posted 06-03-2008 10:18 PM            

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 06-03-2008 11:28 PM            

guilty= futility

posted 06-04-2008 08:12 AM            

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 06-04-2008 07:47 PM            

If one feels contemptious and thinks that the blind stim is a folly-driven flashy slight of hand act, than one only need to review their previous garden variety field polygraph tests on video to see that the current decades old CQ test is itself somewhat of a parlor trick.Of course two wrongs don't make a right, but my point isn't that CQ is a wrong in the first place. CQ is what it is. Blind stim is a different critter----and it above all other stims appear, at face value, to be of real use. I've had many examinees who had been tested multiple times and admitted that there were NDI tests they should have failed and DI's thety should have passed. The blind stim somehow (a bad word in science---but necessary) transcends the vagueness and oddities that veteran offenders have become wary of. Veteran offender wariness is no less problematic with multiple-tested offenders than your points of habituation and innoculation---IMO.

Conventional logic dictates that if under the right circumstances and in a somehwat controled environment, if one can't determine through chart analysis the distinction between padding and a real deception---nevermind the whole CQ tightrope-----just a KEY vs. Padding----than I suggest we cannot detect deception or really even surpass the statistical strengths (great strengths even) by virtue of the shakey theoretical model (the nuts and bolts logistics) of detection of deception.

Maybe I'm off though.

posted 06-05-2008 08:48 AM            

I disagree, however that the blind stim enhances the process or the results any more than the standard numbers test. I don't even have them pick a number. I tell them to write the number 7 on a piece of paper and I then add the padding above and below it just so they know there is no tricks or games involved. I stress, after the test is conducted that no determination is ever made after only one iteration of a polygraph chart and that three or more test charts are required before any determination is made. I casually mention that they did have some good clean physiological tracings on the chart to both the truthful answers and the one to which they lied which was clear so it will be very easy to discern the difference on the "real" test.

In 1981 Steven L. Kirby conducted an experiment in which both a known and an unknown stim was compared. His results showed no difference in the examiner’s ability to accurately discern deceptive or non deceptive people on the post stim charts. He did find one statistically significant fact. The known stim test did induce the deceptive subjects to attempt to distort their charts.

In 1986 Elaad, Eitan & Kleiner researched 223 subjects that had been tested and found non-deceptive to a case of multiple warehouse arsons. The actual culprit was eventually caught and therefore all 223 subjects previously tested were confirmed NDI. About half the group had received a stim test and half had received no stim test. No statistically significant differences were noted in either the examinee’s ability to “read” the charts or in the relative strength of reaction in the various components between those who receivedb the styim test and those who did not.

In 1986, Horowitz, Kircher and Raskins tested the effectiveness of the stim test to determine if the test improved the accuracy of the subsequent polygraph test. The polygraph tests were 86% accurate when they followed a correct outcome of a known stim test and 89% accurate when they followed an incorrect outcome stim test. Scoring was accomplished by using the EDA and selecting the largest reaction as the key.

Based upon the foregoing research, and there are others, there appears to be little evidence to support the stim test as an effective tool in enhancing our ability to make correct decision using the CQT polygraph. It may serve some purpose in establishing the correct sensitivity settings and establishing the procedures to be followed in the actual test but I would be reluctant to place any more importance to the test than that.

posted 06-05-2008 11:31 AM            

Like Skip, I use that time to adjust the sensitivity levels of each waveform, and ensure that each component is placed appropriately and functioning properly. It also gives me an opportunity to see if there are any noteworthy irregularities in the physiological waveforms unique to this examinee.

I also like the theoretical assumption that it gives both the innocent and guilty examinee an increase in confidence that the test will "work on them." Most of the examinees I test are "first-timers," with the exception of sex offenders, law enforcement veterans, or applicants who are "shopping around for a home."

Skip, could you email or send me copies of the studies you cited?
1981 Steven L. Kirby
1986 Elaad, Eitan & Kleiner
1986 Horowitz, Kircher and Raskins?

I would greatly appreciate it.

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Ben

posted 06-05-2008 02:31 PM            

Thx.

Kircher, J. C., Packard, T., Bell, B.G., & Bernhardt, P. C. (2001). Effects of prior demonstrations of
polygraph accuracy on outcomes of probable-lie and directed-lie polygraph tests. DoDPI02-R-
0002. DTIC AD Number A404128. University of Utah.

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Ben