Is the Truth Worth $500,000?
Reality show that relies on lie detectors called into question.
Dec. 13, 2007— -- Hook someone up to a lie detector. Ask personal questions. Watch the person squirm.
That's the premise of the new Fox TV reality show, "The Moment of Truth," which some polygraph experts have criticized.
Contestants are asked a series of personal -- and potentially embarrassing -- questions while connected to a polygraph machine. Answer honestly, the premise goes, and you win money.
But an association of polygraph examiners is already questioning the accuracy of the show, which airs next month. The American Polygraph Association, a trade association of polygraph examiners that promotes the use of the machines, calls the show an irresponsible misuse of lie detectors.
"This is a wholesale abuse of a technology that has appropriate use in national security and community safety," said Don Krapohl, the association's chairman.
In the show, contestants undergo a pretape polygraph test, taken by a certified polygraph expert, of about 75 questions. They are not told the results of the test.
A few days later, they are asked 21 of those questions on camera and in front of an audience. The more answers that match what the lie detector says is true, the more money they win, up to $500,000.
Friends and family, who are in the audience, have a button they can hit to stop the contestant from answering.
Similar programs are being produced in 23 other countries, according to Fox, not always without controversy. A similar show has been a hit in Colombia but was briefly taken off the air earlier this year after a woman reportedly admitted on air that she had hired a hitman to kill her husband.
The questions in the U.S. version tend toward the confidential. Some samples: "Is there a part of your husband's body that repulses you?" "Do you really care about the starving children in Africa?" "Are you sexually attracted to one of your wife's friends?" "Do you like your mother-in-law?" "Do you think you'll be with your husband five years from now?"
Related Stories
ABC News Live