EJohnson wrote on Oct 24^th, 2007 at 2:26pm:

The NAS study used the term "better than chance" to describe specific incident testing, and specified that it was only pertinent when the subject population was untrained in countermeasures.  

How can you tell is someone is untrained in countermeasures?  If they show no signs of using them?  Wouldn't a person skilled in countermeasures also show no signs of using them?

From page 214 of the NAS report:
Quote:


It's amusing that you referenced the NAS report when we keep hearing from polygraph examiners (including the APA's web site, which devotes an entire page to refuting the NAS report) that is was flawed and should be disregarded.  I can understand why polygraph examiners are desperate to discredit the NAS report - it is a damning condemnation of their pseudoscientific profession.  The conclusions in the report are clear - the polygraph presents a danger to national security objectives.  

I've read the report and it is compelling, even to a layman.  It is logical and and the conclusions drawn from the research cited are quite understandable.  Hearing from polygraph examiners that the report should be ignored is no more credible than hearing from Big Tobacco that the health warnings regarding cigarettes should be ignored.

Its quite difficult, if not impossible, to have a in intelligent discussion about these matters when conclusions are drawn from personal experience, simple appeal to authority, and your well-manner form of ad hominem attack (based on your assumptions about the job of your opponent) against your opponent, instead of arguing the substance of matter at hand.

r

If you want to learn, then you have to stay in the discussion. That's fun. If all you want is to hurl labels and insults, beat the drum for the anti-fodder, and help inoculate a few more bad guys against the good work of hard working law enforcement investigators, that's not so fun.

Raymond,
 
Early in this message thread, I pointed out serious shortcomings in the design of the 2007 Honts & Alloway study that is this thread's original topic -- shortcomings that make generalization to field conditions all but impossible. I note that ad hominem arguments aside, no one has seriously disputed my critique.

Re: Latest Study Indicates "Lie Behind the Lie Detector" Hurts Innocent, Doesn't Help Guilty
Reply #7 - Oct 16th, 2007, 8:46am Quote 
George,  Thank you for commenting on the study I posted.  It appears to have struck a nerve!  Your comments about the value of the study require some explanation to those who might not routinely avail themselves of research and prefer to accept what they read on the internet as the Gospel.
 
You stated the following:
 
Weaknesses of this methodology include:   
 
Motivational conditions were low. Participants were students who volunteered their time in exchange for class credit. There were no adverse consequences for failing to pass the polygraph, and the only "reward" for passing was paltry (movie passes);
 
RESPONSE: George to be fair, you should point out that virtually all mock crime studies, indeed all psychological studies usually involve students as participants who volunteer their time in exchange for class credit or a minor monetary reward or token.  This certainly isn't a weakness in this or any other study.
 
 
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.
 
 
The study relied on examinee self-reporting of whether examinees used countermeasures. Perhaps this was unavoidable, as there is no reliable technique for detecting countermeasures. Nonetheless, such self-reporting may or may not have been truthful;
RESPONSE:  Now George, let's don't even go there.  Everything on your site is self reporting and there is certainly no way to determine the truth about what the people on your site report when they deny crimes or allege successful countermeasures used.
 
 
There is no indication that examiners were blind with regard to examinee status (e.g. guilty/innocent, informed/uninformed). And examiners were almost certainly not blind with regard to base rates for each category.
 
RESPONSE:  Now George, that was beneath you.  You are much smarter than that and so are most of the people who read the information on this site.  You certainly know that Dr. Honts would not bother to conduct a study in which the examiners were not blind to the condition of the participants.  That's simply reaching on your part.  I'm embarrassed for you on that one.
 
Finally, studies are just that...studies.  They allow thoughtful people to form conclusions and opinions based upon what they see happen in the scenario presented.  This one was particularly insightful as it replicated a previously conducted study that indicated the same result.  I placed the study here so that thoughtful people might read it and make decisions for themselves about the use of countermeasures.  Many, like you, won't change their mind but some smart, truthful people might just read this and decide that they don't want to put their career and their fate into the hands of someone who has become so entangled in his own web that he can no longer step back and look objectively at anything that challenges his belief system.  Smart people might just decide not to drink the kool aid George

As I stated in a previous post, scientific studies can expose results which are ancilary to the original purpose of the study, but are still significant in their own right.  Given the study in question, it appears that this is the case.  I notice you do not challenge my assertion that the study indicates the accuracy of the polygraph (in this test anyway) is no better than 73%.   I will take that lack of challenge as agreement to this assertion. 
 
Given that fact then, with an error rate of over 25%, how can any honest reviewer conclude that the study proves anything regarding the effectiveness of countermeasures, when the polygraph itself could not detect blatant deception?