posted 08-09-2012 08:53 AM            

So don't give up the art. Just don't neglect the science.

posted 08-09-2012 09:49 AM         

quote:

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This statement reduces polygraph to nothing more than an interrogation prop.

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But in the world of "practical polygraph" -- as Don so diplomatically puts it -- that's exactly what it is.

Hey, it's OK. Polygraph is a tool, right?

How accurate is the LEPET test? Has LEPET been scientifically vetted? Why not?

Is the LEPET test "good" polygraph? Is the question "Are you intentionally withholding any information about those [40 or so(!)] serious crimes we discussed?" a good solid relevant question?

The LEPET format serves chiefly as the frame of reference for which the psych-out games can continue post-test, to better shake the tree, with the polygraph looming menacingly in the background as that fearsome electronic rubber hose.

But it's OK. Polygraph is a tool.

Let's turn to art...

By "artful" I simply mean exploiting the decidedly subjective elements of the test: e.g., building a very high level of rapport; putting on a scarier rain dance; manipulating the examinee into the right frame of mind for the fear/hope questions.

Your philosophical take on the political, historical, introspective, etc. aspects of the "artful" polygraph is just a red herring. But you knew that.

quote:

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... if we don't do the right things, then lack of respect is guaranteed.

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Spoken like a true fear-monger. Trouble is, the lack of respect is pretty much guaranteed in any event.

Polygraph is the Rodney Dangerfield of the forensic "sciences."

But it's OK. Polygraph is a tool.

The gummint's (NACA's) crusade to "scientize" polygraph -- or at least cloak polygraph in some sense of legitimacy -- most likely stems from a combination of pressures, not the least of which is the rising number of disputes over FP results. Many such disputes are quietly $ettled. Lest we forget Higazy.

Back to art...

So, Ray, let me get this straight... You're against artful practices even if they improve accuracy. Is that right?

Or, are you suddenly going to stand shoulder to shoulder with Don?

Dan

posted 08-09-2012 11:32 AM            

Please don't be rediculous.

I am NOT against art, and I am NOT against expertise.

Expertise and experience do matter. Replicatability also matters, and that means sometimes focusing on what we can teach to others. If we don't endorse this, then we will move backward in history to the time when skills were acquired through apprenticeship. Sure, maybe that would be a great thing in some ways. There are definite advantages to experiential learning under the supervision and tutelage of a recognized master and expert. This is why we have such strong impulses to require feild training internships. But it is a slow way to grow a profession, if that is all we do.

Someone can do an experiment.

Change all your website, business cards and all your marketing materials for a year (I think you gotta give it at least a year, or y're just not dedicated to your craft).

Mr. XXXXX - Polygraph Artist. The Most Artful Polygraph Examiner in Town. Employing the most advanced traditional and modern art to pursue the truth for you!

Try it and let us know how it works.

.02

r

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

posted 08-09-2012 12:45 PM            

Against my better judgment, I have waded into this brawl because it appears both sides have some valid points even though the participants don’t want to admit the other side also has some valid or even partially valid points.

Two things are absolutely true. First, credibility assessment, using the polygraph examination is certainly a science or more accurately is a combination of several well documented and researched principles of science. Second, however, the manner in which we deploy our methodology requires some degree of “art” to be valid and therefore effective. Whether we employ the PLC or DLC or even the concealed information test, the examiner must be trained in the “art” of successful communication.

I think we can all agree that successful communication between two humans is more of an art than it is a science. We should also be able to agree a poor communicator, armed with even the most sophisticated scientific instruments won’t magically become an excellent communicator. I’ve often heard the old adage “He could Sell ice to an Eskimo” speaking of someone with the gift of persuasive communications and I’ve heard of police officers working narcotics who “couldn’t buy drugs in a pharmacy with a prescription.”

Successful utilization of the polygraph technique certainly depends upon the examiner being able to “artfully” conduct a proper and “persuasive” pre-test interview in such a manner that the resulting instrument phase works as well and as accurately as the technique can within the limitations of the science itself. I also agree we can’t quantify in terms of numeric measurement, the amount of accuracy or success the art of persuasive communications plays in the overall accuracy of the polygraph technique but we can certainly see the adverse results from the absence of artful communications during the pre-instrument phase of the test when we look at the final results of the process.

I realize I’ve been on the “soap box” of the importance of a successful pre-instrument phase for a long time and I’m not inclined to back down now. I’ll be the first to assert that we could automate the in-test phase of the polygraph process to automatic sensors and digitized voice presentation of the questions just as easily as the automotive industry has automated speed or cruise control. Unless you’re driving from El Paso to Midland Texas, however, I wouldn’t recommend setting the cruise control and crawling in the back seat for a quick nap.

posted 08-09-2012 01:08 PM         

Ray:

quote:

---

Someone can do an experiment.

Change all your website, business cards and all your marketing materials for a year (I think you gotta give it at least a year, or y're just not dedicated to your craft).

Mr. XXXXX - Polygraph Artist. The Most Artful Polygraph Examiner in Town. Employing the most advanced traditional and modern art to pursue the truth for you!

Try it and let us know how it works.

---

Don't forget to add an endorsement from Miss Cleo.

Actually, Ray, therein lies the irony of it all...

We still need to sell the notion of scientific validity, just as we sell the acquaintance test.

Scientifically, the polygraph is snake oil. But in terms of "practical polygraph" the test is seen by some as very powerful medicine.

So, the same science-oriented ad strategy that has been used for years in selling age-old cures such as miracle skin creams, male enhancement products and mate-attracting pheromones applies to promoting the polygraph.

In the ad biz -- just as in the psych-out pre-test magical rain dance -- perception is reality.

posted 08-10-2012 10:44 AM            

You stated "In the ad biz -- just as in the psych-out pre-test magical rain dance -- perception is reality."

I suggest you read the research study conducted by Doctors Heinz & Susanne Offe published in American Psychology-Law Society/Division 41 of the American Psychological Association 2006.

They did a very comprehensive, extremely well designed study on the value of the pre-test discussion and its effect on the validity of the comparison question polygraph test.

Not only did they find that the pre-test discussion increases polygraph accuracy in the detection of truthful as well as deceptive subjects (exceeding 90%), amazingly the results also showed the detection of deceptive subjects is greatly diminished when the discussion does not occur.

posted 08-12-2012 09:47 AM         

quote:

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As usual Dan hijacked the thread to bash polygraph as witchcraft, resulting in all the rest of us responding to his wild assertions. Pretty much like the Obama game plan. Attack the opponent personally and no one will notice the current emperor has no clothes.

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Pray tell, Skip, what "wild assertions" did I make? What personal attacks?

Also, it was your faithful follower Ted who called me "the ultimate bigot." Wow. I guess that ranks me ahead of David Duke, George Wallace and George Lincoln Rockwell. That's a pretty low blow, and I have no idea where Ted would get the notion that I am a bigot. Perhaps someone planted that seed, someone who wants to smear me for some twisted form of a perceived greater good. That kind of thing can happen when a person speaks truth to power. But the damage was done, and things live forever in cyberspace. At least Ted edited his post shortly after making such an odious and troubling "wild assertion."

As for the "witchcraft," elements of that hotly debated topic seems to be rather abundant in your "Nailing the Pretest" PowerPoint slides. I'm sure you have another term for manipulating examinees and getting them "locked in," as you put it, to their responses to the CQs, but it's still s form of witchcraft.

It's all part of your own approach to the rain dance, is it not?

Don called me the "anti-polygraph polygraph examiner," but I am simply a polygraph "realist."

The psychological and decidedly subjective elements of the polygraph "test" -- call them what you will: art/witchcraft/manipulation -- are inextricably linked to the process as a whole.

My beef with the polygraph scientists is that they seem to gloss over (or totally ignore) the "art" component of the polygraph equation. Yet, after pressing them on the issue -- as I have done for years now in this forum, in efforts to more accurately reflect polygraph in its totality -- the scientists end up acknowledging polygraph's inherently subjective elements.

The point I'm trying to make is this:

If the science and art elements are co-dependent -- and the consensus here is that they are -- then how can the process be truly scientific?

My argument goes to the root of the issues that have been dogging polygraph's acceptance by the scientific community at large, and its admissibility in court, for many decades.

Again, this is reality.

Now Skip, I'm waiting for your list of those wild assertions and personal attacks of mine that you claim I have made.

Dan

posted 08-12-2012 11:50 AM         

Above you referred to polygraph as “snake oil”. Here is the definition of “Snake Oil”:

“The phrase snake oil is a derogatory term used to describe quackery, the promotion of fraudulent or unproven medical practices. The expression is also applied metaphorically to any product with questionable and/or unverifiable quality or benefit. By extension, the term "snake oil salesman" may be applied to someone who sells fraudulent goods, or who is a fraud himself."

Since you continue to offer your services to the public for a fee, does this not make you a purveyor of Snake Oil?

Help me out here Dan. I am trying to see both sides of the argument here but the scene just keeps getting darker and darker!

By the way, perhaps Bigot was not the best discriptor:

"Definition of HYPOCRITE

1: a person who puts on a false appearance of virtue or religion

2: a person who acts in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs or feelings

Ted

posted 08-12-2012 12:17 PM            

Don
To your question, yes I would support the art in polygraphy for a boost in accuracy. I'm certain that some unquantifiable skills play a part in most diagnostic tests that help humans form professional opinions, which might partially explain why there are good and bad examiners, physicians, psychologists and weather prognosticators. The challenge of the art is that those skills tend to be hard to communicate to others so they can benefit from them. So, yes the art part is important.

Skip

I think we can all agree that successful communication between two humans is more of an art than it is a science.

Dan
My argument goes to the root of the issues that have been dogging polygraph's acceptance by the scientific community at large, and its admissibility in court, for many decades.

Your remark on admissibility in court is incorrect. It is admissible in New Mexico by New Mexico Supreme Court Rule 11-707. Also admissible in many other states under certain circumstances.

PAPER PREPARED BY
GARY A. UDASHEN AND NATHAN KIGHT
SORRELS & UDASHEN
In 1983, the Supreme Court of New Mexico promulgated Rule of Evidence 11-707, which established
procedural requirements for the admission of polygraph evidence. N.M.Stat.Ann. 11-707.

Following Daubert, state and federal courts throughout the country began to re-examine the per se ban
on polygraph tests. The results have ranged from a significant number of jurisdictions adhering to the per
se rule against admissibility, while others relaxed their rules and began to admit polygraphs in limited
circumstances. In fact, the per se exclusion of polygraph tests is now the minority view among the Federal
Circuits. See United States v. A & S Council Oil Co., 947 F.2d 1128, 1134, n.4 (4th Cir. 1991) (noting that
circuits that have not yet permitted evidence of polygraph results for any purpose are now in the decided
minority). New Mexico has the most liberal rules and generally admits polygraph evidence in the same way
as other expert evidence. See State v. Dorsey, 88 N.M. 184, 539 P.2d 204 (N.M. 1975); New Mexico Rule
of Evidence 11-707. At least fourteen states follow a standard for admissibility similar to Daubert. See
Peeples, Exculpatory Polygraphs in the Courtroom: How the Truth May Not Set You Free, 28 Cumb. L. Rev.
77, 115, n.6 (1997-98).

It appears there its agreement on the "Art" and Science of polygraph. We are using different descriptors and saying essentially the same thing.

posted 08-12-2012 12:46 PM         

As for admissibility, I'm aware of what the law says. But as a practical matter, it is rather uncommon that polygraph evidence is admitted in court. Look at http://www.daubertontheweb.com/polygraphers.htm and you'll see that polygraph is batting .121 on admissibility in light of Daubert.

Ted:
Not all snake oil is bad, evil or nefarious. Consider:

*The elderly arthritic who eases her pain by wearing a magnetic wrist band is helped by "snake oil."

*The fatigued person who sleeps with a bar of soap under their legs (look it up) and senses relief from nocturnal restlessness is helped by "snake oil."

*The frustrated (but suggestible) guy who has had his prostate removed and responds to a homeopathic cure for erectile dysfunction (when prescriptions meds have failed) is helped by "snake oil."

*The devout Catholic whose heartache is eased after touching a bogus splinter (purported relic) from "The Cross" is helped by "snake oil."

In short, Ted, it's all about the utility.

LEPET and PCSOT are arguably more snake oil than not, but they get results. As Don says, they "solve problems." It's simply "practical polygraph," as Don puts it.

And who is the biggest purveyor of snake oil? That would be Uncle Sugar himself.

By the way, in my private-practice pre-test, all of my clients are made aware, in considerable detail, of the scientific controversy surrounding polygraph. Further. I counsel all concerned parties to view polygraph results with extreme caution. Thus, there is no conflict, because there is no fraud.

Dan