In 2002, John C. Kircher and his colleague, Doug Hacker, an educational psychologist with expertise in the psychology of reading, were driving to Seattle to climb Mt. Rainier. En route, they wondered if changes in eye movements and pupil size while reading and answering questions about a crime would reveal deception. They asked themselves, “Would changes in cognitive load affect the eye in such a way that we can capture those changes and be as accurate as the polygraph in predicting whether or not someone is being deceptive?” Thus the idea for an ocular-motor deception test (ODT) was born — later to be branded as EyeDetect.
In 2003, Professors Kircher and Hacker, along with cognitive scientists Anne Cook and Dan Woltz, formed the Converus Science Team. They began working together to produce and validate an ODT solution for deception detection. David C. Raskin joined this science team in 2009.
It should be noted Professors Kircher and Raskin are internationally-known and highly respected scientists in the polygraph community. They frequently consult and lecture on this subject, as well as provide guidance to the polygraph community, government agencies, legislatures, and the courts. They first published research on polygraph technology in the 1970s and then spent 10 years developing the software and hardware for the world’s first computerized polygraph system, which they marketed in 1991. They recognized the need to find new lie detection methods that could complement the polygraph because the polygraph measures emotional response, not concealed knowledge.
In April 2014, after more than 10 years fine-tuning this technology, these five dedicated scientist were finally able to see their years of work bear fruit when EyeDetect was released to the market.