Truth serum: myth, fiction or reality?

Truth serum is a concept that has captured people’s imagination for many decades. Films are made and books are written about it, and some people still hope to find a “miracle elixir” that will make anyone tell nothing but the truth.
But does such a substance really exist, and could it replace a lie detector?

Why people lie

As Dr Gregory House, the main character of the famous TV series, used to say: “Everybody lies.”
And indeed, lying is an inseparable part of human behaviour.

We deceive:

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• consciously or unconsciously;

• out of fear of punishment or exposure;

• for gain, or even for no reason at all;

• to avoid duties or responsibility;

• sometimes simply for the pleasure of having managed to confuse others.

The desire to understand when a person is lying led humanity to create the lie detector — the most humane means of testing truthfulness without interfering with physiology. But before the polygraph appeared, people looked for other ways to “extract” the truth — in particular, with the help of truth serum.

The historical search for an “elixir of truth”

The idea of a truth serum goes back to ancient times.
Sages, alchemists and scientists looked for a way to separate truth from deception.

• Nasreddin Hodja came up with the legend of the “magic sticks” that grow in a thief’s hands.

• Avicenna measured the pulse during interrogations.

• Daniel Defoe, the author of “Robinson Crusoe”, drew attention to changes in blood circulation in a guilty person.

Gradually, these observations led to a scientific approach — studying the body’s reactions to questions.

From experiments to the polygraph

Cesare Lombroso

The Italian criminologist was the first to study behavioural reactions during interrogations systematically, and he laid the foundations of psychophysiological analysis.

William Moulton Marston

During the First World War, this Harvard scientist created a device for measuring blood pressure during interrogation — the prototype of the modern polygraph.

John Larson

In the 1920s, this California police officer developed a device that recorded pulse, breathing and blood pressure simultaneously — the modern lie detector.

Attempts to create a real truth serum

In the 19th–20th centuries, many laboratories worked on finding a chemical substance that could make a person tell the truth.
The best-known attempts:

Scopolamine

The obstetrician Robert House noticed by chance that patients under the influence of the drug gave honest answers. This is how the method of narcoanalysis came about. However, courts did not accept such testimony because of the danger and unpredictability of the reactions.

Sodium amytal

A psychotropic substance that increased talkativeness but had low accuracy. It was quickly rejected as unreliable.

Mescaline

A substance from the peyote cactus, it was used in experiments in the USA in the 1940s. However, the truthfulness of the results was questionable.

The polygraph — today’s best “truth serum”

Unlike dangerous drugs, a lie detector (polygraph) works without any chemical intervention.
It records physiological reactions — pulse, breathing, blood pressure, eye movements — and enables a qualified polygraph examiner to reach an objective conclusion.

Modern technologies, in particular EyeDetect, make it possible to analyse micro-movements of the eyes even more accurately, which makes testing comfortable and safe.

Today, the polygraph is the most humane and scientifically grounded way of finding the truth, and it has replaced the mythical “serum”.

Conclusion

Humanity’s dream of finding a magic truth serum has remained a myth.
But polygraph and EyeDetect technologies have proved it: the truth can be found without pain, fear or chemicals.