Marty wrote on Dec 28
th, 2003 at 7:23am:
Skeptic,
Any idea how much of a grant would be required to do a quality study? I'm not an academic, I went into the private sector (not gov related) so while I've very much enjoyed spending time at Millikan and UCSD's tech library as part of the R&D I've done, I'm clueless as to the practices in the credentialed, non-profit world.
TIA
-Marty
That, I would not know, as I've never done grantwriting. I do recall, during my Psychology undergrad days, that undergrad Psych majors were required, as part of "intro to Psychology 101", to participate in ongoing Psychology studies. This was a relatively small Psychology department, yet it had multiple studies going on the scale you seem to envision. So I would imagine we're talking $50,000 or perhaps considerably less, mostly to fund research assistants for a year or two. If the department wanted to set up a permanent polygraph research lab, it might cost more (for equipment and space, etc.). An informal study with all volunteers, of course, could be done for the price of the equipment.
Of greater consideration would be the design of the study, to avoid confounds that the polygraph community would claim regarding the "reality" of the study conditions. Since most of us seem to agree that "fear of consequences" is the main factor in the functioning of the polygraph, one would need to set up a situation in which the subjects felt concern that the detection of countermeasures would have real consequences for them. At the same time, you'd need to tread an ethical line regarding deception of the subjects.
On the other hand, it might be interesting to compare such results with those from subjects who felt they had nothing to lose. This second part could be considered a "baseline" for the detection of countermeasures.
You'd also need to lay out beforehand that the polygraph examiner was only allowed to judge the presence of countermeasures based upon chart recordings, not upon beating a confession out of an examinee. No interrogations allowed -- we're looking for the actual performance of the device, after all, not for how often an examinee can be made to confess...
Skeptic