I suppose that's possible, but it's hardly the only--or even necessarily the most likely explanation for a false positive outcome in such a situation. Polygraphy has no scientific basis, and it should surprise no one when such an invalid test produces erroneous results.

depressed wrote on Jul 1^st, 2010 at 5:06am:


That's kind of like asking why a particular coin toss came out heads rather than tails. That said, polygraph operators know, for example, that illegal drug use is much more common than, say, espionage. Polygraph units that question applicants about both topics are going to flunk many times more applicants on the former than the latter because they know that the former is much more common in the applicant population.