skip.webb wrote on Oct 16^th, 2007 at 12:46pm:

Although participants provided with copies of The Lie Behind the Lie Detector were "encouraged to study the book before taking their examination," there is no way of knowing to what extent they actually did so. Students received class credit whether or not they read the book. While participants reported spending an average 1.58 hours reading it (with a standard deviation of .96), these self-reported study times may well have been overstated by participants wishing to be perceived as having heeded the encouragement to study the book;   RESPONSE:  The conditions you describe are exactly the same as the "real" people who come onto your site and read your book.  There is no way to determine the amount of time they spend or the degree to which they "study" the book prior to their examination.

Be that as it may, your very first post here asserted, in the title:

Quote:

Latest Study Indicates "Lie Behind the Lie Detector" Hurts Innocent, Doesn't Help Guilty

Which is clearly an unsupported assertion when one doesn't even know what information the subject in question had, going into the tests.

Furthermore, the study itself claims:

Quote:

Information does not affect the validity of a comparison question test

Which, again, is unsupported in light of not verifying what information the subjects actually had acquired.

Furthermore, as one with a background in psychology and who is familiar with the peer-reviewed reporting of studies in psychology, I can verify that detailing methodology, including measures taken to avoid confounds of the data (e.g. keeping researchers blind as to the status of subjects) is the normal manner of doing things.  If it wasn't mentioned, then to me it would raise questions as to 1) whether such measures were actually taken or 2) how detailed and careful the researchers were in other aspects of the study, if they were careless enough not to report their full methodology in the writeup.

This doesn't mean that they didn't use good methodology, but those are legitimate questions, and chiding Mr. Maschke over asking them, rather than admitting the need for further illumination on the topic, strikes me as more than a bit defensive.