Twoblock wrote on Oct 22^nd, 2007 at 6:55am:


Hi 2Block, your math is a little smokey---and I would caution you from calling your guesses "educated" when there are over 3,000 examiners worldwide---the majority of which don't make their experiences known to your greatness.

E

Sargeant

They "maybe" catch one from time to time but I have logged on to this site many times a day, quite often between 1 and 4 oclock in the AM, and there are any where from 10 to over 100 guest on this site at a time. Are they here for just recreational reading? I would think not. I think one could make an educated guess as to the percentage caught using CMs when a couple of polygraphers say "hey, I caught one to day" like it's not an every day occurance.

Squeezecheeze wrote on Oct 21^st, 2007 at 9:38pm:

How did you read Gino's post and conclude that he felt TLBTLD is a bad recipe?  His analogy actually implied the opposite.

I am curious as to how you reached the conclusion that "most" of the people who try to follow TLBTLD find it a recipe for disaster.  Is it because some people who admit to countermeasures (against the advice contained in TLBTLD) claim they got their information from this site?

The only way you could determine that "most" of the people who took advice from this site found it to be a recipe for disaster would be if you knew how many people took polygraphs while using countermeasure information they found on this site.  The truth is that you have no idea of that number.

How many people around the country passed their polygraphs this week while using countermeasures?

Does anyone think the number is zero?

Gino,

You called it correctly again! TLBTLD is nothing more than a bad recipe ! In most cases, those who try to follow it find it is a recipe for disaster.

Keep up the great work!

SC

Quote:

If these people 'fessed up to using countermeasures, we can all agree that there is at least SOME of our advice that was not followed. 

If they couldn't follow one of the most clearly stated ideas in The Lie Behind the Lie Detector, why should any of us believe that they managed to get anything else right?

There are people out there that are just less intelligent than others.

If there is a recipe that clearly states no salt is to be used, and a cook puts 1/4 cup of salt in the pot and the thing turns out to be a disaster, is the recipe bad? No, the cook is incompetent. Who knows what other parts he omitted or bastardized?

Moreover, the real question is how many of your examinees this week--both truthful and intentionally deceptive--exploded into laughter when they reached their cars to leave--after successfully employing countermeasures?

Wonder_Woman wrote on Oct 20^th, 2007 at 5:05pm:

Did you have any this week that were disqualified even though they made no admissions and maintained that they were being honest?

How many of them were false positives?

Yep, I had two this week that were disqualified.  Sad fact as they are victims from the info on this site!

I met yet another victim of the anti-poly-folly.

Sad thing too, because he might have done just fine without the "help" from this website.

Paradiddle wrote on Oct 10^th, 2007 at 12:17am:


It seems to me that you're the moral relativist between the two of us.  I'm saying that lying to get a job and cheating to get a job are morally the same thing.  You're the one who finds some sort of distinction between the two.  Would you care to tell us what it is?  I admit that this is getting somewhat off topic in this thread.  Shall we carry on this line of discussion in a new thread?

Lethe wrote on Oct 9^th, 2007 at 8:48pm:


Lethe, it is clear from many of your posts that "your mind" makes little distinctions regarding an assortment of moral concepts. Please keep this point on topic as it relates to anecdotally confirmed attempts by people to cheat on their polygraph tests by way of behavioral, non-compliance, and physical/mental countermeasure attempts. This thread isn't about culpability comparisons, or any sort of sanctity of truth telling---it's about cheating with unempirically proven internet monkey business on contemporary polygraph tests with countermeasure trained examiners. Your waxing poetic and moral relativism reminds me of a certain amateur poet and his thinly layered agnosto-ethical atheism. 

Yes, of course, I know that you don't have to lie on every control question to pass, you just need to be more anxious and concerned about the control questions than the relevant ones.  But, that fact does nothing to modify my point: that a person who is willing to lie in order to get a job is perfectly okay.

Anyway, it is true that I don't see any moral difference between "lying" and "cheating."  They're both equally culpable in my mind.  What do you see as the difference?  Why is the later bad and the former okay?  Why retest people who lie but not ones who cheat?  It seems totally self serving on the part of the polygraph community to me.

Do you have any substantive response to this?

Lethe wrote on Oct 8^th, 2007 at 7:36pm:


Your philosophical underpinnings suggest that you believe that lying and cheating are one in the same----and your questions beg...Beg...BEG.....BEG the question that you already know the answer to. Ya don't have to lie on a CQT (we don't even use the "PLCQT" term) for it to far better than chance indicate deception from a mathematical probablity standpoint. Polygraph is a test---imperfect....nonetheless a test. If you are an African American inner-city parent who has read Andrew Hacker's works on how tests in white America are unfairly biased against Black children, "test theory" holds some serious caveats. Hacker's work makes sense, so tests underwent some changes---and if Black parents aren't liking the bias, they take their kids to a school that doesn't administer such tests, or better yet---more often parents opt to home school there kids. People who don't like polygraph, should just not take the test, nor should they pursue careers that ask of highly personal historic events and behaviors. 
So Lethe, the test works just as good with knowledge. Go to polygraph school and intern. If you don't want to (which of course you don't), than your hyper-probing questions involving nuance and psychological artistry are nothing more than snow balls from a bunker-----you know it, I know it---hell even twoblock knows it while on Risperdol. lol

I don't have anything against the conversation that has been going on here since my last post, but I would like to call attention to what I think is a very important point:

People, departments, and agencies that use the probable lie control question test to screen applicants and employees think that it is okay for someone to lie if needed to get a job.

Now, that is a coherent idea and can be defended on logical grounds.  But I think people who are in favor of using the PLCQ exam that way need to be honest about that.  It's silly to say that "lying" is okay but "cheating" is wrong; that is a distinction without a difference, the motive is precisely the same in both cases.

So, why is someone who is willing to lie and deceive perfectly qualified to be, for instance, a police officer but someone who knows how the polygraph works, and understands that it will be much less accurate in his case on account of his knowledge, and who can't get a straight, honest answer out of a polygrapher, and therefore decides that he must "cheat" in order to get the exam to accurately say he is honest not suitable?  Why not simply educate such a person about the facts and allow him to take the test again?  Do you polygraphers even know yourselves?  If so, let us hear a sensible answer.

digithead: Quote:


'till then.

Safe travels, and good luck with the job.

l

Wonder_Woman wrote on Oct 6^th, 2007 at 1:13am:

I am an honest person, and this site has been nothing more than a source of reasonable, logical information for me.

On the other hand, the inaccuracy of the polygraph was responsible for me being dropped from the applicant list for three separate police departments.

In my experience, the polygraph is a disservice to honest people.

V wrote on Oct 8^th, 2007 at 4:54am:



D-Head---lies are evolutionary defense mechanisms, rather like memetic viruses of the mind..blah blah blah

Ludovico----well, the polygraph does utilize mathmatics and probabilities, and philosophy doesn't really play so much.

Paradiddle----D-head, this thread is titled Sad stats---not the evolution of the bicameral mind and memetic propensities 

V---hey paradiddle---answer the damn question

Paradiddle----hey V---go fly a kite---

V---you guys are so mean boohoohooo.

Wonder_Woman wrote on Oct 6^th, 2007 at 1:13am:


Quantum in ura hora imputas? 

Paradiddle wrote on Oct 8^th, 2007 at 12:35am:


paradiddle,  You and the rest of your polygraph friends more and more prove why these people on here are angry. You act like a bunch of thugs. If the information on here is just so wrong, why do you fight so hard to mock and insult people. I will not be coming back here but let me just say, I fully understand that if you act this way on here, god help anyone one taking a polygraph test. 

This site has quite the following on many campuses too. Keep proving the anti people right.

V

Ludovico wrote on Oct 8^th, 2007 at 1:22am:


Thanks, your lengthy response to what you claim is pompous must mean that I've hit on something...

Ludovico wrote on Oct 8^th, 2007 at 1:22am:


Yes, the evidence shows that mechanical ability to detect deception from physiological signs is limited. What's not limited is the mechanical ability to detect guilty knowledge...

Since you're responding to me, that would suggest something more than one-sided conversation... 

Ludovico wrote on Oct 8^th, 2007 at 1:22am:
 

You really should take a course in logic or read something on logical fallacies. A straw man is when you caricature a position to make it easier to attack. I've done no such thing...

And you keep mixing constructs such as intelligence, cholesterol, IQ and personality which everyone has with testing for the presence or absense of a condition, which is what polygraphy is trying to do. You need to compare apples to apples...

Ludovico wrote on Oct 8^th, 2007 at 1:22am:


Because the NRC quote - which is about specific issue exams and not screening applications - can be understood in terms that specific issue testing is related to cognition or guilty knowledge and therefore is more closely related to the scientific GKT...

And yes, I do think there are motivational states and behavioral choices that are correlated in physiology. What I don't believe is that there is any evidence that the mere presence or absence of these features can distinguish truth from deception with any degree of reliability...

Ludovico wrote on Oct 8^th, 2007 at 1:22am:


Glad you're psychoanalyzing my motives but I have no desperate need for the polygraph to not work. I wish it did work but the preponderance of the evidence leads me to a different conclusion...

In the end, my true credibility will be written by my colleagues and their measure of my influence on our discipline. Until then, I just try to do my best...

Ludovico wrote on Oct 8^th, 2007 at 1:22am:


You're entitled to your opinion...

Ludovico wrote on Oct 8^th, 2007 at 1:22am:


Actually, I think ethics and normative behavior are appropriate discussions...

As for you repeatedly stating that my argument is weak without corroborative evidence does not make your statement true.

Ludovico wrote on Oct 8^th, 2007 at 1:22am:


You need to read more about evolutionary adaptive traits and how deception - in the real sense of the word - works. Additionally, my statement that the breadth, depth, and prevalence of deception in all its forms make it hard to detect. How does that comport to a belief that it is dichotomous?

Ludovico wrote on Oct 8^th, 2007 at 1:22am:


There is a ton of research on altruism and its evolutionary purposes. You should look some of it up, it's fascinating. I've found E.O. Wilson's Sociobiology text to most informative. Additionally, Dawkin's The Selfish Gene has a lot of great material in it...

But since we are talking about detecting deception, I apologize for focusing solely on that side of human existence...

Ludovico wrote on Oct 8^th, 2007 at 1:22am:


Again, why do you feel the need to insult people? I'd speculate on the reasons but I'll just assume that you also have deep-seated reasons...

Anyhow, I'll be off the board for a week or so while I travel for job talks as I'm wrapping my Ph.D. up and I need to start earning real money again. But until then, I'll be waiting for the next round of invictive, vitriol, ad hom, and snarkiness from you guys...

digithead wrote on Oct 7^th, 2007 at 8:51pm:


D-Head, you'r philosophizing about lying is as underwhelming as your vacant assessment of the mathematical and empirical complexities of polygraph. No. Its more underwhelming. Too bad some people are impressed with simple pompousness.

The only logical conclusion that could result from your statements is some version of "don't bother." Hardly an expression of scientific curiosity, wouldn't you say? Your one-sided conversation is more evidence that you are not the scientist you claim to be. 

To suggest that it is self-deception to attempt to detect deceit with a machine is a transparent straw-man argument. Polygraph is a test. The thing about tests, as you should know, is that there may never be any form of perfect test - for IQ, personality, cholesterol, heart disease, HIV, anthrax or anything else. They are just tests. They have there usefulness and their limitations.

Your statements imply that you doubt there are any useful or reliable physiological, behavioral, or psychological indicators of deception. How could that be? Do people not know when they are deceiving? Your own statements indicate they might be aware of their motivation for doing so. Do you really think those motivational states and and behavioral choices have no correlated features in physiology? If so, how do you explain the NRC study which conceded "well above chance" levels of accuracy. That hardly sounds like accepting the null hypothesis to me.

Your statements reflect your desperation about the need for the polygraph not to work. All I can surmise is that you must have some need to think of yourself as a really good liar, and that your deception will go undetected due either to your masterful skills or the utter futility of any attempt to determine your true credibility.

Though you seem not much of a scientist, neither are you any type of philosopher.

Conversations about "moral relativism" are a dodge. They are a cudgel with which to beat one's opponent, when your argument is weak and when you are ill-prepared to understand complex discussions about ethics and overlapping philosophical questions like how should people live and behave in communities.

Its convenient in the field to assume that deceit and honesty, or lying and truthtelling, are uniform and dichotomous opposites. In both linguistics and behavior they are often neither. But as you indicated, people generally know when and why the lie. That is exactly why we can expect the act of lying to produce physiological changes that can in fact be measured with a "machine." Scary thought huh?

So, if you're going to get all puffed up and beat your intellectual chest about how common, normal and adaptive deceit may be, then you also owe it to consider that adaptive and positive attributes of truthtelling. 

Or you could simply have another glass of wine and pontificate some more - o great wearer of stained sweatpants and holder of the intellectual cards. 

Paradiddle wrote on Oct 8^th, 2007 at 12:35am:


Hmm, now that doesn't comport at all with Matte's Forensic Psychophysiology Using the Polygraph (1996). On page 324 he defines a control question as a question "designed to offer the threat to the well-being of the examinee who is expected to lie to that question, which is then used for comparison with the neighboring relevant question in the same test." 

He then goes on to describe three types of control questions - non-current exclusive, current exclusive, and non-exclusive - that all have slightly different purposes but nonetheless each assumes that the subject will lie. He also compares the Bartlett CQT version which uses all three against the Honts CQT version which uses only the non-current exclusive type.

So explain to me again how CQT or ZCT or "whatever the heck you're calling it now" doesn't rely on expecting people to lie so it can find other lies...

digithead wrote on Oct 8^th, 2007 at 12:03am:


Who on earth ever claims that a person has to lie in order to pass a polygraph exam? Such simplistic characterizations of the CQT method is tiresome, and D-Head, Lethe, and all others know this. An examinee need not lie on a CQT test to pass. V is for vaginitis, not vendetta---in the medical sense----nice try, and you need not use profanity V.

Paradiddle,   I am neither for, or against polygraphy, but all these gyrations to mask not answering the questions. Answer the question, straight up, alot of folks follow this board, and flatly your credibility and your other polygraphers is questionable, against these well thought out people. Do you have some deep dark secret that needs to be hidden. Just my 2 Cents but answer the dam questions.

Lethe, Digithead

Well done 

Paradiddle wrote on Oct 7^th, 2007 at 11:52pm:


We may well have gotten off-topic but nonetheless...

And I'm not going to engage in childish name calling...

In this very thread, you guys are the ones who brought up that trying to beat the polygraph was morally corrupt. So I'll ask you again: since CQT polygraph relies on expecting people to lie so it can find other lies, how's that work in the moral relativism scheme of things? 

D-Head please excuse my ad hom, but your thread is ignoring Mystery Meat's original post. Your musings on polygraph and deception analysis is puffy and belongs in a thread relating to analysis (if you can call your platitudes and musings as such.)