So I decided to register for the forum here because my curiosity in polygraphy has continued and I've decided to undertake an "experiment" based on some problems that I've seen in the forums on this site:
1) Few people other than polygraphers ever see the chart readouts from a polygraph test. Other than polygraphers, nobody really can see the "live-action" results of a polygraph.
2) The forums here are populated largely by people who have failed their polygraph. There is probably a lot of bias in this... People who have "beat" the polygraph probably wouldn't come to this site
Being the inquisitive person that I am, I decided that it might be a good idea to really test these things out and report my findings here.
There's a $99 USB polygraph out there... It includes a 2-channel GSR, a pulse monitor (finger), and respiration "straps" (I don't know the technical term). Basically, it is an almost-complete polygraph... How accurate it is, I don't really know. However, for the 3 items separately it would come out to a couple-hundred dollars, so I'm inclined to believe that these are the "real deal", if just not very fine-tuned.
Before I go out there and blow the $99 to test things out, compare the results, and do a big long-winded writeup about the physiological responses without counter-measures, with them, along with anything else of interest that pops up for me along the way.
I'm not so much interested in "does polygraph work" because anybody on this particular forum has an opinion on that, but I'm interested in seeing (and sharing) what happens to charts during different polygraph situations.
Do you think this would be worthwhile? Does anybody have any experience with this $99 USB toy?
Quote from: curiouskat on Sep 17, 2012, 10:35 PMDo you think this would be worthwhile?Does anybody have any experience with this $99 USB toy?
You get what you pay for. There appears to be no method of monitoring blood volume. Unless you want it for fun, I would not expect it to have much "real world" utility.
If not having blood pressure available would render things useless, then maybe I should save my money in that case...
Quote from: curiouskat on Sep 19, 2012, 09:59 AMIf not having blood pressure available would render things useless, then maybe I should save my money in that case...
It all depends on what your experiment entails. You may want to peruse some websites that specialize in biofeedback equipment.