Educing Information: Interrogation - National Intelligence University

DoDPI reports 70% (Ryan and Pollina, 2002), Pavlidis (2004) and Pavlidis and
Levine (2001) report 78%, and Pavlidis et al. (2002) report 75% (this is probably
because the papers report a variety of cohort sizes).
This thermal imaging study was conducted in conjunction with a polygraph
examination. According to the DoDPI report, thermal imaging of the eye and nose
facial region, combined with the polygraph, resulted in the highest accuracy rates:
83% for polygraph and SST of the eye and nose regions, compared to 67% for the
polygraph alone. It should be noted that DARPA has funded research conducted by
Pavlidis and others (Murthy et al., 2004; Murthy and Pavlidis, 2005) to measure
breathing function remotely via thermal imaging.
The second study was conducted by Barron Associates, Inc. (BAI) and
researchers from the University of Virginia (Burkholder and Parker, 2005).
However, the results of this study are proprietary, and distribution is limited to
U.S. government agencies only.
Potential
Thermal imaging allows rapid, automated analysis of changes in regional
facial blood flow. It can be conducted non-invasively, covertly, and in real time. A
thorough review of the literature revealed that only two investigations of thermal
imaging and deception have been conducted to date. This suggests that thermal
imaging is an emerging technology requiring more investigation and more peer
review from the scientific community before it is ready for deployment.
Truth Serums/Narcoanalysis
A variety of drugs have been referred to as truth serums: scopolamine, sodium
amytal, and sodium pentothal. All of these drugs inhibit control of the nervous
system and reduce inhibitions. Currently, sodium amytal and sodium pentothal
are used most commonly as anesthetics, and less commonly to recover repressed
memories (Odesho, 2004). However, the three substances are best known as a
result of being administered as “truth drugs” during police interrogations. Their
use in all of these settings is sometimes referred to as narcoanalysis. When
these serums are used, it is assumed that the subject will respond to questions
by providing truthful answers, or at least what the subject believes to be truthful
answers, because the drug makes it difficult for the subject to provide false
information.
Dr. Robert House initiated the use of “truth serum” in the 1920s when
he interrogated two suspected criminals injected with scopolamine (Winter,
2005). During the 1930s the Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory (SCDL) at
Northwestern University conducted experiments with scopolamine, both in the
laboratory and in criminal investigations. This highly visible work lent support
for scopolamine and other drugs in extracting truthful information (Winter, 2005).
Although a number of studies were conducted in the 1940s and 1950s to assess
both the accuracy and veracity of truth serum-derived information, their results
varied significantly (Odesho, 2004). In the decades to follow, truth serums were
used by the U.S. military and intelligence agencies during the Cold War and
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