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Every lie detector should begin with a game of high-low: The subject writes down a number between 1 and a 1000 and puts it in their shoe, the questioner needs
by jpmattia 8y ago
Every lie detector should begin with a game of high-low: The subject writes down a number between 1 and a 1000 and puts it in their shoe, the questioner needs to get the right answer. Since the questioner needs only 10 questions to get the right answer (+ control questions), it provides a practical calibration of whether the test is worth a damn or not.
Prediction: No one will ever use my practical calibration of whether the test is worth a damn or not, until lie-detector technology is actually worth a damn.
- CobrastanJorji 8y agoTo play devil's advocate, a lie detector isn't really supposed to measure meaningless lies. It's about emotion and nervousness and the like. Math questions about a randomly assigned number would likely not generate much of a meaningful signal, and thus this test would not be expected to work.
- testvox 8y agoThen just make it meaningful by threatening to shoot the interviewee in the head if they fail to trick you.
- SuoDuanDao 8y agoYou could always offer the subject a hundred bucks (or some other significant amount) if he is able to obfuscate it.
- jpmattia 8y agoIt sounds like you're arguing that a lie detector only detects lies that the subject considers "meaningful". So now you have two problems: Detecting whether a subject believes a particular topic is "meaningful", and then detecting whether they are lying about it.
- abandonliberty 8y agoYou're kind of missing the point of the book: "Polygraphy is not science." It's an interrogation technique.
- jpmattia 8y agoI think interrogators are missing the point: If your interrogation technique can't even produce information that is verifiably correct, then why on earth would you believe any information produced that is non-verifiable?