4 ms·

Never been polygraphed but I always wondered about an alternative to the "emotional control" approach to beating it that is discussed in the article. My altern

by loteck 11y ago

Never been polygraphed but I always wondered about an alternative to the "emotional control" approach to beating it that is discussed in the article. My alternative would be to trick my mind into not lying despite the question asked. So if I was asked "do you live in Chicago?" (i don't) and I wanted to answer yes, I would simply internally ask myself "is your name loteck?" and then respond "yes." I would ignore the actual question asked by the interviewer except to the extent I need to pick which internal question I would ask myself, of which I would only have 2. One for yes responses and one for no. Anybody have any idea if this would work?

PavleMiha 11y ago
I'm definitely not an expert in the area (never even taken a polygraph), but I highly doubt you could prevent yourself from getting nervous/agitated when asked a question about something you had to lie about. Don't think most people are that good at controlling their emotions, even if the question in your head is different you still know what the intimidating investigator actually wants to know.
superuser2 11y ago
Lying on control questions is not advisable. A polygraph would be conducted inside of a larger investigation which would, among other things, fact-check your claims by other means. These data would be considered in the interpretation of your polygraph results. Whether or not you live in Chicago is very easy to check; when they see that you are lying on control questions they will consider everything else suspect. In the contexts in which polygraphs are applied (i.e. security clearance, witch hunts within security services), simply being suspicious in this way is enough to cause the negative outcome (i.e. not getting the clearance, getting fired), so even if it might muddy the evaluation of your response to, i.e. "Are you a Russian spy?" it would still cause the negative outcome. It has no bearing on criminal prosecution, because polygraphs are already inadmissible.
- dean 11y ago
  If you lie on a question that is easily fact-checked, and the polygraph shows that you told the truth, doesn't that just prove that the polygraph doesn't work? To my mind that is a simple test that disproves the effectiveness of the tool. It should cause a reasonable person to conclude that the tool doesn't work and should not be used.
  - jessaustin 11y ago
    The people who run these tests for a living probably have techniques to explain their way around stuff like that. They might say it just shows the subject was deceptive about the whole test.
  - superuser2 11y ago
    >It should cause a reasonable person to conclude that the tool doesn't work and should not be used. But it is likely to cause an FBI-drone to conclude that you are attempting to beat the polygraph and therefore untrustworthy.
    - dean 11y ago
      Yes, what a strange situation. I lie to prove that the machine can't tell that I'm lying and am branded a liar for revealing the truth. Maybe the machine isn't meant to do anything, and it's the examiner judging whether you are lying based on how your react to its presence.
- shubb 11y ago
  I wonder if polygraphs are there as a cover for refusing clearance due to secret evidence. If you know bob is a Soviet spy because your agents in Russia say so, you don't want to blow their cover, so you need an arbitrary reason to refuse clearance.
  - jessaustin 11y ago
    IANASpy, but my understanding is that even someone with clearance can't just look at whatever she wants. So we probably want to give a mole an arbitrarily high clearance, and just make sure she looks at top secret fake documents we've cooked up for her.
    - lotsofmangos 11y ago
      Is this aspect of security work that makes me wonder in the back of my mind whether Snowden is a modified limited hang out.
      - jessaustin 11y ago
        It's an intriguing possibility, but my imagination is unequal to the task. If they didn't mind showing us all this evil crap, what horrific secrets are they actually hiding? Secret pacts with Cthulhu? Hitler was actually a USA agent? Nothing big enough seems plausible.
        lotsofmangos 11y ago
        Well, it could be cold war thinking, a line from Dr Strangelove gives one plausible reason. "Of course, the whole point of a Doomsday Machine is lost, if you keep it a secret! Why didn't you tell the world, Eh?" Benway's panopticon only functions if the inmates think they are watched. The secret might be that they cannot actually process all the data and are overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of it, in which case the surveillance is more useful if people think they can.
    - sean2 11y ago
JonFish85 11y ago
My guess is that your body would somehow react to the idea that "hey, this is a question I need to cheat on!" in some measurable way.
pdkl95 11y ago
I should say up front that, as others have said, polygraph is all superstition and subjective interpretation when it is being used seriously. Usually, it's just a prop to scare people with in an interrogation. The following comments are what the "true believers" of polygraph usually believe, and is probably a key part in how an examiner judges a polygraph exam, but you can never really rule out the possibility of an exam being a simple scare tactic or cover for subjective opinion. With that risk and the fact that this is all disproved junk science, YMMV. -- Any question that can be trivially checked such as "Do you live in Chicago?" is not one of the "control questions". Questions like that are part of the theater for the benefit of the person being tested. Like the waving needles, it makes the test look more complicated and "scientific" (really: "it's complicated" and therefor "magic" in the sense of Clarke's 3rd Law). The article has an actual example of a typical control question: “Have you ever lied to anyone who trusted you?”. Unfortunately, their explanation that "...an innocent person telling the truth will have a stronger reaction to the control questions..." misses the point entirely. Control questions are always about a "little white lie" that the examiner assumes is something that everybody does. The important thing to understand about the real "control questions" is the assumption that you will lie when you answer those questions. In the question from the article, the assumption is that of course you have lied to someone who trusted you, but you will say "no" out of fear. The "theory" is then to look for a difference (ANY difference, not just a "stronger reaction") in the polygraph output for that question when compared to most of the rest of the questions. This is then used as a reference to see if something similar happens on a real interrogation question. Want to mess with the test? Don't lie on the control questions. Admit to the "little white lies" they assume are said by everybody. This will usually do two things: 1) it will invalidate the test, and 2) it will piss off the examiner. Obviously, the utility of forcing these results will depends on why you're taking the test. If instead you want to do the opposite and "pass" the test without suspicion, remember you're being recorded from the moment the sensors are put on. Make sure their machine records regular (small standard deviation) data except for when you give the expected lie. If they see the expected "change" on the correct "little white lie" (control) questions, and not much anywhere else, that should be seen as a "pass". Or even better, don't perpetuate this nonsense and refuse to take any polygraph tests.

by loteck 11y ago

PavleMiha 11y ago

I'm definitely not an expert in the area (never even taken a polygraph), but I highly doubt you could prevent yourself from getting nervous/agitated when asked a question about something you had to lie about. Don't think most people are that good at controlling their emotions, even if the question in your head is different you still know what the intimidating investigator actually wants to know.

superuser2 11y ago

Lying on control questions is not advisable. A polygraph would be conducted inside of a larger investigation which would, among other things, fact-check your claims by other means. These data would be considered in the interpretation of your polygraph results. Whether or not you live in Chicago is very easy to check; when they see that you are lying on control questions they will consider everything else suspect. In the contexts in which polygraphs are applied (i.e. security clearance, witch hunts within security services), simply being suspicious in this way is enough to cause the negative outcome (i.e. not getting the clearance, getting fired), so even if it might muddy the evaluation of your response to, i.e. "Are you a Russian spy?" it would still cause the negative outcome. It has no bearing on criminal prosecution, because polygraphs are already inadmissible.

dean 11y ago
If you lie on a question that is easily fact-checked, and the polygraph shows that you told the truth, doesn't that just prove that the polygraph doesn't work? To my mind that is a simple test that disproves the effectiveness of the tool. It should cause a reasonable person to conclude that the tool doesn't work and should not be used.
- jessaustin 11y ago
  The people who run these tests for a living probably have techniques to explain their way around stuff like that. They might say it just shows the subject was deceptive about the whole test.
- superuser2 11y ago
  >It should cause a reasonable person to conclude that the tool doesn't work and should not be used. But it is likely to cause an FBI-drone to conclude that you are attempting to beat the polygraph and therefore untrustworthy.
  - dean 11y ago
    Yes, what a strange situation. I lie to prove that the machine can't tell that I'm lying and am branded a liar for revealing the truth. Maybe the machine isn't meant to do anything, and it's the examiner judging whether you are lying based on how your react to its presence.
shubb 11y ago
I wonder if polygraphs are there as a cover for refusing clearance due to secret evidence. If you know bob is a Soviet spy because your agents in Russia say so, you don't want to blow their cover, so you need an arbitrary reason to refuse clearance.
- jessaustin 11y ago
  IANASpy, but my understanding is that even someone with clearance can't just look at whatever she wants. So we probably want to give a mole an arbitrarily high clearance, and just make sure she looks at top secret fake documents we've cooked up for her.
  - lotsofmangos 11y ago
    Is this aspect of security work that makes me wonder in the back of my mind whether Snowden is a modified limited hang out.
    - jessaustin 11y ago
      It's an intriguing possibility, but my imagination is unequal to the task. If they didn't mind showing us all this evil crap, what horrific secrets are they actually hiding? Secret pacts with Cthulhu? Hitler was actually a USA agent? Nothing big enough seems plausible.
      - lotsofmangos 11y ago
        Well, it could be cold war thinking, a line from Dr Strangelove gives one plausible reason. "Of course, the whole point of a Doomsday Machine is lost, if you keep it a secret! Why didn't you tell the world, Eh?" Benway's panopticon only functions if the inmates think they are watched. The secret might be that they cannot actually process all the data and are overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of it, in which case the surveillance is more useful if people think they can.
  - sean2 11y ago

JonFish85 11y ago

My guess is that your body would somehow react to the idea that "hey, this is a question I need to cheat on!" in some measurable way.

pdkl95 11y ago

I should say up front that, as others have said, polygraph is all superstition and subjective interpretation when it is being used seriously. Usually, it's just a prop to scare people with in an interrogation. The following comments are what the "true believers" of polygraph usually believe, and is probably a key part in how an examiner judges a polygraph exam, but you can never really rule out the possibility of an exam being a simple scare tactic or cover for subjective opinion. With that risk and the fact that this is all disproved junk science, YMMV. -- Any question that can be trivially checked such as "Do you live in Chicago?" is not one of the "control questions". Questions like that are part of the theater for the benefit of the person being tested. Like the waving needles, it makes the test look more complicated and "scientific" (really: "it's complicated" and therefor "magic" in the sense of Clarke's 3rd Law). The article has an actual example of a typical control question: “Have you ever lied to anyone who trusted you?”. Unfortunately, their explanation that "...an innocent person telling the truth will have a stronger reaction to the control questions..." misses the point entirely. Control questions are always about a "little white lie" that the examiner assumes is something that everybody does. The important thing to understand about the real "control questions" is the assumption that you will lie when you answer those questions. In the question from the article, the assumption is that of course you have lied to someone who trusted you, but you will say "no" out of fear. The "theory" is then to look for a difference (ANY difference, not just a "stronger reaction") in the polygraph output for that question when compared to most of the rest of the questions. This is then used as a reference to see if something similar happens on a real interrogation question. Want to mess with the test? Don't lie on the control questions. Admit to the "little white lies" they assume are said by everybody. This will usually do two things: 1) it will invalidate the test, and 2) it will piss off the examiner. Obviously, the utility of forcing these results will depends on why you're taking the test. If instead you want to do the opposite and "pass" the test without suspicion, remember you're being recorded from the moment the sensors are put on. Make sure their machine records regular (small standard deviation) data except for when you give the expected lie. If they see the expected "change" on the correct "little white lie" (control) questions, and not much anywhere else, that should be seen as a "pass". Or even better, don't perpetuate this nonsense and refuse to take any polygraph tests.