-reliant private eye Victoria Iphigenia ("V. I. ") Warshawski made her first appearance in Indemnity Only, written by Sara Paretsky. Patricia Cornwell brought autopsy analysis to the forefront of detective fiction with Postmortem (1990), centering on medical examiner Kay Scarpeta.
The combination of crime fiction with other popular types, long a popular practice, gained new favor in the late 20th century. The historical detective story has several pioneers, including Christie's Death Comes as the End (1944), set in ancient Egypt, but the true progenitors were Lillian de la Torre with Dr. Sam Johnson, Detector (1946) and John Dickson Cart with The Bride of Newgate (1950) and other novels. The Brother Cadfael stories of Ellis Peters (a pseudonym for Edith Pargeter), which take place in 12th-century Britain, are filled with warmth, humor, and young love, as well as sleuthing. The Name of the Rose (1983), also set in medieval Europe and written by Italian aut
A．The investigation focuses more on character than on physical clues or on fooling the reader.
B．Police officers had been detectives in fiction.
C．An emphasis on police work and on criminal psychology.
D．The focus became the grim realities of police work—corruption, bribes, lying, and the necessity for informers.
