Brettski wrote on Oct 5
th, 2007 at 6:39pm:
Paradiddle wrote on Oct 5
th, 2007 at 5:44pm:
Please site peer reviewed scientific proof that your countermeasures can successfully thwart a true positive. Pretty Please? Paradiddle,
You should keep in mind that the onus for proof is on the proponents of a theory, not the critics. Perhaps you should be citing the peer reviewed scientiffic research that demonstrates that what happened was just a fluke.
Keep in mind that we have two theories here:
1) that countermeasures can defeat the test in a modern testing context (I think we all know that old studies don't cut it - the situation is changed now that George has initiated his campaign to educate and encourage every terrorist, psychopath, and sex offender to use countermeasures),
and
2) that countermeasures can be easily detected.
Even your own digithead's favorite source of information - the NRC report - concurs that there is evidence that countermeasures don't help, and that claims that they do require supporting evidence.
I think they had this to say about mental countermeasures:
Quote:It is widely believed that physical and mental countermeasures are ineffective for reducing physiological responses to relevant questions in polygraph examinations, but investigations of this strategy have not been reported. (page 141)
and this
Quote:The empirical research on countermeasures has not provided enough information to determine whether specific countermeasures have the specific physiological effects that would lead a polygraph examiner to judge an examinee as nondeceptive. Consequently, it is difficult to determine why specific countermeasure strategies might or might not work. We
would not expect specific countermeasures (e.g., biting one’s tongue) to have uniform effects on all of the chart readings obtained during a polygraph test, and studies that focus exclusively on the effects of countermeasures on accuracy do not allow one to determine why specific approaches might work or fail to work in different contexts.
You've all read this stuff.
Quote:Polygraph examiners commonly claim to be able to detect the use of countermeasures, both through their observations of the examinee’s behavior and through an assessment of the recorded polygraph chart. Some countermeasures, such as the use of psychoactive drugs (e.g., diazepam, commonly known as Valium), have broad behavioral consequences and should be relatively easy to detect (Iacono, Boisvenu, and Fleming, 1984). Whether polygraph examiners can detect more subtle countermeasures
or, more importantly, can be trained to detect them, remains an open question.
They don't sound convinced one way or the other.
Oh well.
but this is noteworthy
Quote:Because it is possible that countermeasures can increase “failure” rates among nondeceptive examinees and because a judgment that an examineeis using countermeasures can have the same practical effect as the judgment that the test indicates deception, their use by innocent individuals may be misguided.
"failure" meaning, of course "not passing"
and finally,
Quote:...claims that it is easy to train examinees to “beat” both the
polygraph and trained examiners require scientific supporting evidence
to be credible. However, we are not aware of any such research.
-------
So, with that....
"Have fun storming the castle!"
l