$1.75 mil DoD Polygraph Research Grant to BSU?

[George W. Maschke]

RuralNorthwest.com, in a 29 September 2005 article titled "Idaho Defense Projects Cleared by Committee," reports that among other things that the Senate Appropriations Committee has approved a $1.75 million polygraph research project for Boise State University in the fiscal year 2006 Defense Appropriations bill:

Credibility Assessment Research Initiative - Boise State University ($1.75 million) Supporting research to improve the reliability of polygraph screenings.

The funding approved for this research, which presumably is to be conducted under the auspices of Boise State University professor Charles R. Honts, is more than twice the $860,000 that funded the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) report, The Polygraph and Lie Detection. Regarding the prospects of improving polygraph accuracy, the NAS panel concluded, at p. 213:

Future Potential The inherent ambiguity of the physiological measures used in the polygraph suggest that further investments in improving polygraph technique and interpretation will bring only modest improvements in accuracy.

This being the case, spending $1.75 of taxpayer money in an attempt to improve the accuracy of polygraph screening would appear to be pouring money down a rat hole.

[Mercible]

Very interesting!

I know it seems like a waste of money to do further research, but wouldn't it be to the benefit of those who are against the use of polygraph testing if the researchers came to the same or similar conclusions as the National Academy of Sciences report?  :-/

$1.75 Million is pocket change in the world of research.  I doubt that amount of money will get them more than a couple of months worth of decent research.  I wouldn't expect this to yield much useful info.  

One last thought, what if, just what if the research actually provides a way to eliminate or significantly reduce false-positives?    

[Onesimus]

I know it seems like a waste of money to do further research, but wouldn't it be to the benefit of those who are against the use of polygraph testing if the researchers came to the same or similar conclusions as the National Academy of Sciences report?  :-/

That would be nice but I think most researches are reluctant to reach conclussions that fly in the face of those who are funding them.  Anyone have a reference for this?  I know I've seen one before, somewhere.

One last thought, what if, just what if the research actually provides a way to eliminate or significantly reduce false-positives?    

Unfortunately, given that the polygraph measures physiological changes that are only loosely correlated with lying, this seems like an impossible task.  We could spend $1.75 million on a very remote chance that we'll reduce false positives.  But I know a way to eliminate all false positives that also saves money.  I suspect there are plenty of ways to get a much better return on a 1.75 million dollar investment than polygraph research.

I suspect that it will be very interesting to find out the results though.