Deception detection research results presented Published Oct. 12, 2006 By Erin Crawley Air Force Office of Scientific Research 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. 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," said Dr. Burgoon. "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." 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. "You have different methods for using Agent99," said Dr. Nunamaker. "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. 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 Dr. Burgoon. The future in this research area is wide open. Dr. Nunamaker envisions a futuristic airport where passengers use an interactive kiosk capable of detecting deception, as the first step of the screening process. It would be similar to how passengers receive boarding passes at kiosks today. "You could go through this screening process, which I think would be more effective than what the airlines use today, and it would triangulate information from many databases to see if the passenger is a risk," explained Dr. Nunamaker. The research 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.