ABSTRACT
The prospect of courtroom-ready lie detection through neuroscience is still a fair distance down the road; researchers have made significant strides that have garnered wide media attention. Though many scholars insist that it is misleading to use the term "mind reading," related research does genuinely raise the specter that a brain-scanning machine armed with computer algorithms might someday actually discover and reconstruct their private thoughts. The success of countermeasures that can affect the accuracy of lie detection results has plagued the field of polygraphy since its inception. New neuroimaging technologies such as functional near-infrared spectroscopy, which relies on measuring oxygenated/deoxygenated blood flow, offer the prospect of an even less invasive, more mobile procedure that could conceivably even be used in the courtroom as a witness testified. Even was lie detection evidence eventually to satisfy the Daubert standard, there would remain at least one significant evidentiary hurdle to its admissibility.
