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New Peripheral Could Turn Your Wii Into a Lie Detector

June 10, 2009

Still haven't figured out who "borrowed" your copy of Twilight Princess?

Soon your Wii may help you narrow down the list of suspects.

Australia's Herald-Sun reports that the Wii Vitality Sensor announced by Nintendo last week at E3 measures some of the same body responses as the polygraph. In particular, the sensor attaches to a user's finger to measure pulse and skin conductance. The newspaper reports:

Skin conductance response is a measurement of fluctuations in the electrical conductivity of skin -- also known as electrodermal response and galvanic skin response.

These fluctuations in conductivity correlate with changes in emotions, such as experiencing fear, anger and desire. That's why polygraphs - generally called lie detectors - measure skin conductivity changes along with other bodily responses including pulse and blood pressure.

Nintendo hinted at potential Wii lie detecting fun at E3, the Herald-Sun notes:

Games using the Wii Vitality Sensor have not been announced yet, but Nintendo said the Vitality Sensor would "provide information to the users about the body's inner world"...

You can imagine games along "truth or dare" lines being developed for fun at home on a Nintendo Wii fitted with a Wii Vitality Sensor. The Wii could use the sensor to assess whether or not the player was telling the truth.

GP: Turning truth detection into a parlor game? I'm not sure whether that's a positive commentary on the capabilities of the new Wii peripheral or a slam on the reliability of the polygraph.

What couldn't the Wii do? It waggles, now it detect lies.

Man, part of me really wants the Wii lie detector... and part of me shudders to think about it.

Can you imagine the headlines it would draw? Wife Finds Out About Affair From Vitality Sensor--Wii Causes Divorce!

I want it for Silent Hill.

Wii wants the truth!!

that'll be a poor mans lie detector then, I reckon the only good thing it'll be used for is to measure your heart beat, and that can go in conjunction with wiifit plus or what ever they called it, it'll at least tell the game if your actually doing the push ups, or what ever required physical activity that the game can't otherwise see, cheating can be so fun XD

Haha...everything you say will be a lie if you've also got your friend's hot sister in the room. There's more to lying than just heart beat.

I think people are right, this could tell the Wii emotions like fear and anxiety. This could ideally lead to greater immersion in titles like Survival horror and action games like shooters. Can you imagine a game where the spead of your heart rate controlled the character on screen? Or maybe in a stealth game having to lower your heart rate and breathing to avoid being seen by hostile forces. Then of course theirs the WiiFit applications which will almost most definatly be cashed in on by Nintendo.

I can see it being used instead of the nun-chuck to portray character emotions. Much like Mylo in Microsoft's Natal announcement would be able to recognize emotion this could easily do so as well. Can you imagine a character like Milo who reacts to your every move (Via Motion+) your voice (Via WiiSpeak) and your Emotions via (Vitality Sensor).

Infact I think the feedback from the vitality sensor would pick up on emotions far easier then Natal could read emotions through facial expressions.