posted 07-27-2012 02:37 PM            

Many of you know that most computer polygraphs now have the capability for the software to ask the questions during the testing phase. This is not just a gee-how-neat feature. It has some practical benefits. They include:

1. Standardizing how questions are presented during the testing phase for all examinees. Standardization has become a very important part of the field.

2. Preventing the accidental mislabeling of the questions on the chart.

3. Equalizing the volume in which all questions are presented.

4. Neutralizing accents.

5. Avoiding mispronunciations, stutters, and stumbles.

6. Allowing the examiner to watch the examinee instead of the question list.

7. Giving the examiner a brief respite from talking.

8. The appearance of an automated process might be more reassuring to innocent examinees, and more disturbing to deceptive examinees.

9. For interpreter exams, it can remove one source of variance in the testing process.

There are examiners who use the digitized voice routinely. If you are one of those, can you share your story? What seems to work well? What are some of the problems? Would you recommend it? Why, or why not?

posted 07-29-2012 02:02 PM         

I have a video that I used when I taught at AAPP in Boston. Shoot me an email and I will send it to you.

posted 08-03-2012 07:18 AM            

Anyone out there in PolygraphPlace land had any painful "lessons learned" with automated testing they can share?

posted 08-03-2012 08:52 PM         

Rapport is everything in this business and a machine will never be able to develop it.

Imagine this scenario:

You are going in to see your doctor for a routine blood draw. Instead, you are put into a room and a digitized recording tells you to do the following:

“Roll up your sleeve.

Place your arm into the chamber in front of you.

Hold still and do not move.

In 10.8 seconds, you will experience a minor stinging sensation as a needle will be inserted into your vein.

Your blood specimen has now been obtained.

See now, that did not hurt a bit.

Please remove your arm and exit the room.”

I rest my case.

posted 08-03-2012 10:17 PM            

There is not much not to like about standardization and digitized voice, except to the extent that it might interfere with rapport building, and our ability to get people to want to give us information which they do not initially want to give us.

This brings us to the third, more difficult, dimmension to this discussion: I like talking to people and I like to think I am good at it. Certainly there are some repetitive verbal sequences that I would not mind automating now that I've done the schtick a few thousand times. The difficult part of this is that it challenges my narcisistic sense of self-importance to think that a digital voice might be as effective or more effective than me at accomplishing some of these tasks. Will I still be important? Or maybe it is just the sporting challenge that I like - the same sense of fun that I get from driving a car with a manual transmission.

How do we know that one is better? Better in what way? More likely: what is the optimal combination of human rapport building and interviewing and standardized information and stimulus presentation?

.02

r

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

posted 08-04-2012 12:06 PM         

quote:

---

Rapport is everything in this business and a machine will never be able to develop it.

---

Ted,

Your emphasis on the importance of rapport underscores the "art" element of polygraphy.

In the example you cited, the lack of rapport would not affect the outcome of the patient's blood test. But, in polygraphy, the lack of rapport compromises a test -- or at least that's the conventional widsom.

I think using digitized voice for the question sets is more of a plus than a minus. But a robotic pre-test lecture is, in my opinion, not the way to go.

After all, we're not talking about science here. Without the psych-out pre-test magical rain dance, a polygraph test is at an increased risk of falling flat.

That said, I contend that it is entirely possible to package the magical rain dance in a cleverly scripted and highly evocative video, complete with special effects, to set the stage for the "test."

In fact, a five minute "mini movie" projected on the wall of the polygraph suite might be the wave of the future. (Don't forget the surround sound to go with the hellfire and brimstone visuals.) But that's a far greater leap than merely foisting the pre-test lecture chore onto a nameless digital voice.

Dan

posted 08-05-2012 08:06 PM            

(Skip to 8:15 to learn about rapport!)

Our PD still uses a polygraph chair exactly like the one in the video...

As far as rapport and automated presentations, I see opposing perspectives: A)Standardized/automated pre-tests adds scientific value resulting in more consistent results or B) The results may not be the highest priority: confessions from the deceptive are what matters which depends upon the rapport built by examiner personality.

posted 08-05-2012 09:07 PM         

Part 2 is just as riveting.

posted 08-05-2012 10:25 PM         

You are wrong again when you say that not much has changed. Polygraph has changed greatly in the past decade yet you refuse to consider it. Instead, you bad mouth all of the research and the great work we all do- and continue to advertise and provide your services –for a fee?

Dan, I have never seen your name on a single ballot for election in ANY polygraph association. If you feel so strongly about your “convictions”, please feel free to get involved rather than sit in the shadows and take pot shots at the people who really care and work so hard in this profession.

I enjoy your commentary but you can't have your cake and eat it too. And by the way, I only edited this post once but for some some reason, it took four attempts to do it. I felt my original post needed to be toned down a bit.

Ted

[This message has been edited by Ted Todd (edited 08-06-2012).]

[This message has been edited by Ted Todd (edited 08-06-2012).]

[This message has been edited by Ted Todd (edited 08-06-2012).]

posted 08-06-2012 07:42 AM            

There may be value in automating some parts of the pretest (i.e., explanation of exam process and sensors, consent form, maybe introduction of DLCs, etc.) if they can be woven into the pretest process without interfering with rapport or the flow. Rapport is important to gaining confessions, but its value in conducting testing has not been studied. Rapport building is not part of any lab research scenario I've heard of, and polygraph accuracy seems to be impressive there. Some years ago I participated in the scenario John Kircher uses in Utah, and if my exam experience was like what they do for everyone, they spent very little time on the rapport "raindance", to quote Dan the anti-polygraph polygraph examiner. And the exam still got the right answer. From that n=1 experience, added to their published research, rapport appears to me to be one of those field things we mistake as necessary for polygraph accuracy. Clearly, practical polygraph testing is more than just recording and analyzing physiology. It's solving a problem for a department/agency/client, which means not just detecting the lie, but finding out the truth. Rapport may facilitate the latter, but we should not mistake all the things we do as being necessary to make the test accurate. Accuracy may be something that happens despite our "raindances".

posted 08-06-2012 03:40 PM         

quote:

---

...rapport appears to me to be one of those field things we mistake as necessary for polygraph accuracy.

---

Well then, if that’s true, digitized voice is just the beginning…

The entire polygraph process could be automated.

All it would take is a soundproof booth equipped with motion sensors for the seat, arms and feet. The MMS headphones could be used both for sound and for further compliance assessment (jaw muscle contraction, tongue biting, etc.).

Automated “slip-in” blood pressure arm cuffs, already in use at many pharmacies -- these are the self-serve kind with an integral chair and easy instructions on the console -- could be modified for the “polybox” application.

Metal plates (pressure-sensitive ), wired to record EDA, could be made as part of the armrests onto which the subject would place his hands. Auto-adjusting strain-gauge “pneumo hoops” -- or maybe some form of a tunic -- would round out the sensors.

The booth would contain a screen for the pre-test (F3) “mini movie” and magical rain dance to be shown. Questions could be reviewed via animated PowerPoint on the same screen. By the way, the automated polygraph booth could have a bunch of rain dances in the cue -- scripted to exploit that particular individual’s sense of values-- not unlike a well-stocked jukebox. For example, test subjects who are Catholics would shown a pre-test “explanation” geared to the sensibilities so often found in that demographic group. (You get the picture.)

The booth could have controls for the test subject to pause or repeat any portion of the pre-test It could also have a kill switch to terminate the test, or, in the case of claustrophobic subjects, to be released.

Perhaps best of all, the entire data-collection process would be uploaded, complete with video of the test subject, in real time to a central polygraph QA office anywhere in the world, where live examiners could monitor -- or simply review at a later date -- the automated test.

The bottom line is that the government could replace many of its rank and file examiners with the automated polygraph booths, which could be maintained by GS-4 technicians, resulting in significant cost savings.

This application seems to lend itself more readily to screening applicants, where ostensibly cooperative test subjects are the focus. Criminal investigations may require the “presence” of an examiner, but even that could be done remotely.

posted 08-06-2012 04:44 PM         

Have any of you been the victim of a minor crime lately and tried to report it to your local police? If so, you know that the process is totally automated, done by pushing buttons on your phone or reported via the computer. I don’t think this is the way to go.

We all saw how well the Lafayette Instrument Company did with the attempt to circumvent proper training and human involvement with their last attempt to automate the polygraph process with the hand held device marketed to the military.

I don’t fault Lafayette for trying but I think we all know that it was not well received and was pretty much a “Dud”.

You will never obtain a confession from anyone who has been talking to a machine, watching a video or checking off boxes on a computer screen. Any attempts to do this will only make us more vulnerable to our critics. Right Dan?

posted 08-06-2012 09:39 PM            

As for the automated Preliminary Credibility Assessment Screening System (PCASS) made by Lafayette and used by the military on the front lines since 2007, it still needs a human for the pre- and postest. Only the testing and analysis is heavily automated. The military considers it a big success as a triage tool, helping decide who needs further processing. "Saving American lives" is what Army G-2 says about it. While the PCASS is well known among the services, we don't hear much about it stateside because Lafayette will only sell it to the military (call and see for yourself whether they'll let you buy one), and the military will only use it overseas for force protection and other missions. Not speaking for Lafayette, just setting the record straight. The company has shown exceptional discipline on what could be a moneymaker here in America, and that the technology has proven itself by the metric of bringing some of our forces home safely. This is a success story you won't here much about.

Returning us back on task now, automation in the polygraph examination process. We know that there are some things that humans do better, and things automation does better. Neither can outperform the other in every polygraph task. So, what if we consider adding automation where it makes sense, and keep the parts we do best to ourselves? For automation we give the drudge work, highly repetitive mindless tasks, portions that benefit from high levels of standardization, and things that call for lots of straightforward computations. To the human we assign the rapport, question construction, interviews requiring interactions, and portions that benefit from the human touch to get information. Mix in proper amounts, cook in a 10 X 10 room, and voila, the optimize examination. Better than automation alone, better than us without automation. I believe it's a false dichotomy to say we must use all automation or exclude all automation. The truth here, like most truths, resides somewhere in that fuzzy middle.

posted 08-06-2012 09:46 PM         

--------------------------------------------

Ted,

I wholeheartedly agree with you.

But the gummint -- the biggest purveyor of polygraph tests -- views things through a different prism.

You can be sure that there are some federal bean counters, or other mid-level bureaucrats, salivating at the notion of an automated polygraph process.

Why? It's all about the numbers. Here's but one example you may have seen via a Google Alert:

----------------------------------
Pentagon Use of Polygraph Tests Rises Sharply
Secrecy News (blog) http://www.google.com/url?sa=X&q=http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2012/08/pentagon_polygraph.html&ct=ga&cad=CAcQARgAIAAoATAAOABAn8TrgAVIAVAAWABiAmVu&cd=XjGRdtbMeVI&usg=AFQjCNFdZOMdq 3--BolCI2YTBGAX-4dIUA
The number of polygraph examinations performed by the Department of Defense more than doubled over the past decade to over 43000 tests in a one-year period, according to a study performed last year for the Under Secretary of Defense (Intelligence).
----------------------------------------

Finding a more economical way to conduct the ever-increasing number of polygraphs is Job 1 for someone in the bowels of GSA (or some other gummint agency). Bet on it.

Whatever deficiencies exist with polygraph automation, there will be proponents ready to counter with reasonably sounding workaround solutions -- or economy-based justifications.

Think about it... With voice-recognition software, even an automated polygraph could register certain keyword-based admissions or confessions. The technology is there to overcome some of the obvious objections to "progressing" toward automated polygraphing.

And don't forget the Big Brother QA Polygraph Observers residing in the cloud.

Automated polygraph can be done. I would not be one bit surprised if it were to start happening sooner rather than later.

Conveniently, Uncle Sugar doesn't sweat collateral damage (FPs) very much. Even if my idea for the automated polygraph test -- and I doubt that I'm the first one to think of it -- resulted in a troubling percentage of bad (FP) calls, the benefit in savings will make up for it.

And Ted, I don't sweat the harsh criticism. As you've pointed out before, this is the only forum where the big dogs can run free!

Dan

[This message has been edited by Dan Mangan (edited 08-06-2012).]

posted 08-07-2012 12:39 AM         

“As for the automated Preliminary Credibility Assessment Screening System (PCASS) made by Lafayette and used by the military on the front lines since 2007, it still needs a human for the pre- and postest. Only the testing and analysis is heavily automated. The military considers it a big success as a triage tool, helping decide who needs further processing. "Saving American lives" is what Army G-2 says about it. While the PCASS is well known among the services, we don't hear much about it stateside because Lafayette will only sell it to the military (call and see for yourself whether they'll let you buy one), and the military will only use it overseas for force protection and other missions. Not speaking for Lafayette, just setting the record straight. The company has shown exceptional discipline on what could be a moneymaker here in America, and that the technology has proven itself by the metric of bringing some of our forces home safely. This is a success story you won't here much about.”

A Louisville Slugger would also be a great screening tool to test enemy combatants who need “further screening”. I whole heartily support the use of such a tool when it comes to saving American lives. I for one, would modify the Louisville Slugger to be larger, and perhaps have four pounds of electrically charged lead on its working end. It would also be far more cost effective to the American Tax Payer, easier to train personnel on its use, and be far more effective in its accuracy than any “PCASS”. When it comes to saving American lives, it should be used on a regular basis.

Lafayette Instruments may not be willing to sell me a “PCASS” instrument,God Bless them! However, they will sell me a fully operational polygraph instrument provided that i have the cash to pay for it. So will Axciton, Stoelting, and Limestone. If you think I am wrong, just ask John Grogan or any of his “graduates”. Now, the record is straight. Money talks.

Now, back to the original topic. No machine or instrument will ever be able to replicate, duplicate, or do a better job at what we do. Period. The US Government will probably spend millions of tax payer dollars to try and prove me wrong but I doubt it will ever happen in our lifetime.

posted 08-07-2012 07:39 AM            

quote:

---

No machine or instrument will ever be able to replicate, duplicate, or do a better job at what we do. Period.

---

There are some things that machines and instruments can help us do better.

It turns out that evaluating physiological responses to determine lies and truth-telling is already one of them.

r

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

posted 08-07-2012 08:49 AM         

The dog-and-pony-show "test" is used chiefly as an elaborate backdrop against which the skilled examiner wields the fearsome electronic rubber hose.

Accuracy of the "test" is secondary to "developing" information, no?

posted 08-07-2012 10:08 AM         

I can appreciate how your model works.

Actually, I was speaking to this point made by Don:

quote:

---

Clearly, practical polygraph testing is more than just recording and analyzing physiology. It's solving a problem for a department/agency/client, which means not just detecting the lie, but finding out the truth.

---

The use of the word "practical" says it all. Heck, it almost rhymes with "utility."

If the Magic 8 Ball got the same "practical" results as the polygraph, I suspect the government would quickly adopt it as a more cost-effective problem-solving device.

posted 08-07-2012 11:41 AM            

Second: Won't be pulled into the government polygraph bashing yet again. Get enough nonsense from the leftist press, anti crowd, and the stray foil-hatted citizen with email access.

Now, let's restart the discussion. What place does automation have in polygraph testing?

posted 08-07-2012 01:45 PM            

It may be that the confession is what is most useful. But this does not mean that the confession is the only thing that is important, or that the accuracy of the test is unimportant. In fact, one of the most assured ways to be effective in interrogation is to precede the decision of whether or not to interrogate with a test that can accurately inform us of whether the person does or does not have information to give us.

There is no great question or doubt about whether the polygraph and polygraph examiners are effective at getting information.

The criticism that we are asked to answer from time to time has more to do with the degree of accuracy of the test result. In the past it seemed as if we were simply too unprepared or too afraid to actually engage this conversation - and instead tended to steer the conversation to the topic of obtaining information, leaving our critics with unanswered questions and even greater skepticism about the accuracy of the test.

Dan seems to contend that it is fundamentally necessary to psych-out and manipulate people to make the test work - presumably both to get information and make the test result work.

Maybe so. Maybe less so than we realize.

Manipulative interrogation techniques are coming under more and more scrutiny. A 2012 report from the Northwestern University Law School Center for Wrongful Convictions is not flattering towards the polygraph, and states that of 104 wrongful conviction cases over 36% of them were reported as having confessed.

This does not mean that most confessions are bad and does not mean that interrogation is bad. It might mean that we may be asked to be more accountable for both the accuracy and the ethics of interrogation practices.

There is no real challenge to the assumption that human interaction may always be more effective at motivating people to tell us the things they do not initially want to tell us.

The discussion here seems to be whether automation of certain routine and repetitive polygraph tasks will increase or decrease test accuracy, and whether automation of these tasks will decrease or interfere with our ability to build the kind of human rapport that leads to information.

Related to all this is whether some increase in task automation interferes with the psych-out rain-dance pretest, and the degree to which that schtick is a necessary component for both admissions and test accuracy.

One of the apparently common Federal polygraph techniques seems to de-emphasize manipulation of the examinee and the studies seem to suggest good results in some circumstances.

.02

r

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

posted 08-07-2012 02:28 PM         

In theory, the less variance, the better the test. That said, it is nice to be able to inflect just a tad here and there, when the CQs aren't delivering much and the RQs are equally flat.

I'd be very hesitant to leave informed consent to automation, as I fear it would all too easily be seen as the kind of eye-glazing, glossed-over "user agreement" pablum that computer users almost always "accept" without protest when they install s/w, open an ebay account, enroll in online banking, or do many other things on the Internet.

But I do believe -- and I'm serious -- that much of the pre-test could be automated by utilizing a thoughtfully produced video. Jim Matte has for some years used an audio cassette (and later CD), played through headphones for the examinee, to deliver the main pre-test lecture. But I contend that using video would be much more effective. The old journalistic axiom, "Show, don't tell" makes sense in this application.

My earlier post on the "polybox" was not a gag. The entire process indeed could be automated. It certainly would make for an interesting study...

posted 08-07-2012 02:31 PM            

r

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

posted 08-07-2012 03:03 PM         

quote:

---

One of the apparently common Federal polygraph techniques seems to de-emphasize manipulation of the examinee and the studies seem to suggest good results in some circumstances.

---

Good grief, what's next?

Will the "selling" of the acquaintance test be decreed passe?

Will Skip's popular "Nailing the Pretest" presentation be reduced to one simple instruction? (PRESS PLAY)

Will pre-test "schtick" -- great word Ray, sounds like something I'd use -- go the way of vaudeville?

Let the fallout begin. The Canadian method makes a REAL big deal out of the pre-test. Maybe one of that method's practitioners will chime in.

It's interesting to see the scientists going out of their way to walk back the importance of the pre-test. Hmmm, I wonder why that is?

posted 08-07-2012 03:56 PM            

"The PCASS cannot be used on U.S. personnel, according to a memo authorizing its use, signed in October by the undersecretary of defense for intelligence, James R. Clapper Jr."

posted 08-07-2012 07:04 PM            

And Professor Feinberg guessed wrong about PCASS. I dread to think the consequences if the DoD listened to him, pulled the PCASS out and let the troops go back to gut instinct while waiting for the scientists to solve the problem of how to screen tens of thousands of local nationals for access to military posts.

As for automation in the exam, have any of you DLC users tried it when introducing the DLC instructions? I'm not a DLC person, but this seems like a pretty good fit. Comments?

posted 08-07-2012 09:37 PM            

[This message has been edited by clambrecht (edited 08-07-2012).]

posted 08-08-2012 10:32 AM            

not wanting to miss out on this interesting conversation I wanted to address Ted's comment regarding the "art" of our profession. Over tha past few years, and as a probable result of the NAS report we in the polygraph community have been killing ourselves in an attempt to formally "scientize" polygraph so that it will be acceptable to the scientific community.

This is like the republicans trying to make the democrats understand their position through actually reviewing the past. Folks! our detractors will NEVER accept polygraph, regardless of how scientifically researched we become. Why? Because there is always the "art" aspect of the profession. Why is that? Because the biologists will never agree with the psychologists. The physiologists will never agree with the sociologists, etc. Scientific acceptability (in my opinion) will never come. Can we increase our scientification of the profession? Of course. But at what cost?.

Accuracy without confessions or admissions is useless. Confessions don't come to those who have no rapport. Rapport does not come without the personal interactive process of an interview; and the interveiw process does not come through a recorded message.

I know there are many examiners who run a standard pre-test and in-test protocol and automatic interview and test question asking may apply (routine stuff). And yes,I accept there may be parts of the protocol which could be automated so that we can stand back and say, see, this part of the process is "neutral." However, as Barry indicated increased quality is great and quantifiable; but how's that inter-personal communication process and confession rate with automated interrogation working...?

My thoughts.

posted 08-08-2012 02:02 PM            

In my humble view, the move toward using scientific principles has nothing to do with impressing the scientific community. Take my word for it, spent a lot of time there and that's not happening. Nor is it a worthwhile effort in itself. The true value of using science is that it can make our services better so that we can serve our customers better and make ourselves more valuable. Our historic approach has been to appoint a handful of gurus to tell us what to do. That got us only so far, and in some cases held us back. Now the profession is in the stage of maturity that the field of psychology was maybe 80 years ago, when self-appointed experts were distainful of the idea of validating their methods but ultimately were overrun by annoying fact-checking experimentalists. And psychology is better for that transformation. We are living that painful experience right now. Would you embrace a more scientific approach if it could get you maybe another 5%-10% increase in accuracy? How about if it could improve productivity without any cost in admissions, time or accuracy? Perhaps a lower burnout rate for polygraph screening programs or boost pretest admissions. Or increasing the deterrence value in the PCSOT environment. These and other benefits are what we should value science for. It might be called selfishness, but I prefer "enlightened self-interest." Sometimes doing the right thing brings other rewards with it. A balanced inclusion of automation where it makes sense is probably one of those cases. And if history is any guide, it will happen with or without our consent. Consider where the analog polygraph is going....

Don

posted 08-08-2012 08:31 PM         

quote:

---

Would you embrace a more scientific approach if it could get you maybe another 5%-10% increase in accuracy?

---

Don,

If placating the scientific community is a lost cause -- and the realists among us know that it is a lost cause -- let me ask you this...

Would you embrace a more artful approach if it could get you maybe another 5%-10% increase in accuracy?

If not, why not?

posted 08-09-2012 12:50 AM            

If we don't account for ourselves and if we don't do the right things, then lack of respect is guaranteed. Eventually that will cost us a lot, as it has before. Do the right things and people will notice. They do already. But don't expect a revolutionary change in attitude from anyone, that would be silly.

There is no doubt we need artful interviewers and effective interrogators. Our profession has already typically outperformed others in the area of getting information.

Here is one reason why we probably need science
Jim:

quote:

---

Accuracy without confessions or admissions is useless.

---

- what would happen to our credibility with the community and our customers (not to mention the flack from legislators and scientific critics) if our profession, meaning all professionals and the professional associations, took a public position like this?

That statement would quickly translate to "don't bother with the test result, and why bother testing anyone... just interrogate everyone." A fun idea - but it is the kind of thing we might regret at some point in the future.

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

There actually are times when we do need to account for the accuracy of the test result itself. Because the test results themselves do sometimes matter. We cannot afford to anchor our professional future on simplistic hyperbole like 'the confession is the ONLY thing that matters. Sure the confession matters. Probably matters most. But let's don't be so silly as to really believe that the confession is the actually the only thing that matters. The test result does actually matter sometimes. Loosing even a few of these arguments, when it is time to account for a test result, will hurt.

As before, one way to be a great interrogator is to always interrogate people who have information, and never waste time with those who do not.

As for embracing a 5-10% increase in accuracy from a more artful polygraph...

How would we measure a 5-10% change in artistic value. The very notion of a 5-10% increase implies measurement and that seems to fly in the face of the notion of art. A true artist would be opposed to attempts to measure or quantify the work. Like representative sculpture and representative paintings (portraits) - its just not the same experience as abstract and symbolic work.

Art is so often about the meaning each person brings to the situation...

With that in mind, an artful polygraph would attempt to realize perfection in the unique experience of every examination - with a perfect representation of the facts as the two people construct them. Because art, after all, is a constructivist and subjective activity.

A more artful polygraph would be... more stylized... more abstract... sometimes more historical... sometimes political... sometimes introstpective... and would sometimes challenge our sense of comfort with things we come to think of a simple matters of fact (because that's what art does).

... but a more artful polygraph would always be personal, so that each examinee can discover things about themselves that no-one knew before, and because artistic experience is subjective and personal, sharing the experience would have to be a personal choice...

Oh, forget it. Lets just do the polygraph the best way we can devise, and then interrogate the people that don't pass.

Personally I like interviewing people myself, and worry that i would be bored and ineffective if I automate too many tasks. Some things, sure. But i like to think i have some unique skills at getting sex offenders to say things that are important to the treatment and supervision processes. Spend a few years with those guys and you learn to nudge them in just the right way to get them to spill the info. Its one of the most satisfying aspects of the work.

.02

r

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