1.  Introduction

The Truster technology is the first of it's kind. The technology allows us to analyze the human voice through a telephone, television, audio tape or microphone. We can do all these in real time and without the other person being aware of the test.

The technology is based on the self judgment people have and the guilt knowledge they are developing when they lie. The Truster is measuring cognitive messages that are transferred through the voice. Those messages are the result of our own self-criticism and we can not control them.

When we measure and calculate the results we can also identify hesitation, exaggeration, cynicism, or avoiding. We can also scan extreme excitement, which most of the times is a sign of a traumatic event. We can also tell the amount of stress that the person is having during the conversation.

 

2. The Truster System/Psychological Structure

The Psychological Structure of a Lie During Free Conversation, and the System Messages - It is important to understand the psychological structure of stress and lies during a conversation. In contrast with other test situations (such as a police investigation), a test during a free conversation has a guiding psychological structure that is true for most cases.

In a free conversation, without a predefined purpose, the subject is unable to tell in advance where the conversation is leading. In addition, the subject will tell the truth most of the time - and will lie only a few times, if he or she lies at all.

Within this psychological structure, the need to lie will rise as a surprise and will usually be expressed in a sharp, remarkable and immediate manner. By the same token, the stress will also disappear very quickly. In these cases, the system will recognize the lie or the exaggeration, and it will respond with the diagnosis "False statement" for a lie, or "Inaccuracy" for an exaggeration. Similarly, the diagnosis "Subject is not sure" indicates that the system recognized uncertainty or confusion in the speaker's voice; the diagnosis "Avoidance \ voice manipulation" indicates that the subject is consciously manipulating his or her voice (whether he or she is trying to sound credible, or attempting to avoid a stressful question); the diagnosis "Excitement" and the diagnosis "High excitement" indicate that the subject's excitement level is above his or her excitement during the calibration process, that is, the subject is now more excited as he or she speaks than at the beginning of the conversation; the diagnosis "Extreme excitement" indicates that the subject had a high emotional stress while speaking. (this does not mean that the subject was lying.) ; the diagnosis "Outsmart" indicates that the subject is not at ease with the things he or she is saying, that is, the subject is being cynical. Alternatively, the message can indicate an attempt to conceal a lie by using cynicism and avoid giving a straight answer. The diagnosis can also appear when the subject is treating the conversation with condescension.

Most of the time, the diagnosis will be "Truth", indicating that the subject is not under any kind of stress. Another diagnosis produced by the system is a red frame that is turned on in the "Sound wave" window when the subject is under high general stress - that is, nervousness, expectancy or any similar type of stress.

 

3. Polygraph vs. the Truster

What is a Polygraph? - A polygraph is a system, which can detect a person's state of excitement, stress or emotional conflict according to pre-defined criteria. The polygraph performs several consecutive physical tests by connecting the subject to multiple sensors simultaneously. The tests include the subject's blood pressure, sweating, breathing rate, pulse etc.

The subject's consent is necessary for performing the test, and it is highly important to conduct the test in an agreeable, interruption-free setting. An inappropriate setting may influence the lie detector test and produce a deviation in its results.

The test's degree of credibility is significantly influenced by the operator's level of skill and professional expertise.

The Speech Mechanism - When a person speaks, air is pushed from the lungs upward to the vocal cords. As a result, the vocal cords vibrate in a specific frequency, called the speaker's main leading frequency. The air keeps flowing upward to the mouth and goes through the tongue, teeth and lips, thereby creating the speech flow.

When a person lies, the amount of blood in the vocal cords drops as a result of the stress. An involuntary interference of the nerves causes the vocal cords to produce a distorted sound wave.

4. Truster Marketing Study Case

Product The Truster is the first truth verifier (lie detector) designed for business and personal use. The software product analyzes voice stress through the phone in real time. The Truster can analyze and determine whether a person is - Telling the Truth, Extremely Excited, Unsure of what is Saying or Inaccurate.

The Truster technology was originally developed for military security applications, and has now been adopted for daily personal/office uses. The product has been found statistically reliable in 85% of the cases.

Uses

• Small business and home business.
• Consumers who deal with sales people for typically non-cash transactions.
• Any business operation using an interview process.
• Single people who use dating services or who interact on the basis of personal ads.
• Law enforcement and/or justice-related agencies or affiliates such as lawyers, police,

  and investigative agencies.

• All security-related operations such as home security companies, campus or shopping

  mall security organizations, private detective agents, etc..

• Credit and/or collection organizations.

Truster Evaluation
By Drs. Guy Van Damme, Criminologist

University of Durban-Westville

July 1998

An evaluation of Truster was made by myself and colleagues from our Academic Computer Sciences Department.

1. Procedure followed.

1.1 Stimulation tests.
Fifty subjects were tested with the use of the figure stimtest. Each subject was asked to choose a number between one and ten. After the calibration period, the subject was asked to say "No, definitely not" towards each question ("Did you choose number X"?) Forty one subjects were found deceptive towards the number they chose, three subjects were deceptive towards three numbers, four subjects were deceptive towards a wrong number. Statistically:

82% success rate
10% inconclusive
8% false

1.2 Field Test
Twenty five subjects were asked to tell us briefly what they did during the past day. This interview was us as the calibration period. We asked ten subjects to tell us a few definite lies when asked again to tell us the same story, fifteen subjects were asked to tell the absolute truth. From the ten subjects asked to lie, eight were found deceptive. From the fifteen asked to tell the truth, four were found deceptive. Statistically:

76% success rate

1.3 Truster used during polygraph pre-test interview
Seventeen subjects who came for polygraph tests were subjected to Truster during their pre-test interview (we used a Screen Ware amplified microphone). Six people showed an indication of deception using Truster during their pre-test interview. The eleven subjects showing an indication of no-deception went also clean using Truster. Statistically:

100%

2. Summary
All tests, apart from 1.3 were so called laboratory tests, meaning that the subjects were fully aware of being tested and had nothing to lose. The subjects tested during the pre-test interview were obviously stressed, knowing they were to undergo a polygraph examination. The 100% scoring rate should therefore be regarded as abnormally high. It is however interesting to see the same indications from the polygraph (we used Lafayette LX3000-SW) and from Truster. More extensive tests should be required to formulate an acceptable comparison.

3. Negative points.
As an academic exercise, Truster proved to be reasonable accurate. However, the following negative points (let us call it positive criticisms) were raised:

3.1 Reports
The reports given by Truster are very vague and do not include a statistic (percentage of deception etc.). It is understood that TrusterPro will include this facility.

3.2 Calibration Period
The calibration period is rather long. If the program is used on a subject over the telephone, the average period of twenty seconds needed for calibration will create a certain suspicion from the part of the subject.

4. Summary
Truster is a very user friendly, affordable truth verification program.

Truster should only be used as a certain form of an indication with doubt towards its results.

However, as said above, it is extremely user friendly, easy to learn, affordable and reasonably accurate.