polygraph

[joebw]

Depends on the Judge, my fishing partner is a Judge and he does not believe in them. It is strictly how the administer of the test interprets the results. It is not a proven science that they are accurate.

[raincheck]

Thanks guys for the input.Terry Adolph

[flippindrew]

Had to take one Saturday after doing well in a tournament. I passed but I cannot say I can put much faith into them. I say this because the interviewer must ask you a control question in which they hope you will lie about in attempt to see what a lie looks like on that polygraph. The first control question he asked was stupid in which no one would lie about. The second one was a bit weird, but I still did not lie about. Since I did not lie on the control questions he did not get a "control" on me and did not know what a lie looked like from me on the polygraph. Polygraphs as I can see are only as accurate as the person administering them.

The weirdest question was: If you had committed a murder, would you lie to the police to prevent going to the penitentiary? I answered no, so therefore he had no control "lie" question on me to judge my other answers on. I was nervous as heck but passed just fine. Weird experience though.

[Mattador]

I have been a lawyer for 17 years and I have never seen a polygraph actually admitted in court. Polygraphs generally do not satisfy the "scientific reliability" legal standard to be admissible. However, they are a great interrogation tool, and when I worked for the Army we got a lot of confessions out of people by telling them that they flunked, and were now in worse trouble. They are used by a number of government agencies.

Like most tests, it depends on the skill of the person administering the test. There are, by the way, some known ways to try and beat the poly. One old trick is to put a tack in your shoe, and press down on it when asking the truthful questions. It will create a higher baseline anxiety level, so if you are deceptive the spike does not look as high.