posted 11-24-2008 10:05 AM            

quote:

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Interesting. How did you pre-test "shake"? That's almost like "force."

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When we use the term "pre-test" like that (noun being used as a verb), we are referring to the need for an easily understood, behaviorally-descriptive, operational definition. Operational definitions serve to answer the implied question: what does it look like when someone does that.

To me there is not a lot of ambiguity surrounding what is meant by "shaking" a baby. In my imagination, the circumstances necessary for a mother (or father) to shake a child would require an intense and escalated experience, including angery, frustration, and rage - all directed at the child.

I simply ask about ever shaking that child, out of anger frustration, or any attempt to get the child's attention or make it stop crying or fussing. I also ask about ever handling the child roughly when it was upset or when the parent was upset.

I also do a slow-motion pantomime with my hands, involving a shaking motion, while asking about using her own hands (I point to her hands) to do that.

If the examinee was involved in shaking the child, then I want the examinee to re-connect with the event, cognitively, emotionally, and behaviorally.

If the examinee was not involve in the shaking of the children, then I want the person to be emotionally, cognitively, and behaviorally un-conflicted about the purpose of the question.

"Force" is more complicated to me, because it is a concept that has been mucked up by well-intentioned mental health professionals who allow for too many excuses ("it was force because I asked twice," or "it was force because I was bigger/oder", or "it was force because she couldn't consent because she had one drink").

The problem is that offenders would prefer to hide their violent behavior under non-violent descriptions of their behavior. Then, we have the fact that therapists deliberately ask offenders to begin to take less serious behavior more seriously (as they should). The result is that we foul up our ability to differentiate violent assaults from non-violent assaults – because we allow the offender to use the same vocabulary to describe both.

Violence is informative of (among other things) impulsivity, rage, cruelty, and disregard for the distress of another human being. For some people (psychopaths) it is a form of fun. For others it is a dysfunctional form of problem-solving. Juveniles sometimes use more violence than adults. So do DD offenders - they are not as good at groomming and manipulating their victim's compliance. Some offenders who engage in “molestation” offenses will admit, at their polygraphs, to restraining a victim from leaving. If you are a 5-year-old being restrained when you want to leave the scene when you are being fondled by a hairy, smelly adult man, then than restraint may play an important role in the way that a child thinks about, experiences, and subsequently reacts to the abuse.

In general, victims of overt violence may be less emotionally and cognitively confused about who is responsible for the assault – it was done to them.

Offenders who can assault a child (or adult) without the need for violence (real or implied) are simply better groomers and manipulators – they are more effective at making their victims feel complicit in the choice to participate in the assault. Victims of non-violent assaults are sometimes more emotionally and cognitively confused, though they are less physically injured.

Offenders who assault without violence are not less dangerous, just different, and they may have a greater psychological impact on their victims.

What is important to us, is that we ensure our ability to differentiate offenders who are willing to or capable of using violence against a victim's resistance or distress, and those who can access their victims or gain their victims' compliance without the use of real or implied violence.

(In the other thread, no-one commented on the problems surrounding the use of the word “consent” in the RQ. “Consent” is ultimately a legal construct. To the offender it is a matter of opinion, not behavior. To the polygraph, “consent” takes place, or doesn't, in the mind of the victim – who is not the person attached to our pneumo-tubes.)

So, we have a problem of operational definition (describe the behavior – what does it look like when somebody does it), surrounding the term force.

A few years ago, we noticed this problem, in Colorado, and the fact that a number of offenders could not pass Sex History questions about their use of force. We also noticed that the information we were gaining from them had no useful or interpretable signal value or contribution to the incremental validity of our assessment of victim assess, victim impact. We already know (from the case facts or pretest admissions) that they assaulted a minor (or adult). What we couldn't tell – using a broad operational definition of the term “force” - was which offenders were willing to or capable of using violence, and which offenders are capable of offending (acessing a victim) without the need for real or implied violence.

The solution was to revisit our operational definitions of the terms “force” and “coercion.”

Here is the operational definition for “force” taken from Sexual History Disclosure packet now required by the Colorado SOMB.

quote:

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Sexual contact (including attempts) with any person (including spouses or partners) whom you physically hit or struck, physically restrained using your body strength or any object, or threatened to harm through the use of weapons, including implied or improvised weapons, threatening gestures, or verbal threats of harm, including threats of harm towards the person's relatives or family members (including pets), in order to prevent the person from resisting or escaping.

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Force, in Colorado, now means any use of real or implied violence – physical force or violence (real or threatened). Force = physical force, and threats = threats of harm.

Aside from real or implied physical restraint or violence, there are about 1000 or more non-violent ways to make someone do something they don't want to do. So, we have another operational definition for the term coercion which refers only to non-violent coercion

quote:

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Sexual contact (including attempts) with any person (including spouses or partners) whose compliance you obtained through any non-violent form of coercion (i.e, bribery, manipulation, money, drugs, loss of relationship), despite the person's expressed or implied reluctance.

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I would have preferred the word “resistance” at the end, but was thought to create more confusion with the concept of “physical resistance,” which pertains to physical-force.

We test on physical force, and rarely (if ever) on coercion, because coercion is a much broader concept than force. We shake-down coercion admissions during the pre-test. What tends to happen is that offenders provide a lot of information on both physical force and coercion during the preparation and disclosure phase (pre-polygraph). Then, they admit to more during the pretest interview (because it is a well-known and expected phenomena that people underreport on self-report inventories, and during interactive group or individual interviews). Then we test on physical force.

R1: Did you ever physically force or threaten to harm anyone for sexual contact?

Or,

R1: Did you ever physically restrain or threaten to harm anyone for sexual contact?

When there are admissions, we have,

R1: Beside those three people, did you physically force or threaten to harm anyone else for sexual contact?

Or,

R1: Beside those three people, did you physically force or threaten to harm anyone else for sexual contact?

Another way would be,

R1: Besides whom you reported, did you physically force or threaten to harm anyone else to have sexual contact with you?

Or,

R1: Besides whom you reported, did you physically restrain or threaten to harm anyone else to have sexual contact with you?

Perhaps equally good would be,

R1: Besides whom you reported, did you force or threaten anyone else for sexual contact?

Or

R1: Besides whom you reported, did you force or threaten anyone else for sexual contact?

As long as the operational definition is well-established that force = physical force, and threats = threats of harm.

My own preference is to generally use a number and not “besides what you reported, and then use “besides whom you reported,” when the number of admissions is large (large enough that the offender cannot easily recall the number) or complicated by other information that was reviewed during the pretest.

Therapists were initially resistant to the SOMB untangling their carefully mucked up use of the term force and threats. Now they see that we are better able to provide them with information that will add incremental validity to their assessment of an offender's use of violence or grooming abilities, and subsequent impact on victims.

Offenders are better able to account for their use or non-use of physical-force (real or implied violence) to our satisfaction. Offenders no longer get to hide violent behavior under non-violent description, and no longer get to confuse the real issue by assigning the same behavioral label to every issue of concern.

.02

r

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"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here. This is the war room."
--(Stanley Kubrick/Peter Sellers - Dr. Strangelove, 1964)

posted 11-24-2008 07:44 PM            

In logic, and computer languages, the term "or" is often regarded as semantically exclusive. Not always. So, some structured languages have two different types of "or" statement; one exlusive, one non-exclusive (or, and x-or).

Consider: A or B

and

A x-or B

An "exclusive" use of the the "or"statement would mean it could be A or B but not both.

An "inclusive" use of "or" would mean that it could be A or B, or both A and B.

In the fuzzy language of English, "or" in logically and semantically "inclusive." We have no general or explicit expectation, when speaking English, that "or" is semantically exclusive.

The only anticipated effect from combining these (force or threaten) is to potentially stimulate the issue of violence more b. Its broadly - like "shakin' the tree harder" to ensure that if there som'pin there, it's gonna fall out.

I do not believe that offenders have any mystical powers of rationalization that would allow one to escape is emotional response to the issue, cognitive process of the issue, or behavioral-learning (conditioned response) associated with a violent bent involving either force or threats - inclusively or exclusively. There is no convincing evidence that even psychopaths possess that kind of power, and rationale is weak at best that it would work as you suggest.

To suggest that an offender could defeat a polygraph through the use of a logical exclusive-or reframe in the middle of a polygraph question will require proof. Of course, my argument requires proof too. We are now left to decide which proposition has better face-validity: a) the logical exclusive-or false-negative hypothesis, or b) the basic ideas about stimulus and response.

I'll argue the stimulus and response hypothesis has better face-validity. There is a potential emotional reactions (fear, or whatever amygdala related reaction you prefer) to the idea of force, and a potential emotional reaction to the idead of threats. The absence of reaction to cannot be expected to cancell out a reaction to the other. Then, there is a potential cognitive or neuro-cognitive reaction (memory or visualization or whatever) to the idea of force, and a potential cognitive response to the idea of threats. Again, the absence of response to one element of the stimulus does not cancell out a response to the other. Follow that with a conditioned response (behavioral learning) potential to the idea of force, and a conditioned response potential to the idea of threats (having been involved would be a conditioning event), and again, their is no plausible rationale or mechanism suggesting that the absence of resonse to one element of the stimulus would cancel a response to another stimulus element.

I am concerned about the potential for False-Negatives. But not from some logical nit-picking that is inconsistent with the English language. I'm more concerned with an FN resulting from neglecting to stimulate the issue broadly or rigorously enough.

Studies on screening tests from Barland, Honts and Barger (1989) seem to suggest that our screening tests are not always as sensitive to deceptive as we would assume. So, maybe I am playing with their rationalization a little - in attempt to stimulate the issue more effectively if the issue is present.

Offenders do attempt to rationalize. For example, an offender who simply acts angry and intimidating might not have to physically restrain a victim to gain the victim's compliance. He could say, "Hey, I didn't physically restrain the kid, I asked and she went along." (he just threatened to kill her dog if she didn't cooperate.)

I'm not convinced that this kind of rationalization would defeat the polygraph. But I have seen enough to know that things like operational definitions can at times influence test results. So, I stimulate the violence issue broadly.

I'm always open to other information or other arguments.

.02

r

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"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here. This is the war room."
--(Stanley Kubrick/Peter Sellers - Dr. Strangelove, 1964)

posted 11-24-2008 10:00 PM         

You are open minded. I see this as two questions combinded and the better method is to use two questions, not one. Now we are into screening again.

I personally can focus on "I'm telling the truth to threats, so I'm truthful to that portion, therefore no worry about detection".

I have conducted examinations on persons that think in that manner and so I see a problem with it. I have not conducted any studies, or read anything more than polygraph literature that does discourage the use of "or" durng question formulation. I'll do some digging to find the literature and post if when found.

Thanks for the explination.

posted 11-25-2008 01:30 PM            

I think that we often do things a certain way because we want to be able to defend the rule rather than the exception even when the rule has no real basis in fact or rational logic.

More often than not, when we are called upon to defend something we did or failed to do in polygraph we are doing so against someone else who is also a polygraph examiner. If we do something a bit differently, then we leave ourselves open to the argument that the way we did it was "wrong".

Ask an examinee to repeat back to you the questions which he believed he had the most problem. More often than not the question he repeats back to you isn't even close to the "well thought out" and semantically perfect question you created for the examination.

Ask the questions "Other than what you told me about, before 2008, did you ever steal anything from a place where you were employed?" and the examinee will repeat it back to you as "Did I ever steal anything from a place where I worked."

Give him the "perfect" relevant question and his question repeated back to you will not be recognizable as the same question.

In fact, I often ask the examinee "What questions do you think I should ask you on this test?" From an NDI examinee, I often get really good questions that are simple and direct and easily understood. From DI examinees the answer you get back is often very telling. "Rather than "Did I steal that money?" you get something like "Would I be willing to pay the money back?" (LOL)

I personally doubt that questions containing two action verbs tied together with "or" materially flaw the question. The NDI person did neither action and the DI person will react whether he did one of both actions.

posted 11-25-2008 04:47 PM            

this is off the actual topic, but I just wanted to say thank you. I don't know why it has never dawned on me to ask the examinee what they think I should be asking on the test. That's freakin brilliant. I will be implementing that immediately.

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Ralph Hilliard
PolygraphPlace Owner & Operator

Be sure to visit our new store for all things Polygraph Related
http://store.polygraphplace.com

posted 11-26-2008 08:18 AM            

I will expand a little, but I am probably just restating your point.

Thats similar to Nate's pre test where he asks--

What three questions would you ask if you were in my chair?

The guilty never say simply--- "Did you do it?"

They always seem to ask --"Where were you on the night that it happened?"

Nate's theory is that the innocent ask simple relevant questions.

Not to get too far off point, buts its also similar to

How would you investigate this case?

The innocent give simple answers like:

"Polygraph me like you are going to do and use the results."

or

"I know there is a camera, check it."

When the guilty say:

"I am not a a detective"

or vague things like

"Bring everyone in the area in and question them too"

posted 11-26-2008 04:14 PM            

quote:

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The guilty never say simply--- "Did you do it?"

They always seem to ask --"Where were you on the night that it happened?"

Nate's theory is that the innocent ask simple relevant questions.

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That's interesting. I have always asked "What do you think I should ask you to clear this issue up?" and I too get very direct answers from the NDI crowd, but I get some "I don't know" answers from the DI folks. I've never compared answers to see if there's a real difference, but I've never heard - that I can think of - a DI person asking me to ask him where he was on the night of the incident. I've had the NDI ask that in their lists - the opposite of what you've seen.

It would be interesting to collect some data and see what it tells us - especially since we know extrapolygraphic data finds its way into decisions.

Ray,

When I think "shake," it's not always violent, and I didn't know if you were trying to draw a line between a "good" shake and a bad. For example, an old wives tale is to put the baby chair on the washing machine as the gentle shake (or vibration?) will lull them to sleep. We now know it's probably the sound and not the movement, but how many have tried it successfully? I have no idea. (My wife was a pediatric nurse when my kids were young, so no, we didn't try it, but it was suggested multiple times.)

When does "rocking" become "shaking"? How about age, since you can get rougher as they get older? My kids, when babies - not infants - liked to be shaken - gently while supported on a bed (so there's no neck jerking - the main problem with shaking that leads to injury). They'd giggle and wait for more. (Lay them down and then push on the bed next to them so the bed moves beneath their body - not violently though, of course - and they'll jiggle or "shake." Maybe it's more appropriate to call it "vibrating" than shaking (like the washer tale), but that's what I meant when I questioned how you pre-tested "shake." To me, it's not so cut-and-dry. If you asked if I ever shook my children in a dangerous (or "violent") fashion, then that's an easy one. No. Have I ever "shaken" my kids? I'd argue that without more info, yes I did. (As a police officer who's dealt with this stuff, I'd know exactly what you meant, but I don't know that all would, and thus, my question.)

And yes, I've asked the "shake" question on a test, but I described (and illustrated) what the doctor said had to have happened, which is probably what we all do, so that "shake" was well-defined. I just wonder if it means more to the person who doesn't want to admit to any form of "innocent shaking."

posted 11-27-2008 08:00 AM            

We know that because some classes teach non-examiners to give comparative and relevant questions, just like a polygraph, during a regular interview and guilty people have alot of trouble with the relevant questions just by looking at them for the same reasons that they do during an exam--just not as obvious. Here (someone without alot of tests under his belt like me) can really look at the person for every tiny swallow, the look in their eyes, etc----however during an exam I am looking at them, but also at the time bar, the reaction, the tracings, the cardio getting too low or too high, etc...

I didn't really mean, "I get it that answer all of the time" specifically to that statement, I mean types of statements like that. But, that one did come to my head so I am quite certain that someone did say that recently.

posted 12-03-2008 07:23 AM            

I have used
Did you use any force against the child that could have caused their injury?

Pretested with a thorough description of what the word "force" would mean in the context of the question.

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Ex scientia veritas

posted 12-03-2008 02:01 PM            

Can you comment further on how well that works?

The goal is to find a question that works well for both deceptive and the truthful subjects.

r

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"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here. This is the war room."
--(Stanley Kubrick/Peter Sellers - Dr. Strangelove, 1964)

posted 12-05-2008 11:00 AM            

I offered the suggestion as an alternative to asking a question that presumes an injury occurred in a specific manner when it is very possible that this type of injury could have occurred in some manner other than picking the child up and shaking them like a rag doll.

Weren't we all taught to try to always structure our relevant qestions to insure that a subject could not truthfully answer them with a "No" and still be guilty of the crime?

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Ex scientia veritas

posted 12-05-2008 11:38 AM            

ps Speaking of hijacked threads, I and 99 other employees were fired this morning. Recieved the word on my blackberry----classy, eh?.

posted 12-05-2008 06:30 PM            

As for the other issue anybody who fires employees over a blackberry is an oafish scoundrel of the highest order. Give me his number and I'll call him and tell him so.

If this company provides goods or services that I might use let me know the company and I will cross them off my shopping list.

At least you know that it wasn't anything personal. In fact it couldn't have been more impersonal. Arrrrrrrgh what jerks.

Welcome back

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Ex scientia veritas

posted 12-11-2008 01:32 PM            

Seriously though, I got a job selling cell phone towers, water towers, and all the accompanying guy wires, paints, and what not. I'd like to thank a few examiners who offered me and my family some help (you know who you are). Funny how colleagues from my own recent industry turned a blind eye (not even calling to well wish), while polygraph examiners---one of whom I've never even met---offered serious help. (insert warm and fuzzy feelings of holiday cheer here.)
Thank you.

Eric Johnson,
Christmas Fanatic