In Greek Mythology Apate was the goddess of deceit, daughter of Nyx, and one of the spirits released from Pandora’s Box. Since the Apate Experiment Management System is designed specifically to study the language of deception online, it is only appropriate that it be named after such an infamous goddess.

Apate consists of two parts – an online Experiment Management System (apate.net) and a modified Instant Message Client (Apate/Pidgin). Combined, the two allow researchers to examine lies and deceit at a level not attainable in previous research on deception.

Apate was conceived and developed at Cornell University in 2007 for Prof. Jeff Hancock by a team of CS 501 students, Barrett Amos, and Josh Perlin. It is based on an earlier work, Lie-M, by Tucker Barrett.