Background

Polygraph Theory
Types
Accuracy
Physiological detection of deception
(PDD)
 Use physiological measurements as an index
of deception
 Not behavioral
 Directly measure arousal or other cognitive
processes
What is a polygraph?

 NOT a lie detector

 Poly = many, graph = write
 Machine that records multiple continuous
measures of autonomic nervous system
arousal
 Galvanic skin response (GSR)
 Thoracic and abdominal respiration
 Blood Pressure
 Heart rate
The “lie detector” refers more to the test
used
 Relevant/Irrelevant test
 Rising Peak of Tension
 Comparison Question Test
 Directed Lie Test
 Concealed Information Test
Polygraph - History

 William Moulton Marston

(1893 – 1947)
 Student of Hugo Münsterberg
at Harvard
 Discovered correlation
between blood pressure and
arousal during lying
Polygraph - History

 John Augustus Larson

 Rookie police officer in the
Berkeley, CA, police
department
 Ph.D. in physiology from UC
 Read Marston’s article
“Physiological Possibilities of
the Deception Test”
 Improved test through
continuous recording of
blood pressure
Polygraph – History (Larson, cont…)

 First real-world application

 “Cardio-pneumo-psychograph”
 Berkeley sorority house - 1921
 Items including an expensive ring had been stolen from rooms
 Helen Graham
 “No sooner had he brought up the subject of the diamond ring and
stolen money – “The test shows you stole it. Did you spend it?” –
than Graham’s record showed a precipitous drop in blood
pressure before beginning what looked to be an alarming rise,
along with skipped heartbeats and an apparent halt in her
breathing.” – Alder, The Lie Detectors.
 Married Margaret Taylor, one of the other suspects
Polygraph - History
 Leonarde “Nard” Keeler
 Through connections with
Berkeley police chief, August
Vollmer, was introduced to
Larson (1930s)
 Worked on developing his own
polygraph while “studying” at
Berkeley and UCLA
 Created first polygraph school
in Chicago in 1948
Autonomic nervous system (ANS)

 Part of the peripheral nervous system controlling

visceral or automatic functions
 Sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems
 General theory behind polygraph
 Arousal  Increased ANS activity
 Sweating
 Respiration changes
 Vasoconstriction
 Pulse rate
 Blood pressure
 Specific patterns of arousal during questioning could
indicate guilt or lying
Polygraph – Modern version

 Modern polygraphs are now computerized

 Allow for more accurate and automatic (unbiased) analysis
 Main Measures
 Galvanic skin response (sweating)
 Respiration
 Thoracic and Abdominal
 Blood pressure
 Pulse oximeter
 Measures percentage of oxygenated hemoglobin
 Pad(s) to measure subject movement
Polygraph – Relevant/Irrelevant Test

 Earliest method of polygraph testing

 Two kinds of questions
 Relevant
 Deal with issue at hand
 Irrelevant
 Deal with outside facts or details

 Assumption:
 A liar or guilty person will be more aroused by relevant
questions than Irrelevant ones, while an innocent person
will show no difference
 So, if arousal(relevant) > arousal(irrelevant) = lying
Polygraph – Searching Peak of Tension
(POT)
 Developed by Keeler
 Can be used when specific details of a crime are unknown to the
investigator
 Suspect is presented serially with potential relevant clues
 Areas in which a body may be located

 Amounts of money that may have been stolen

 Assumption:
 A guilty person will react strongest when the correct alternative is
chosen
 An innocent person may simply become more aroused as the test
goes on, but will not show a significant sudden increase in
arousal to one alternative
Polygraph – Comparison Question Test

 Most common method of polygraph interrogation

 Developed by John Reid
 Begins with extensive pre-test interview
 Three kinds of questions:
 1. Relevant
 E.g. “Did you kill Nicole Brown Simpson”
 2. Comparison (aka probable lie)
 E.g. “Have you ever physically harmed someone”
 3. Irrelevant
 Is your name Orenthal James Simpson?
Polygraph – CQT (cont…)

 Assumption:
 A liar become more aroused by lying to the relevant
questions than the comparison questions
 An innocent person will be more aroused by the
comparison questions
 Arousal(relevant) > Arousal(comparison) = guilty

 Uses:
 Criminal investigations
 Employee screening
 Security clearances
Polygraph – Directed Lie Test (DLT)

 Same kind of questions as CQT, only subject

is instructed to lie to all the comparison
questions

 Assumption:
 Guilty person will show more arousal lying to
relevant questions
 Innocent person will show more arousal lying to
comparison questions
Polygraph – Concealed Information Test
(CIT)
 AKA – Guilty Knowledge Test (GKT)
 Developed by David Lykken in 1958
 Rather than trying to detect arousal caused by lying, tries to detect arousal from
recognition of “guilty knowledge” from the “orienting response”
 Multiple-choice (serially presented) questions where the investigator knows the
correct answer
 “What was the weapon used to kill Mr. Boddy?”
 Candlestick
 Rope
 Revolver
 Lead Pipe
 Knife
 Wrench

 Assumption:
 A guilty person’s arousal will increase upon recognizing the correct alternative due to
involuntary orienting response
 Innocent person will not be able to discern the correct alternative from the others
Polygraph – CIT (cont…)

 Lykken advocates 4 – 6 questions with 4 – 6

multiple-choice answers in each
 Reduces theoretical false positive rate with
addition of each question
 1/5 > 1/25 > 1/125, etc…
 Scoring
 2 points if Probe is largest, 1 if second largest
 Total up points at the end
 For 6 questions, 12 is perfect score
 Lykken used cutoff of 7
Polygraph - Accuracy

 R/I
 Extremely poor
 CQT
 83 - 89% for guilty subjects
 53 – 75% for innocent subjects
 12 – 47% incorrectly classified (falsely accused of guilt)
 DLT
 One study, 80% correct
 GKT
 76 – 88% of guilty subjects
 12 – 24% false-negatives
 94 – 99% for innocent subjects
 1 – 6% false-positives
Polygraph - Problems

 CQT
 Based on faulty theory
 High false-positive rate
 Biased

 GKT
 Difficult to create enough good GKT questions
 Not applicable in every setting

 Psychopathy/sociopathy
 Estimates as high as 20% of criminal population
Polygraph – Problems (cont…)

 Countermeasures
 Methods used to defeat a test
 Increase autonomic arousal
during certain questions
 Easy
 Distraction techniques
 Difficult to identify
 Can be apply to any kind of
polygraph method

 After 30 minutes of training,

~80% of subjects in a study by
Honts et al., 1994, beat a CQT
Polygraph – Problems (cont…)

 Admissibility in court
 Daubert Standard
 1. Is the scientific hypothesis testable?
 2. Has the proposition been tested?
 3. Is there a known error rate?
 4. Has the hypothesis and/or technique been
subjected to peer review and publication?
 5. Is the theory upon which the hypothesis and/or
technique based generally accepted in the
appropriate scientific community?
Polygraph – So why is it still used?

 Effective at soliciting confessions

 General belief of the infallibility of the machine
 “Psychological third-degree”

 Employee Screening
 Can no longer be required due to Employee
Polygraph Protection Act of 1988
Polygraph – Famous misses
 Julius and Ethel
Rosenberg
 Passed nuclear secrets to
Soviet Union

 Aldrich Ames
 CIA officer
 Convicted of spying for
Soviet Union
An actual CIT polygraph record
Additional Resources
 A Tremor in the Blood –
David Lykken

 Handbook of Polygraph
Testing – Murray Kleiner

 The Lie Detectors: The

History of an American
Obsession – Ken Alder

 Antipolygraph.org