SanchoPanza wrote on Oct 27
th, 2008 at 11:25pm:
Excuse me the complete quote should be
Quote:Some examinees who have not committed crimes, security breaches, or related offenses, or who have little to hide, might nevertheless engage in countermeasures with the intent to minimize their chances of false positive test results (Maschke and Scalabrini, no date). This strategy is not risk-free for innocent examinees. There is evidence that some countermeasures used by innocent examinees can in fact increase their chances of appearing deceptive (Dawson, 1980; Honts, Amato, and Gordon, 2001). Also, several agencies that use the polygraph in screening job applicants or current employees have indicated that examinees who are judged to be using countermeasures may, on these grounds alone, be subject to the same personnel actions that would result from a test that indicated deception The Polygraph and Lie Detection (2003) National Academy of Sciences
Board on Behavioral, Cognitive, and Sensory Sciences and Education (BCSSE)
Committee on National Statistics (CNSTAT) PG 140
It is dishonest to cite the NAS report to support the notion that the kinds of countermeasures outlined in
The Lie Behind the Lie Detector increase the risk of a truthful person being wrongly found deceptive. As
discussed previously on this board, the foregoing passage refers to a study by Honts and Amato of the use of
spontaneous (that is, untrained) countermeasures. See, Honts, C.R., S.L. Amato, and A.K. Gordon, "Effects of spontaneous countermeasures used against the comparison question test."
Polygraph Vol. 30 (2001), No. 1, pp. 1-9.
In this study, the "countermeasures" were things that subjects
ignorant of polygraph procedure did
on their own in the belief that it might help them pass the polygraph. Such countermeasures are not comparable to those suggested in
The Lie Behind the Lie Detector. With regard to the 1980 study by Michael E. Dawson ("Physiological Detection of Deception: Measurement of Responses to Questions and Answers During Countermeasure Maneuvers,"
Psychophysiology 17 (1), 8–17), as explained in the article abstract: "All subjects were trained in the Stanislavsky method of acting and were instructed to use this method to appear innocent on the polygraph test." Again, this is nothing at all like the countermeasures suggested in
The Lie Behind the Lie Detector. Simply put, there is no evidence to support the counterintuitive notion that countermeasure use as a rule increases the risk of a false positive outcome.
Quote:Authors such as Maschke and Williams suggest that effective countermeasure strategies can be easily learned and that a small amount of practice is enough to give examinees an excellent chance of “beating” the polygraph. Because the effective application of mental or physical countermeasures on the part of examinees would require skill in distinguishing between relevant and comparison questions, skill in regulating physiological response, and skill in concealing countermeasures from trained examiners, 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. The Polygraph and Lie Detection (2003) National Academy of Sciences. Board on Behavioral, Cognitive, and Sensory Sciences and Education (BCSSE) Committee on National Statistics (CNSTAT) PG 147
While research into the
ease with which countermeasures may be learned is scarce, the existing peer-reviewed research (by Charles Honts and others, see citations and article abstracts in the bibliography of
The Lie Behind the Lie Detector) shows that half of programmed guilty subjects passed the polygraph after receiving
no more than 30 minutes of training. Those facing polygraphic interrogation in the real world typically have considerably more time and much greater motivation to learn countermeasures.
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How do I know what a contorl Question And Relevant Question is? (Read 16645 times)
