5 ms·

I think its a way to get people to admit to things. Like even knowing they don't work, it's stressful to be strapped into that chair, and even knowing the tech

by Imnimo 6y ago

I think its a way to get people to admit to things. Like even knowing they don't work, it's stressful to be strapped into that chair, and even knowing the technician is probably lying when they say they're detecting deception on a particular question, it's stressful when they accuse you of lying. I bet a lot of people crack and admit to things they were hoping to hide. The trouble comes from the fact that in order for all of this to work, you need to say the polygraph works. If you admit it's fake, or even if your procedures imply it's fake, it loses its magic. And so you naturally develop procedures that put a lot of stock in the polygraph. People start to believe in it. You build up a culture that relies on the magic of the polygraph. And then things like this happen.

JamesSwift 6y ago
This is pretty accurate. There are a couple more interesting elements to it as well (at least in the security clearance side of things, and not "criminal proceedings" side): 1. there is a lot of stress around the fact that if you don't pass the poly, you don't have a clearance and so you don't have a career 2. you will "fail" at least one poly in each cycle so the stakes are raised in subsequent interviews RE: #1
boomboomsubban 6y ago
> I bet a lot of people crack and admit to things they were hoping to hide. I bet a lot of people also crack and admit to things they never did. You're essentially using the stress associated with the "magic" of the polygraph to coerce a confession.
- Loughla 6y ago
  I've told this story in more depth in other places on this site - The one time in my life I have ever been accused of a crime was when the greenhouse I was working at was robbed. I went to the side of the greenhouse to fix a hole, and while I was gone, a lovely gentlemen decided to empty the cash register. Flash forward to three police statements and one polygraph later. My experience with polygraph tests is they are a way for police to coerce a confession. I "failed" the polygraph test, and "should come clean now so they would go easy on me." The problem is, I didn't do it, I didn't know who did it, and I didn't want to know who did it. I was 17, and they had no leads. Just an absolute joke.
  - jdc 6y ago
    Sounds like they hit you with the Reid technique. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reid_technique https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reid_technique
  - meowface 6y ago
    I think the use of a polygraph in a situation like that is disgusting, but I also think it's very different compared to making it a requirement to work for FBI/CIA/NSA.
gameswithgo 6y ago
>I think its a way to get people to admit to things This is the standard way human discourse happens when talking about something for which there is no evidence of efficacy. You back up and try to rationalize some other reason for it's use, even when it makes no sense. Like in this case, using it to get people to admit things, can lead to false confessions or false convictions, especially when some of the people you threaten to use it on know it doesn't work! Do you think the agent who knows it doesn't work, and just uses it as a threat, is going to drop the case when you take the polygraph and fail? Nope! It remind me very much of when people discuss some supplement that doesn't have evidence: "Oh well those studies didn't use enough/too much/wrong schedule" or acupuncture : "oh well even if it doesn't work the placebo effect is valuable" you just can't get through to people
- Imnimo 6y ago
  Yeah, I bet it elicits a whole lot of false confessions. But I also suspect that intelligence agencies are perfectly happy to incorrectly reject a significant portion of applicants if they think it increases the number of malicious applicants they manage to reject. Like they only care about having high recall for detecting spies, even if they have terrible precision. I'm not saying that makes for an actually effective system. I think it probably does more harm than good in that it leads to people thinking "well this guy passed the polygraph, so I can definitely trust him". And of course, the calculus is totally different in criminal proceedings, where we absolutely should not be willing to make that recall-precision trade. I can at least understand why someone would think they're a helpful tool for counterintelligence screening, but any use in criminal investigations just strikes me as ludicrous.
- meowface 6y ago
  But it is a placebo. That's the point of it. They know it's a placebo. If it works as a placebo, then they have no reason to stop using it. The question to ask is: does it work as a placebo? At all? Ever? If it has successfully worked as a placebo in even one instance, then it should probably be continued to be used as a hiring requirement for intelligence agencies (and for no other purpose by any other entity), in my opinion. As the other replier said, it's a deliberate trade-off of high sensitivity and low precision. I think the parent poster is 100% right. The whole conceit of an intelligence agency is deceit. The placebo effect is probably responsible for a big portion of their overall power, in a lot of different ways, and it makes sense they'd utilize it when hiring people. The only danger is using it in any other setting, or if the examiners or people who rely on it somehow start believing the placebo isn't actually a placebo.
dorkwood 6y ago
I remember seeing it used as an interrogation technique on the murderer Chris Watts. The investigators basically acted all friendly and helpful at first and said this polygraph is just standard procedure. Then afterwards they left the room to "check the results", and on returning accused him of lying. He confessed during the same interview. Hard to say whether the polygraph helped at all, but it shows that it is sometimes used as an interrogation tactic.
tug0fwar 6y ago
Ahh... the placebo effect[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo
mikeryan 6y ago
it's stressful to be strapped into that chair, and even knowing the technician is probably lying when they say they're detecting deception on a particular question, it's stressful when they accuse you of lying This is a bug not a feature, if everyone strapped to it are stressed out there's nothing for even a trained interrogator to read. Everyone is going to look like they're lying.
- meowface 6y ago
  I suspect it works on many different levels and that the general stress everyone feels from it is one of those levels. But in terms of the base "object level" of the actual graphing of multiple biometrics, the theoretical idea is to construct a baseline within the confines of the test, not between you inside and outside of the test. They let you settle in, ask you questions they know the answer to, and compare measurements during known truthful responses to measurements during or near other responses. So they're (theoretically) accounting for the added stress in the baseline. Obviously this object-level portion of detecting honesty vs. deceit via comparison with a baseline of physiological characteristics is pseudoscientific and extremely unreliable, but it's part of the overall mind game. And even though it's pseudoscientific, it's also not like it's palm reading or something. This sounds a bit ridiculous to say, but pseudoscience is a spectrum. (For example, astrology is more pseudoscientific than MBTI.) If someone has totally normal responses to every question but a bizarrely elevated response to one single seemingly harmless question which no one else has an unusual response to, then that's something to look into and prod. So the object level of it can offer some utility.

by Imnimo 6y ago

JamesSwift 6y ago

This is pretty accurate. There are a couple more interesting elements to it as well (at least in the security clearance side of things, and not "criminal proceedings" side): 1. there is a lot of stress around the fact that if you don't pass the poly, you don't have a clearance and so you don't have a career 2. you will "fail" at least one poly in each cycle so the stakes are raised in subsequent interviews RE: #1

boomboomsubban 6y ago

> I bet a lot of people crack and admit to things they were hoping to hide. I bet a lot of people also crack and admit to things they never did. You're essentially using the stress associated with the "magic" of the polygraph to coerce a confession.

Loughla 6y ago
I've told this story in more depth in other places on this site - The one time in my life I have ever been accused of a crime was when the greenhouse I was working at was robbed. I went to the side of the greenhouse to fix a hole, and while I was gone, a lovely gentlemen decided to empty the cash register. Flash forward to three police statements and one polygraph later. My experience with polygraph tests is they are a way for police to coerce a confession. I "failed" the polygraph test, and "should come clean now so they would go easy on me." The problem is, I didn't do it, I didn't know who did it, and I didn't want to know who did it. I was 17, and they had no leads. Just an absolute joke.
- jdc 6y ago
  Sounds like they hit you with the Reid technique. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reid_technique https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reid_technique
- meowface 6y ago
  I think the use of a polygraph in a situation like that is disgusting, but I also think it's very different compared to making it a requirement to work for FBI/CIA/NSA.

gameswithgo 6y ago

>I think its a way to get people to admit to things This is the standard way human discourse happens when talking about something for which there is no evidence of efficacy. You back up and try to rationalize some other reason for it's use, even when it makes no sense. Like in this case, using it to get people to admit things, can lead to false confessions or false convictions, especially when some of the people you threaten to use it on know it doesn't work! Do you think the agent who knows it doesn't work, and just uses it as a threat, is going to drop the case when you take the polygraph and fail? Nope! It remind me very much of when people discuss some supplement that doesn't have evidence: "Oh well those studies didn't use enough/too much/wrong schedule" or acupuncture : "oh well even if it doesn't work the placebo effect is valuable" you just can't get through to people

Imnimo 6y ago
Yeah, I bet it elicits a whole lot of false confessions. But I also suspect that intelligence agencies are perfectly happy to incorrectly reject a significant portion of applicants if they think it increases the number of malicious applicants they manage to reject. Like they only care about having high recall for detecting spies, even if they have terrible precision. I'm not saying that makes for an actually effective system. I think it probably does more harm than good in that it leads to people thinking "well this guy passed the polygraph, so I can definitely trust him". And of course, the calculus is totally different in criminal proceedings, where we absolutely should not be willing to make that recall-precision trade. I can at least understand why someone would think they're a helpful tool for counterintelligence screening, but any use in criminal investigations just strikes me as ludicrous.
meowface 6y ago
But it is a placebo. That's the point of it. They know it's a placebo. If it works as a placebo, then they have no reason to stop using it. The question to ask is: does it work as a placebo? At all? Ever? If it has successfully worked as a placebo in even one instance, then it should probably be continued to be used as a hiring requirement for intelligence agencies (and for no other purpose by any other entity), in my opinion. As the other replier said, it's a deliberate trade-off of high sensitivity and low precision. I think the parent poster is 100% right. The whole conceit of an intelligence agency is deceit. The placebo effect is probably responsible for a big portion of their overall power, in a lot of different ways, and it makes sense they'd utilize it when hiring people. The only danger is using it in any other setting, or if the examiners or people who rely on it somehow start believing the placebo isn't actually a placebo.

dorkwood 6y ago

I remember seeing it used as an interrogation technique on the murderer Chris Watts. The investigators basically acted all friendly and helpful at first and said this polygraph is just standard procedure. Then afterwards they left the room to "check the results", and on returning accused him of lying. He confessed during the same interview. Hard to say whether the polygraph helped at all, but it shows that it is sometimes used as an interrogation tactic.

tug0fwar 6y ago

Ahh... the placebo effect[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo

mikeryan 6y ago

it's stressful to be strapped into that chair, and even knowing the technician is probably lying when they say they're detecting deception on a particular question, it's stressful when they accuse you of lying This is a bug not a feature, if everyone strapped to it are stressed out there's nothing for even a trained interrogator to read. Everyone is going to look like they're lying.

meowface 6y ago
I suspect it works on many different levels and that the general stress everyone feels from it is one of those levels. But in terms of the base "object level" of the actual graphing of multiple biometrics, the theoretical idea is to construct a baseline within the confines of the test, not between you inside and outside of the test. They let you settle in, ask you questions they know the answer to, and compare measurements during known truthful responses to measurements during or near other responses. So they're (theoretically) accounting for the added stress in the baseline. Obviously this object-level portion of detecting honesty vs. deceit via comparison with a baseline of physiological characteristics is pseudoscientific and extremely unreliable, but it's part of the overall mind game. And even though it's pseudoscientific, it's also not like it's palm reading or something. This sounds a bit ridiculous to say, but pseudoscience is a spectrum. (For example, astrology is more pseudoscientific than MBTI.) If someone has totally normal responses to every question but a bizarrely elevated response to one single seemingly harmless question which no one else has an unusual response to, then that's something to look into and prod. So the object level of it can offer some utility.