7 ms·

Is there any truth in truth serums? (2015)

61 points by Hooke 7y ago

dehrmann 7y ago
Interesting that it doesn't mention Kallocain. It's a dystopian novel based on a truth serum.
Taniwha 7y ago
So about as useful as good as polygraphs then
r_singh 7y ago
Great Mind Field episode by VSauce where he injects himself with a truth serum and is still able to lie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWoPI-VoFV0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWoPI-VoFV0
- throwawayhhakdl 7y ago
  Without having watched the link, a serum that prevented you from lying would be obviously impossible. Truth serum is about increasing willingness to reveal things that you normally wouldn’t. More of a blabbermouth serum.
droithomme 7y ago
Based on the anecdotes in the article, spiking cigarettes with marijuana extract actually had some success in getting some people talking.
wruza 7y ago
>As with alcohol, the results of hypnosis were never completely trusted; Sigmund Freud, for example, used the technique to uncover patients’ repressed memories of sexual abuse but eventually admitted that most of the recollections were fantasies. “Such widespread perversion against children is scarcely probable,” he concluded. Memory can play funny tricks (except in court).
- post_below 7y ago
  This is a side note... There's no evidence that hypnosis is reliable, true. But "widespread perversion against children" as we now know, is not just probable, it's reality. 28% of children according to one study. No one really knows though, since it's of course one of the most underreported crimes. https://victimsofcrime.org/media/reporting-on-child-sexual-abuse/child-sexual-abuse-statistics https://victimsofcrime.org/media/reporting-on-child-sexual-a...
  - adrianN 7y ago
    I'd like to know the exact questions asked to determine whether someone was sexually abused or not, but I have a hard time finding the studies cited in your link. As I interpret the text from your link, a teenager voluntarily sending nudes to their partner would count as sexually abused because they participated in the creation of child pornography.
    - ben_w 7y ago
      Although that might be part of it, I don’t find 28% to be a surprise. One reason is that I’ve been told the age of consent in many places was 12 as recently as the Victorian era [0], and why would it be that low if there wasn’t a lot of people who wanted that? (It might just have been politicians who wanted that, but I fear that’s merely unjustified optimism). The other main reason is the number of women who tell me about traumatic experiences is high enough that it’s plausible all of them have been (there’s no reason for me to know about everyone’s history, so of course I believe I know someone who hasn’t told me and never will). Of course, this percentage does mean that the “think of the children” meme ought to put all children under 24-7 surveillance so that nobody can ever touch them. Side effects haven’t slowed that meme down before, why would it now? [0] I never cared to check, so I don’t know how many or when any given jurisdiction changed
      - beagle3 7y ago
        > and why would it be that low if there wasn’t a lot of people who wanted that? Not to detract from your other points, which I agree with, but ... according to e.g. [0], and I've found similar data in other places, life expectancy for a girl in the victorian era was ~40. So you can't judge the number 12 by today's standards. [0] https://www.quora.com/What-was-the-life-expectancy-like-during-Victorian-England https://www.quora.com/What-was-the-life-expectancy-like-duri...
Sevrene 7y ago
Not quite truth serum, but if you feel more comfortable with someone, you are more like to be more open to them. If you've watched some police interrogations you might see that one of the things they try and do is build rapport with the person they are questioning for this reason. So decreasing inhibitions so that you don't care about this, or increasing empathy so that you feel more trust in general can let people be much more truthful. For instance, alcohol or MDMA, or talking to a close friend compared to a stranger.
- pdkl95 7y ago
  Even if we ignore the strong ethical, humanitarian, and strategic objections, using torture as a tool to extract information always seemed like the wrong tool for the job. Causing someone distress/pain obviously decreases the chance that they will tell you the information willingly and incentivizes simply making something up to make the torture stop. Instead, modern successful[1] methods of interrogation like the Reid technique[2][3] are designed around incentivizing the desired outcome. Very low (sub-psychadelic) doses of MDMA in a comfortable "social" or "party" setting might be very effective. I don't know how true the story is, but I once heard an anecdote about this method working during WW2. The Allied soldiers took a German POW out for beers and just chatted with without trying to push any particular subject. Then they made a boasting claim about how German aircraft couldn't keep up with the latest American engineering, causing the POW to respond with an excited objection explaining their new airplane's capabilities (the information they wanted). [1] Often dangerously successful - the Reid technique in particular is know for a very high rate of false positives. "Of the three hundred and eleven people exonerated through post-conviction DNA testing, more than a quarter had given false confessions"[2] [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reid_technique https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reid_technique [3] The Babylon 5 episode "Intersections in Real Time" (S4E18) is almost entirely Sheridan being interrogated with the Reid technique.
  - reacweb 7y ago
    I have heard that torture is not very effective in obtaining information, but works very well in frightening all people and making them obedient.
_k3ok 7y ago
Several years ago, MIT Professor of Marketing Drazen Prelec proposed a "mathematical truth serum" which he claimed could help government agencies predict future terrorist events. MIT and a local defense contractor used his work to win a $12 million grant from the intelligence community. The only justification provided for using the mathematical truth serum (a trivial application of KL-divergence) was that it would "promote honesty" among intelligence analysts who may hold divergent opinions. Unfortunately, honesty on the part of MIT and its defense contracting partner was in short supply during the bid and proposal process. Federal prosecutors were tipped off shortly after the program was funded, prompting the government to swiftly cancel the contract.
- majos 7y ago
  Source? I can’t find any other info about this.
  - _k3ok 7y ago
    https://nel.mit.edu/bayesian-truth-serum/ https://nel.mit.edu/bayesian-truth-serum/ To my knowledge, criminal charges against MIT and/or its defense contracting partner were never filed.
- buckminster 7y ago
  Ha! He is a professor of marketing. Of course it was bullshit. The grant assessors should read the story of the scorpion and the frog.
  - _k3ok 7y ago
    That's why I included a reference to his job title here. When this country's intelligence agencies are looking to "professors of marketing" for new ideas to reduce terrorism, this is exactly what they should expect to land in their taxpayer-installed stainless steel toilets. Apparently no one on the government side ever received the memo about the "replication crisis" that afflicts so much of what is passed off today as "research" in the field of psychology. In which case, the gullible suckers on the government side provided the perfect audience for this snake-oil selling salesman. The fact that MIT and the defense contractor were only guilty of "marketeer-ing" here (rather than racketeering ... think Jeffrey Epstein, the underage girls that were trafficked to MIT professors, and the thank-you notes from the MIT administration) is probably why this "bad act" on the part of MIT and the defense contractor received far less media attention.
rahuldottech 7y ago
Also read: Drunk Talk Is Real Talk: The Science Behind What You Said Last Night: https://www.elitedaily.com/life/culture/drunk-talk-real-talk/704272 https://www.elitedaily.com/life/culture/drunk-talk-real-talk...
snctm 7y ago
Years ago at university I participated as a subject in a memory study that involved the injection of scopolamine. I was familiar with it's reputation as a truth serum and very curious to feel the effect. But it's utter nonsense. There was little more than an awfully dry mouth and a short-term memory so impaired I felt stuporous. In my opinion any euphoriant will elicit more truth telling than scopolamine.
- ganzuul 7y ago
  I think people can make their expectations come true given just an active placebo. Maybe it is related to how rapid induction hypnosis works.
- londons_explore 7y ago
  > short-term memory so impaired I felt stuporous This in itself is really beneficial as a truth serum. By enquiring multiple times the victim can't remember their previous answer, so therefore reveals which parts of their story are true and which are fictitious.
  - Psyladine 7y ago
    There we have to distinguish between dishonesty and a lie. A deliberate construction on the spot might not survive multiple angles, this is the basis of interrogation rooms after all, anyone will trip themselves up repeating versions over and over again. What won't necessarily find the light of day is deception, a pattern of behavior. A drug dealer might get caught up in where he was or who he was with at a given time on a given date, but he'd have to be intellectually impaired to admit he was a professional criminal for a living.
- spodek 7y ago
  > it's utter nonsense That's what they want you to think! /s
_tkzm 7y ago
who needs expensive and hard to obtain truth serum when all you need is alcohol...
yters 7y ago
Plato recommended getting people drunk to find out the truth in Laws.
bobowzki 7y ago
I'm an anesthesiologist so I frequently inject people with hypnotics and sedatives. There's definitely a sweet spot where people will say things they probably otherwise wouldn't. Much like alcohol I guess but perhaps a bit more potent.
- Pigo 7y ago
  I had a spontaneous pneumothorax a couple times in highschool, so I ended up having a lung surgery to prevent them when I was 18. To this day my mom refuses to reveal the things I said to her while I was in recovery, and the following days when I was on Demerol. It drives me crazy because there is a lot I could have said, did I mention I was 18? I know she's probably doing me a favor, but it seems unfair. I've since wondered if I have a big mouth when I'm dosed because that's who I really am underneath my impulse control, or if that's how everyone is.
  - TallGuyShort 7y ago
    Honestly being partially anesthetized and saying something horrific might be my biggest fear.
    - bobowzki 7y ago
      We are used to it. :-)
      - TallGuyShort 7y ago
        Of the people I'm worried about hearing my confessions or fantasies, people with whom I exclusively have a doctor/patient relationship are the bottom of the list. It's the early visitors I receive in recovery that scare me :)
        bobowzki 7y ago
        Hehe understood.
  - 7y ago
downerending 7y ago
Entirely speculation, but governments will soon have (if they don't already) the ability to extract the answers to yes-no questions from subjects via fMRI or something similar. It'll be interesting to see whether this capability moves out into the law enforcement community.

61 points by Hooke 7y ago

dehrmann 7y ago

Interesting that it doesn't mention Kallocain. It's a dystopian novel based on a truth serum.

Taniwha 7y ago

So about as useful as good as polygraphs then

r_singh 7y ago

Great Mind Field episode by VSauce where he injects himself with a truth serum and is still able to lie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWoPI-VoFV0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWoPI-VoFV0

throwawayhhakdl 7y ago
Without having watched the link, a serum that prevented you from lying would be obviously impossible. Truth serum is about increasing willingness to reveal things that you normally wouldn’t. More of a blabbermouth serum.

droithomme 7y ago

Based on the anecdotes in the article, spiking cigarettes with marijuana extract actually had some success in getting some people talking.

wruza 7y ago

>As with alcohol, the results of hypnosis were never completely trusted; Sigmund Freud, for example, used the technique to uncover patients’ repressed memories of sexual abuse but eventually admitted that most of the recollections were fantasies. “Such widespread perversion against children is scarcely probable,” he concluded. Memory can play funny tricks (except in court).

post_below 7y ago
This is a side note... There's no evidence that hypnosis is reliable, true. But "widespread perversion against children" as we now know, is not just probable, it's reality. 28% of children according to one study. No one really knows though, since it's of course one of the most underreported crimes. https://victimsofcrime.org/media/reporting-on-child-sexual-abuse/child-sexual-abuse-statistics https://victimsofcrime.org/media/reporting-on-child-sexual-a...
- adrianN 7y ago
  I'd like to know the exact questions asked to determine whether someone was sexually abused or not, but I have a hard time finding the studies cited in your link. As I interpret the text from your link, a teenager voluntarily sending nudes to their partner would count as sexually abused because they participated in the creation of child pornography.
  - ben_w 7y ago
    Although that might be part of it, I don’t find 28% to be a surprise. One reason is that I’ve been told the age of consent in many places was 12 as recently as the Victorian era [0], and why would it be that low if there wasn’t a lot of people who wanted that? (It might just have been politicians who wanted that, but I fear that’s merely unjustified optimism). The other main reason is the number of women who tell me about traumatic experiences is high enough that it’s plausible all of them have been (there’s no reason for me to know about everyone’s history, so of course I believe I know someone who hasn’t told me and never will). Of course, this percentage does mean that the “think of the children” meme ought to put all children under 24-7 surveillance so that nobody can ever touch them. Side effects haven’t slowed that meme down before, why would it now? [0] I never cared to check, so I don’t know how many or when any given jurisdiction changed
    - beagle3 7y ago
      > and why would it be that low if there wasn’t a lot of people who wanted that? Not to detract from your other points, which I agree with, but ... according to e.g. [0], and I've found similar data in other places, life expectancy for a girl in the victorian era was ~40. So you can't judge the number 12 by today's standards. [0] https://www.quora.com/What-was-the-life-expectancy-like-during-Victorian-England https://www.quora.com/What-was-the-life-expectancy-like-duri...

Sevrene 7y ago

Not quite truth serum, but if you feel more comfortable with someone, you are more like to be more open to them. If you've watched some police interrogations you might see that one of the things they try and do is build rapport with the person they are questioning for this reason. So decreasing inhibitions so that you don't care about this, or increasing empathy so that you feel more trust in general can let people be much more truthful. For instance, alcohol or MDMA, or talking to a close friend compared to a stranger.

pdkl95 7y ago
Even if we ignore the strong ethical, humanitarian, and strategic objections, using torture as a tool to extract information always seemed like the wrong tool for the job. Causing someone distress/pain obviously decreases the chance that they will tell you the information willingly and incentivizes simply making something up to make the torture stop. Instead, modern successful[1] methods of interrogation like the Reid technique[2][3] are designed around incentivizing the desired outcome. Very low (sub-psychadelic) doses of MDMA in a comfortable "social" or "party" setting might be very effective. I don't know how true the story is, but I once heard an anecdote about this method working during WW2. The Allied soldiers took a German POW out for beers and just chatted with without trying to push any particular subject. Then they made a boasting claim about how German aircraft couldn't keep up with the latest American engineering, causing the POW to respond with an excited objection explaining their new airplane's capabilities (the information they wanted). [1] Often dangerously successful - the Reid technique in particular is know for a very high rate of false positives. "Of the three hundred and eleven people exonerated through post-conviction DNA testing, more than a quarter had given false confessions"[2] [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reid_technique https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reid_technique [3] The Babylon 5 episode "Intersections in Real Time" (S4E18) is almost entirely Sheridan being interrogated with the Reid technique.
- reacweb 7y ago
  I have heard that torture is not very effective in obtaining information, but works very well in frightening all people and making them obedient.

_k3ok 7y ago

Several years ago, MIT Professor of Marketing Drazen Prelec proposed a "mathematical truth serum" which he claimed could help government agencies predict future terrorist events. MIT and a local defense contractor used his work to win a $12 million grant from the intelligence community. The only justification provided for using the mathematical truth serum (a trivial application of KL-divergence) was that it would "promote honesty" among intelligence analysts who may hold divergent opinions. Unfortunately, honesty on the part of MIT and its defense contracting partner was in short supply during the bid and proposal process. Federal prosecutors were tipped off shortly after the program was funded, prompting the government to swiftly cancel the contract.

majos 7y ago
Source? I can’t find any other info about this.
- _k3ok 7y ago
  https://nel.mit.edu/bayesian-truth-serum/ https://nel.mit.edu/bayesian-truth-serum/ To my knowledge, criminal charges against MIT and/or its defense contracting partner were never filed.
buckminster 7y ago
Ha! He is a professor of marketing. Of course it was bullshit. The grant assessors should read the story of the scorpion and the frog.
- _k3ok 7y ago
  That's why I included a reference to his job title here. When this country's intelligence agencies are looking to "professors of marketing" for new ideas to reduce terrorism, this is exactly what they should expect to land in their taxpayer-installed stainless steel toilets. Apparently no one on the government side ever received the memo about the "replication crisis" that afflicts so much of what is passed off today as "research" in the field of psychology. In which case, the gullible suckers on the government side provided the perfect audience for this snake-oil selling salesman. The fact that MIT and the defense contractor were only guilty of "marketeer-ing" here (rather than racketeering ... think Jeffrey Epstein, the underage girls that were trafficked to MIT professors, and the thank-you notes from the MIT administration) is probably why this "bad act" on the part of MIT and the defense contractor received far less media attention.

rahuldottech 7y ago

Also read: Drunk Talk Is Real Talk: The Science Behind What You Said Last Night: https://www.elitedaily.com/life/culture/drunk-talk-real-talk/704272 https://www.elitedaily.com/life/culture/drunk-talk-real-talk...

snctm 7y ago

Years ago at university I participated as a subject in a memory study that involved the injection of scopolamine. I was familiar with it's reputation as a truth serum and very curious to feel the effect. But it's utter nonsense. There was little more than an awfully dry mouth and a short-term memory so impaired I felt stuporous. In my opinion any euphoriant will elicit more truth telling than scopolamine.

ganzuul 7y ago
I think people can make their expectations come true given just an active placebo. Maybe it is related to how rapid induction hypnosis works.
londons_explore 7y ago
> short-term memory so impaired I felt stuporous This in itself is really beneficial as a truth serum. By enquiring multiple times the victim can't remember their previous answer, so therefore reveals which parts of their story are true and which are fictitious.
- Psyladine 7y ago
  There we have to distinguish between dishonesty and a lie. A deliberate construction on the spot might not survive multiple angles, this is the basis of interrogation rooms after all, anyone will trip themselves up repeating versions over and over again. What won't necessarily find the light of day is deception, a pattern of behavior. A drug dealer might get caught up in where he was or who he was with at a given time on a given date, but he'd have to be intellectually impaired to admit he was a professional criminal for a living.
spodek 7y ago
> it's utter nonsense That's what they want you to think! /s

_tkzm 7y ago

who needs expensive and hard to obtain truth serum when all you need is alcohol...

yters 7y ago

Plato recommended getting people drunk to find out the truth in Laws.

bobowzki 7y ago

I'm an anesthesiologist so I frequently inject people with hypnotics and sedatives. There's definitely a sweet spot where people will say things they probably otherwise wouldn't. Much like alcohol I guess but perhaps a bit more potent.

Pigo 7y ago
I had a spontaneous pneumothorax a couple times in highschool, so I ended up having a lung surgery to prevent them when I was 18. To this day my mom refuses to reveal the things I said to her while I was in recovery, and the following days when I was on Demerol. It drives me crazy because there is a lot I could have said, did I mention I was 18? I know she's probably doing me a favor, but it seems unfair. I've since wondered if I have a big mouth when I'm dosed because that's who I really am underneath my impulse control, or if that's how everyone is.
- TallGuyShort 7y ago
  Honestly being partially anesthetized and saying something horrific might be my biggest fear.
  - bobowzki 7y ago
    We are used to it. :-)
    - TallGuyShort 7y ago
      Of the people I'm worried about hearing my confessions or fantasies, people with whom I exclusively have a doctor/patient relationship are the bottom of the list. It's the early visitors I receive in recovery that scare me :)
      - bobowzki 7y ago
        Hehe understood.
- 7y ago

downerending 7y ago

Entirely speculation, but governments will soon have (if they don't already) the ability to extract the answers to yes-no questions from subjects via fMRI or something similar. It'll be interesting to see whether this capability moves out into the law enforcement community.