Human lie detectors?
Photo Credit: Craftvision/Getty Images The tendency to view having neurological disorders as an unfortunate condition is all too spontaneous for us. Regardless of whether it's congenital or acquired, treatable or degenerative, mild, moderate or severe, to have a neurological condition is a sad thing; one way or another, there is 'lacking'. And we feel as though this 'lacking' should warrant a sense of pity – more than empathy – from us. It was Oliver Sacks (1985) who so aptly phrased it: Neurology's favorite word is 'deficit'. Speaking of Oliver Sacks, you probably heard of his famous book, "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat." What you probably don't know (if you're like me who is almost always the last to know!) is that there's more to the title. There's actually "...and other clinical tales". You see, the book is not really just about the man who mistook his wife for a hat, per se. The book is a collection of vignettes; his personal documentation of his patients' experiences and his own reflections during his decades of practice as a neurologist. One of my favorite vignettes is entitled "The President's Speech". Here, Sacks narrates how, while then-President Ronald Reagan, quite known for his rhetorics and emotional appeal, was delivering his speech, patients in the aphasia ward suddenly burst into laughter! (Aphasia is a neurological condition characterized by the inability to understand words. ) This baffled Sacks because how come the patients, in unison, seemed to grasp what Reagan was saying... or did they? Because if they did, how come they laughed? What's so funny, people? Sacks hypothesized that aphasics did not understand the words, BUT, because the brain has compensated for this inability to understand words, they became more sensitive to the tone as the words were uttered. It makes sense, because if you talk to the aphasics in your natural tone, they would understand; even if they cannot make sense of your words, they can make sense of your tone, your pitch, your intonation, suggestive emphasis, inflection, your emotions. After all, natural speech is not just composed of words. It is colored by sound. And if we factor in the verbal cues (facial expressions, bodily gestures), the more aphasics can interpret what you're saying... or in President Reagan's case, what he was NOT saying verbatim but what he was giving away thru auditory and visual cues; stuff that just fleeted by the rest of the 'normal' audience. To cut the story short, Sacks hypothesized that the patients with aphasia laughed at his speech because they detected that President Reagan was lying. Put in another way, he postulated that aphasics are human lie detectors. It wasn't until year 2000 that a group of researchers in Massachusetts headed by Nancy Etcoff conducted research which validated Sacks' hypothesis. They randomly showed a series of video clips to aphasics: one that showed attempts to conceal powerful negative emotions and another that honestly revealed positive emotions. They also showed them to persons with right cerebral hemisphere (to differentiate it from aphasia, which is caused by damage to the left cerebral hemisphere), persons with health cerebral hemispheres, and undergraduate students. The participants were tested in terms of their ability to detect lies in terms of facial expressions, pitch changes in the voice, and both. And what do you know? Aphasics significantly scored higher than any of the other groups! This validated Sacks' hypothesis that there is something special going on in the wirings of aphasics' brains. Although Etcoff and her co-workers did not conclusively make the assertion that aphasics are lie detectors (because it's possible that they just became more sensitive to non-verbal cues and therefore are not exactly detecting lies), essentially, they agree with Sacks that the brain is an amazing piece of shit. Take something away from it, and it will compensate for that loss. In neurological terms, this phenomenon is called plasticity. So, the next time you learn that somebody is suffering from a neurological disorder, instead of automatically reacting with pity, you might want to react with wonder. Ask: how does this person's brain compensate for the loss? References: Etcoff, N. L., Ekman, P., Magee, J. J., & Frank, M. G. (2000). Lie detection and language comprehension.Nature, 405(6783), 139-139. Sacks, O. W. (1985). The man who mistook his wife for a hat and other clinical tales. New York: Summit Books. By Gabrielle Tiongson