Deception Detection Research Results Presented

  • Published
  • By Erin Crawley
  • AFOSR Public Affairs
ARLINGTON, Va. --  The Air Force Office of Scientific Research here recently hosted a final review of its 5-year, $4 million research grant in detecting deception. The grant was given by the Department of Defense through the Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) program.

The University of Arizona served as the lead for this MURI grant. Arizona partnered with the Air Force Institute of Technology, Florida State University, and Michigan State University. Altogether, over 80 collaborators and researchers participated in the research program.

The objective of the DoD MURI program is to align research teams from two or more traditional science and engineering disciplines to accelerate progress in a particular area with the hope of transitioning basic research findings to practical applications. Additionally the program helps train science and engineering students in areas of importance to DoD.

Dr. Judee Burgoon, director of human communication research at the University of Arizona's Center for the Management of Information, is the lead principal investigator on the project.

"The research is focused on deception and its detection. This includes not only how one identifies what are reliable indicators of deception, but how you might go about automating the process to help humans make better judgments," said Burgoon.

Using video and audio tools the team collected data via interviews and interrogations from volunteer human subjects and analyzed information like body movements, voice inflections, and linguistic features. Using those data the team developed the Agent99 (sic) Suite of software tools that include prototypes for analyzing communication, detecting deception, and delivering training in detection. The suite is named after Barbara Feldon's character Agent 99 from the 1960s television series, Get Smart.

Agent99 Trainer is an interactive mentor training tool that teaches law enforcers how to detect deception. Dr. Jay Nunamaker, director of the center for the management of information at the University of Arizona, oversaw development of the software applications. Nunamaker explained how Agent99 works.

"You have different methods for using Agent99. If you are looking at the vocalics [articulation] you can describe the cues that you would be looking for and then give examples of the different cues. Then tests would pop up to see if the Agent99 trainee understands those cues. Then there is linguistics and so on."

As a result of the AFOSR funding, the MURI team improved Agent99 and deployed it as a training tool for a select group of Air Force officers.

"Training actual Air Force officers in deception detection couldn't have happened without AFOSR sponsorship. It has just been invaluable. It gave us the ability to do the field work and laboratory experiments. The support that has come from Dr. [Robert] Herklotz has been tremendously far-sighted," said Burgoon.

According to Herklotz, program manager in the mathematics and information sciences directorate at AFOSR, no one was doing this research 5 years ago.

"For the first 3 years of the MURI the team was conducting the only credible research on deception like this anywhere."

Herklotz said he saw the value in this research and provided an additional $200,000 in basic research funds from AFOSR adding to the original $4 million MURI to support the effort.

"As a program manager it was a nice niche that was relevant to DoD and other security agencies. At the time no one else like DARPA [Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency] had millions of dollars to fund this kind of work," said Herklotz.

"Because Doctor Herklotz was able to add on more things having to do with text and audio analysis, and he put us together with the people doing the computer vision work, our work has progressed leaps and bounds because of the AFOSR funding," said Burgoon.

According to Herklotz, at the three-year MURI review meeting managers from all the intelligence agencies were invited to view the team's results. Raving reviews were given by the intelligence community who recommended that AFOSR continue to support the ground breaking research.

"Since then, and maybe because of this MURI, there is a lot more interest in the subject. Now more research is going on. But this MURI must be credited with the leading edge research in this area," said Herklotz.

The Department of Homeland Security and other agencies are very interested in this work.

"It can benefit the Air Force, just as it can benefit a lot of the other armed forces in a variety of ways. One is helping people who are in security screening situations. It could also be relevant in looking at insider threat," said Burgoon.