The Voight-Kampff test is a fictional polygraph-style interrogation in the Blade Runner universe, used by “blade runners” to distinguish humans from bioengineered humanoids called replicants. The underlying principle is that humans will exhibit natural empathy and emotional responses, while replicants, having shorter lifespans and artificial memories, will not, or at least not consistently.
How It Works
The test uses a machine that closely monitors physiological responses to emotionally charged questions. Key indicators include:
• Capillary dilation (blushing)
• Respiration and heart rate
• Pupillary motion and eye movement
The test administrator asks a series of carefully crafted questions involving hypothetical, morally or emotionally provocative scenarios. A human’s involuntary, empathic response to these scenarios is expected to be immediate and consistent, whereas a replicant’s reaction would be different or delayed, as they lack a lifetime of human experience to inform their responses.
Sample Questions
The questions often involve scenarios of suffering or emotional attachment, designed to fluster the subject. Examples from the original film and book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? include:
• “Describe in single words, only the good things that come into your mind about, your mother”.
• “You have a little boy. He shows you his butterfly collection plus the killing jar”.
• “Out of the corner of your eye, you see a large black spider crawling up the wall”.
• “My apartment is full of very expensive, very rare, priceless antique pre-war objects… I have a beautiful ostrich, well, I had one, the vet finally wrote him off”.
Limitations
The test is a central thematic device, raising philosophical questions about what it means to be human. Its limitations include:
• Sociopaths and the mentally ill: It is theorized in the lore that a human with a mental illness, such as schizophrenia, could potentially fail the test because they might not exhibit typical emotional responses.
• Sophisticated replicants: Replicants implanted with artificial memories, like Rachael in the first film, can develop emotional responses, making the test less reliable and requiring many more questions.
• Newer models: In Blade Runner 2049, the Voight-Kampff test is replaced by the “baseline test” because newer replicant models possess feelings, making empathy an unreliable indicator.
The test serves to blur the lines between human and replicant, highlighting the irony that some human “blade runners” seem less empathetic than the very replicants they hunt.
