Imagine you are tied to a lie detector and asked the reason to why you did not come to the office yesterday in front of your boss. Knowing that the credibility of the report that will be presented to your boss is going to be less than 1%. Now the question is how much you can trust this heavy polygraph or lie detector with your job?!
The question about the credibility of lie detectors and polygraphs is being debated over many years. So, how trustable lie detectors are the eyes of science and how far is it possible to fool them. This article is going to reveal many truths about infamous lie detectors or polygraph.
How this slay game works
The algorithm on which the polygraphs works is basically based on the scientific fact that lying causes stress. As shown in the research, when a person is deceived by another person, the part of the brain that regulates emotion, called the amygdala, lights up. The person feels ashamed and gets nervous. It may seem like you can hide the truth from the other person but our body fails to accept and act accordingly with our untrue words; our breathing gets disturbed, we sweat, and even our heartbeat and blood pressure can rise.
Now, a polygraph is designed in such a way that it records all such physiological responses by the very person. The tests begin as the person is hooked up to a series of respiratory tubes, leg and arm monitors, a blood pressure cuff and a fingertip sweat detector. After asking the most common questions such as, “are you human?” “Have you ever lied in your life?” the actual question answering session begins. Each question is measured against the baseline, whether the examiner is lying or not. The interrogation is tricked in such a manner that traps the person’s falsehood with confusingly repetitive questions.
According to the reports from National Polygraph Association “scientific evidence supports the validity of polygraph examinations” only if they are conducted following the legit validated procedures. The association has found an accuracy rate of 87% by analyzing and reviewing all the performed tests and experiments.
How the critics are triggered
The credibility of polygraph analysis is widely unaccepted and criticized. It says that the lying tendency of humans is the problem that falls in between. According to research, children master the art of white lying by the age of 6 and most of them become frequent liars as they grow old, which affects how we respond to a lie detector.
Another critic that comes in the way through many health articles is the many reasons for a person to breathe more rapidly or experience a rise in blood pressure, heart rate and sweat.
“The polygraph is not a lie detector, and it is not a truth verifier, it is simply a crude reaction recorder, and the reactions it records can be indicative of just about anything except deception,” writes Doug William in his book “How to Sting the Polygraph”. He further discussed the many ways in which one can duplicate the reactions by simple techniques such as, breathing and muscle exercise. William’s manual even contains the very tips to control every tracing on the polygraph chart.
At last, in a world where Google AI is predicting heart diseases through eyes, fooling a polygraph is not a rocket science and the internet is widely crowded with tips and hacks on how to do this.
Is this reliable enough to be used in security screening
Discussing the validity of polygraphs, the National Research Council of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine in 2002 released papers as the output of a detailed research on the subject. The research was requested by the US Department of Energy, who wanted to use “polygraph testing to identify personnel who may jeopardize national security.”
The conclusion turned out to be against the use of polygraphing to screen or clear employees or to identify spies because the evidence showing lie detectors work proved to be scientifically weak.
“Almost a century of research in scientific psychology and physiology provides little basis for the expectation that a polygraph test could have extremely high accuracy,” stated the council.
The papers further ended on the final notes as, “the inherent ambiguity of the physiological measures used in the polygraph suggest that further investments in improving polygraph technique and interpretation will bring only modest improvements in accuracy.” Telenews cover breaking news and latest updates regarding technology, business, sports, crypto, automotive, startups and recurring trends of fashion, lifestyle and Online Shopping in Pakistan.
