I'm new to this site (1st post) and I'm curious, how many of you out there have stumbled onto the webiste of Doug Williams?  www.polygraph.com? ; I was looking at his website and was impressed with all of the media links and wanted to know 1. Do you think its worth purchasing his "online" manual? 2. Is he a repuatable source on polygraph testing and grading like he claims?  Any additional info would be great too!  Like many others out there, I'm young, getting into LE and afraid/concerened about the Polygraph.  Yes, I have made some mistakes/bad choices in the past (mostly drug use) and now I feel like I have really painted myself into a corner.  I have one semester left in college and feel that my minor runs with LE is what turned me onto the area of Criminal Justice field in the 1st place.    Any ideas for me would be great.   
Confused....

skeptic711,

To answer your questions:

1.  No.  The free book offered on this site is more comprehensive.

2.  Doug Williams' status is for you to decide.   

I would disagree with Marty about knowledge.  There is no known or published research that suggests that a persons knowledge of polygraph will cause them to produce a false positive, truthful person being deemed deceptive, or false negative, deceptive person being deemed truthful. 

J.B. McCloughan wrote on Sep 5^th, 2002 at 6:34am:


I think if you look on this site there are published statements that suggest the use of "directed lie" tests where the subject has been previously tested numerous times or is aware of polygraph procedures.

In any case the whole point to the examiner's search for control questions is to identify questions, about which, one is nervous or will lie and convince the subject of it's importance.  The success of many examiners in this endeaver is amply illustrated by the numerous inquiries about whether this or that question is a "control" or "relevant" question.

The whole CQT lends itself to continued abuse to a great degree because it is built on deception. How can one possibly measure any part of this scientifically? With the GKT, at least one can apply statistical measures and it becomes far more valuable when, as you point out, there are enough specific items to provide response discrimination.

As for establishing protocol's. Yes, I would insist on the examiner demostrating his skill. I would take no job that required "trust me" nonsense as the price of admission. But then, I don't need a job or perhaps I'd feel otherwise.

BTW, for background, I have never taken a polygraph and have no reason to believe I ever would be asked to do so. I am here because the psychology and technology are fascinating. I am a technologist by trade, and am wondering if there isn't some sort of business opportunity to be had by addressing the deficiencies.

-marty, PE

J.B. McCloughan wrote on Sep 5^th, 2002 at 7:59am:


Facts are hard to come by, screening by it's nature is ambiguous. Validated confessions from the interrogation portion are of some obvious utility though.

Does anyone know where I can get Barland's "Polygraph Countermeasures: The state of the art in 1984?"

-Marty

Quote:


Perhaps, as I come from the private sector, my perspective is somewhat warped and naive. I've never felt an employer was doing me a favor by hiring me. More the other way around. I have always felt that an employer who considered an employee more a liability than asset should terminate the relationship. The opposite is true as well. In my naive view the polygrapher is trying to fact find accurately with an instrument they believe in and my suggestions are in line with both aiding the examiner and not lying. Something which I would not do in a voluntary setting. Once one is aware of "the lie behind the lie detector", one has only a single, viable, honest choice: be upfront with the examiner and ask the guy just how in hell you are supposed to react with proper concern to the control questions when you understand full well what their real purpose is.

If one knows how CQT's work and one doesn't use countermeasures then one is at a disadvantage from lessor response to the C questions. It seems to me that one can't be honest and not disclose that one knows details of the CQT and expect not to yield a false positive. Since this knowledge is more available (internet) than ever and almost anyone facing a polygraph who has a modicum of curiosity will easily find and discover it one can only conclude that continued use of the CQT will result in hiring more liars, that is people who discover the secret and must augment control responses to pass, not people who lied about their background - who should be excluded.

-Marty

Quote:

Yes, I quite agree. What choice does one have without diminishing one's own integrity.


Quote:


I'm certainly not saying that my advice is the best way to "pass" a screenting CQT. That is obviously not the case. It is simply what I would feel constrained to do as a personal matter.

What these agencies could do is use a form of GKT to screen against "polygraph aware" individuals. That should be relatively easy as there are a number of clear attributes and specific knowledge that can often identify such. Then, for those folks, switch to a DLT. Sure it is still a sort of seance but at least the candidate wouldn't be expected to deceptively lie to pass.

An offhand question about CQT's.  Since it is often a felony to lie to federal LE persons, it seems that to pass a CQT requires one to lie to the control question whereas to fail presumes one lies to the relevent one.  Catch 22.

-Marty

--- I thought you might enjoy this little piece of history ---



From "Effective interviewing and interrogation techniques", Gordon & Fleisher

This excerpt is in an early chapter reviewing the history of truth divining techniques. 2000 years later things hadn't "improved" much. See the "Red hot iron" test in "Maleus Maleficarum", the principal handbook of the Inquisitors. Lot's of confessions, must not have been too many "false positives" -lol-.

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In various societies, truth-tests were developed whose premises were psychological, not physiological. Trial by the "Sacred Ass" (Keeler 1938) is a classic psychological test that was practiced in India around 500 BC. In this test, a donkey was staked out in the center of a pitch-dark hut. Suspects were told that inside the hut was a "Sacred Ass" that could differentiate between a truthful person and a liar. It did this by braying only when the guilty (lying) person pulled its tail. They were also told the animal would remain silent if an innocent ( truthful) person pulled its tail. Each suspect was sent into the hut alone, with instructions to pull the tail of the "Sacred Ass." Unbeknown to the suspects, the priests had covered the donkey's tail with lamp black. The truthful individuals, having nothing to fear, entered and pulled the tail. The donkey mayor may not have brayed, but those who were innocent came out with soot allover their hands. The guilty party, on the other hand, would enter and not risk pulling the donkey's tail and disclosing their guilt. He might promise it a carrot, or stroke its head, but he would not pull that tail. Aftter all, he believed if he did not touch the "Sacred Ass's" tail it would have no reason to bray and the priests would incorrectly identify him as truthful. However, by not pulling the tail it became a simple matter for the priests to properly identify him by his clean hands.
-----

Bray for world peas.

-Marty