I think I may have some empirical (albeit anecdotal) evidence for you about "Fear of Consequences"
I've already posted the detailed scenario on a nother thread on this bulletin board, but thought I would reiterate to this mroe relevant discussion.

My fiancee was accused of threatening someone with a gun from his vehicle.  He fully admits driving by the area where the accuser was, at the time indicated, but adamantly denies he had a weapon, or threatened the guy in any way.  I'm sure he was telling the truth.  When he found out that there were video cameras recording the area where the incident occurred (where he drove by), he begged the police to obtain and screen the tapes to see that the accusation was false.  He is on probation for a completely unrelated and non-violent crime.  But rather than truly investigate, his probation officer asked him to take a polygraph.  HE was eager to do so voluntarily to prove his innocence.   

He took the test and flunked it, much to his horror, astonishment and dismay.  He was asked only 3 relevant  questions (5 irrelevant, and 2 control).  The examiner ascertained that he was truthful to one question, and lied in the other two.  The problem is that if he was lying to the two questions (as per the examiner), he could not have been telling the truth to the third one, and vice versa.  He is very nervous by nature, and was so stressed out when he took the test that his vision blurred.  I think the consequences of faiing the test completely freaked him out when the first two relevant questions were asked.  We are still trying to get our hands on those video tapes (or at least preserve them for future inspection), but our lawyer is seriously lame.     If the video tapes show, as we are certain they will, that he did not wave a gun at anyone as he drove by, then this will be strong evidence that a polygraph does NOT work.   

Do you know anywhere that I can find some serious research on this "Fear of Consequences" theory?  (if my fiance's probation is violated, he wil go to prison.  (a polygraph IS admissable in court for the purposes of a probation violation hearing)  This will cause him to lose his small business (can't function w/o him), prevent his son from returning to boarding school, and perhaps lose his house and our relationship.  His employees will also be out of jobs.  Talk about some grim, scary consequences!

Drew,

I finally read the article on CNS exams.  Good stuff.  I think CNS monitoring is the logical next step.  If you'll forgive the cliche, finding a valid way to determine what brain activities occur with memory, creativity (ie creating a lie), etc, would be getting the information straight from the horse's mouth.  

Just a few points/questions, not necessarily for answer (I know this is very much in the early stages), but for discussion.

This has been very successful in lab studies, with willing participants.  Do you think a less than willing examinee(a guilty person in a real life criminal investigative setting), would pay attention or concentrate sufficiently?  Since it is about thoughts while viewing phrases or photos, could allowing your thoughts to stray to topics other than the screen be a possible CM?  I often can be so caught up in outside thought that I have no idea what someone said to me or what I am apparently watching on TV.

You and your colleagues have apparently isolated EEG patterns consistent with memory access.  If you could also isolate creativity patterns, would it be possible, in theory, to identify deception?  It would seem that if you could ask questions, and monitor brain activity, creativity patterns when answering questions would indicate deception and memory patterns would indicate truthfulness.

In the present form, if validated in the field, would you agree a positive on this type of test (like DNA, FP) does not indicate guilt, just places the examinee at the scene? -- Perhaps a poor question since this was covered in the discussion in the article.

Do you forsee this developing into admissible evidence or a tool used similarly to present specific issue polygraph?  Do you believe a post exam interrogation should follow positive results?  If not, would a rights advisement still be needed to conduct the exam?  

Would consent or a warrant be needed if the test alone was going to be used as evidence?  Some things considered unintrusive (such as fingerprints) often do not require warrants or consent.  The article describes this test as unintrusive, however, while it lacks the physical intrusiveness of drawing blood, many would argue it is very intrusive to attempt to monitor and interpret one's thought processes.

Many persons oppose polygraph merely because they feel it violates a right to privacy.  It would be easy to argue this is far greater a threat in that vein.  Do you forsee attacks on the ethical principles from civil liberties advocates?  How would you address them?

Finally, I commend you for making public your finacial interest in the development of a possible replacement to present polygraph (on another thread).  While I do not question the sincerety of your assertions against the use of CQT polygraphy, you obviously could benefit from it being discredited, since you are involved in the development of an alternative.   

However, I did suggest constructive pursuits of alternatives to the purveyors and contributors of this site.  I am still appalled at the attempts to help anyone circumvent justice and/or security measures via countermeasures.  But, at least one person from the anti side on this site supports the development of better technology to aid in the pursuit of national defense and justice.  But then, why must it be accompanied with attempts to undermine exisiting technology and techniques aimed at the same goals? 

Regards,

Public Servant

Public Servant - 

You said:

Chicbette -- You are correct that your story is anectdotal.  However, it does not take Dr. Drew to see that it is not empirical.  Not only is it a singular account, your belief in your fiance is hardly sufficient to establish ground truth.  Ultimately, if there is video evidence, any true LE organization will thoroughly review it.  If sufficient video exists and your fiance is being truthful, he will be exhonerated.
[/quote]


Although of course my theory of ground truth is colored by my trust in my fiance, I assert his innocence as ground truth based on the following:
1) The strangeness of the man that accused him.  (Homeless, no money, no credit cards, no vehicle, estranged from his own family w/a history of drug/alcohol problems)
2) The fact that the accuser served 30 days in jail several years ago on the charge of displaying a weapon (which he claims were fabricated by his accusers)
3) The fact that the accuser filed a patently fraudulent lien on my fiance's commercial property in an attempt to extort nearly $9,000 from us.
4)  The assertion by a business associate that when he requested the accuser to sign a lien release document, that the accuser told him that for $1700 cash he would sign it and go away.  And if we did not come up with money for him, he would find a way to make things much worse for us. 
5) My fiance's repeated insistence that the police should view the video tapes before sending him off for a polygraph
6) The fact that my fiance would have had to jump through a lot of very convoluted hoops to gain access to a gun of any kind (when this incident occurred, he was serving a short jail sentence on work release for completely unrelated infraction)

The police, on the other hand, have based their case on the folllowing:
1) The accusation independant of any character assessment of the accuser.
2) The theory that perhaps my fiance obtained a plastic toy gun from his 11 year old son (who was staying, with all his toys, at his mother's house.)   
3) The fact that my fiance admitted to being in the location the alleged crime took place
4) The fact that it was 10 days between the alleged incident and when the police got around to searching our home/vehicles for a gun, in which we would have had plenty of time to get rid of it.....
5) And perhaps most disturbingly - the marriage of a police deputy to a disgruntled former employee of my fiance.  Together this couple owns and runs a competing business (with the help of funds, samples and computer software she stole from my fiance)These people are close personal friends of my fiance's probation officer.

SO, in a case where there is little evidence, why not roll the dice and require the probationer to take a polygraph at his own expense?  This way, they don't have to spend more police time and money on investigation, or truly evaluating the circumstances of the case.  And it's also nice to give the Examiner, a retired county sherriff who is an old friend of the PO, a little boost to his income, since he's only been doing this for less than a year.  The PO tried to get this guy $200 in "expense money" (from my fiance) to come to our small, lovely mountain resort town for the night to administer the test the following morning, and my fiance said he preferred to get up early and drive the 2.5 hours to this guy's place of business - This probably made the examiner mad to begin with - his free little mini-trip to go visit old friends got squashed.   

A weak and irrelevant control question is created, either intentionally or due to lack of experience, and SURPRISE!  my guy fails the test.  This then gives the "system" the opportunity to rip his life apart.

I call this an ABUSE, and the very fact that this can happen, makes me ashamed of a justice system I used to be so proud of.  There is almost NOTHING to prevent this from happening.  I bet there are dozens, if not hundreds of LE departments across our country filled with uneducated yokels making barely more than minimum wage (as ours is), who would of course prefer to rely on a polygraph rather than get their butts off the stools in the donut shop to perform a truly vigorous investigation.  It's easy to believe the polygraph infallible when 1) one's physiology education doesn't extend beyond 7th grade health science, 2) one's understanding of psychology is based on TV talk shows, and 3) one's superior officers indicate a folkloric-like belief in the polygraph that has been passed down from generation to generation.   

Sure, a polygraph is supposed to be only one facet of an investigation when all other avenues have perhaps been exhausted.  And the examiner is supposed to follow rigorous procedures.  HOWEVER, the fact of the matter is that both of the above are unenforceable, under the current system.   

I fully support the idea that law enforcement needs to be a bit more suspicious of people on probation.  IF, in the above case, an independant review panel (eg the state corrections board) had to give approval to require a polygraph from a probationer, based on all other investigative channels being exhausted.    AND IF, polygraph examiners had to have an undergraduate degree in psychology, plus a 2 year educational program, plus at least one year of apprenticeship prior to becoming licensed, we might have something more than a voodoo science being manipulated for personal gain.   

In order to make similar money to polygraph examiners, I had to obtain a 4 yr degree in a related discipline, an MBA, and perform several years of "apprenticeship" before I could take a series of rigorous exams to obtain my licenses.  Polygraph examiners have a far greater impact on the lives of the people they examine than I do on the lives of my clients.  I don't think this is too much to ask, do you?   

        
   

Public Servant,

(area #2):

You write:


Quote:


As you allude to our work has focused on the presence or absence of information (often and variously characterized as concealed, privileged, or guilty) but has not heretofore dealt with issues of deception or guilt.  We believe we may have identified a new paradigm which will allow us to deal with the concept of guilt.  I can only characterize it at this point as in a preliminary research stage with patents pending.

Fascinating stuff.  One of the weaknesses of the CQT is it's dependence on some degree of deception. This interferes with a good quality academic review as it's general effectivity is presumable higher when the examinee is ignorant of its workings. Also, the presumption that an examinee will concern themselves more with a properly constructed control question than with the relevant one seems pretty iffy. And if they understand what is being done how can they possibly be tested? Who tests the testers? They obviously can't be given a CQT in the normal sense.

With your approach this issue should be a smaller factor. Also, quality control can be more easily done with larger numbers of test subjects without the questionable ethics of creating realistic test environments. I certainly hope your efforts prove worthwhile.  The problem with the polygraph isn't what it does to the guilty, it's what it does wrongly to the innocent.

I look forward to the day that polygraphy moves out of it's semi-mystical origins much like surgeons transitioned from bloodletting not much more than a century ago.

BTW, I'm a EE with fairly good sig proc background so I am most intrigued by what you have written here and would like to learn more.

-Marty

Quote:


Is it that the FBI's pre-employment polygraph false positive rate is 50%, or is it the DI rate that is 50%?  There is a LARGE difference between a DI rate and a FP rate.

PDD-Fed

Public Servant,

(area #4):

You write:


Quote:


The technique has previously been offered through expert testimony once (state district court (post conviction hearing) in Iowa) and was found to meet the Daubert standards (Has the technique been tested? Peer reviewed/published? Has a known rate of error? Has standards controlling the technique’s operation? Is there general acceptance in the relevant scientific community?) for admissibility of such evidence.

I see no reason whatsoever to preclude an examinee from being interrogated following a positive result regarding the circumstances of his concealed knowledge.  Assuming we are talking about a criminal matter, yes, a rights advisement would be quite in order prior to the conduct of an exam by a law enforcement employee.  The necessity for consent to examine is a legal issue not a scientific one.  I suspect the issue would be treated similarly to the present polygraph examination.  As a practical consideration, whether such was the case or not, we would not likely want to or be able to examine an individual who was not at least superficially willing to be examined.

I fully expect (in fact have already heard) that civil libertarians and others because we are dealing with brain activity might ask or even ignorantly suggest that we are in the business of reading minds.  In fact we depend upon known information and in essence see if there exists evidence that that information is stored in the human brain.  We have no ability or desire to independently develop previously unknown/unrevealed information of either a personal or other nature.  (This in part is why we never could and never will never be involved in the general screening applications (fishing expeditions) which are the focus of this site and are so offensivie and have been so injurious to so many over several years...)  Such a question I have found largely stems from ignorance and not willful misrepresentation on the part of the party offering such a notion.

More to follow this evening…