NEWLY INTRODUCED
INSTRUMENT
DETECTING DECEPTION
Genesis S. Bedonia
INTRODUCTION
Telling a little white lie may on occasion soothe ruffled social feathers but covering
up a murder plot or withholding information on terrorist cells can devastate individuals
and society at large. Yet detecting deception often stumps the most experienced police
officers, judges, customs officials and other forensic professionals. Research has shown
that even agents from the FBI, CIA and Drug Enforcement Agency don't do much better
than chance in telling liars from truth-tellers.
For example, a recent, as yet unpublished meta-analysis of 253 studies of people
distinguishing truths from lies revealed overall accuracy was just 53 percent not much
better than flipping a coin, note the authors, psychologists Charles Bond, PhD, of Texas
Christian University, and Bella DePaulo, PhD, of the University of California, Santa
Barbara.
Spotting the sneaks can be tough. Polygraph tests so-called "lie detectors" are typically
based on detecting autonomic reactions and are considered unreliable that's why
psychologists have been cataloging clues to deception such as facial expressions, body
language and linguistics to help hook the dishonest. A polygraph popularly referred to as
a lie detector test, is a device or procedure that measures and records several
physiological indicators such as blood pressure, pulse, respiration, and skin
conductivity while a person is asked and answers a series of questions.
The belief underpinning the use of the polygraph is that deceptive answers will produce
physiological responses that can be differentiated from those associated with non-
deceptive answers. There are, however, no specific physiological reactions associated
with lying, making it difficult to identify factors that separate liars from truth tellers.
Polygraph examiners also prefer to use their own individual scoring method, as opposed
to computerized techniques, as they may more easily defend their own evaluations.
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In some countries, polygraphs are used as an interrogation tool with criminal suspects or
candidates for sensitive public or private sector employment. US law enforcement and
federal government agencies such as the FBI, National Security Agency and the Central
Intelligence Agency and many police departments such as the Los Angeles Police
Department and the Virginia State Police use polygraph examinations to interrogate
suspects and screen new employees. Within the US federal government, a polygraph
examination is also referred to as a psychophysiological detection of deception (PDD)
examination.
Facial expressions aren't the only clue. Because deception is a social act involving
language, researchers are also studying liars' verbal and written output to find distinctive
patterns. DePaulo and Morris say that liars take longer to start answering questions than
truth-tellers but when they have time to plan, liars start their answers more quickly than
truth-tellers. And they talk less. Overall, to other people, liars seem more negative, more
nervous and complaining, and less cooperative than truth-tellers.
"Liars answers sound more discrepant and ambivalent, the structure of their stories is
less logical, and their stories sound less plausible," they say. Liars also use fewer hand
movements to illustrate their actions but are more likely to repeat words and phrases,
they add
Computer programs aren't the only methods of detecting lies. Some scientists believe
that people such as law enforcement officers can be trained to recognize liars through
behavioral clues.
There are no signs of lying per se, but rather signs of thinking too much when a reply
should not require thought, or of emotions that don't fit what is being spoken.
In the end, detecting deception is all about honesty. Ekman concludes, "It's much harder
to find the truth than to find a lie. A good lie-catcher is good at identifying truthfulness."
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DEFINITION OF TERMS
1. Ambivalent - having mixed feelings or contradictory ideas about something or
someone.
2. Autonomic - involuntary or unconscious; relating to the autonomic nervous system.
3. Cataloging - make a systematic list of (items of the same type).
4. Deception - the action of deceiving someone.
5. Devastate - destroy or ruin (something).
6. Discrepant - Showing difference; inconsistent, dissimilar.
7. Distinctive - characteristic of one person or thing, and so serving to distinguish it from
others.
8. Interrogation - the action of interrogating or the process of being interrogated.
9. Intuition - the ability to understand something immediately, without the need for
conscious reasoning.
10. Linguistics - the scientific study of language and its structure, including the study of
morphology, syntax, phonetics, and semantics.
11. Meta-analysis - examination of data from several independent studies of the same
subject, in order to determine overall trends.
12. Per se - by or in itself or themselves; intrinsically.
13. Physiological - relating to the branch of biology that deals with the normal functions
of living organisms and their parts.
14. Plausible - (of an argument or statement) seeming reasonable or probable.
15. Ruffled - disorder or disarrange (someone's hair), typically by running one's hands
through it.
16. Sneaks - move or go in a furtive or stealthy manner.
17. Soothe - gently calm (a person or their feelings).
18. Subtle - so delicate or precise as to be difficult to analyze or describe.
19. Underpinning - a solid foundation laid below ground level to support or strengthen a
building.
20. Withholding - refusal to give something that is due or desired.
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ADVANTAGES OF NEWLY INTRODUCED INSTRUMENT DETECTING DECEPTION
Polygraph tests have great significance as they have several useful practical
applications. They are valuable instruments used to detect truthfulness and deceitful
behavior in several fields. The crime investigation departments, national security
agencies, and business and industry are some of the important organized sectors where
the polygraph test are utilized.
Crime and Investigation
Criminal investigation is one of the major fields in which polygraph tests are employed to
detect lying. They offer governmental agencies and legal systems with a useful and
simple way to extract the truth from crime suspects.
Industry/Business
Industrial or business application is the other important use of polygraph tests. They can
contribute significantly in enhancing organizational effectiveness. Selecting candidates
with the right skills and experience as well as promoting employee honesty in the
workplace are important aspects of effective and successful organizations.
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DISADVANTAGES OF NEWLY INTRODUCED INSTRUMENT DETECTING
DECEPTION
Although polygraph tests have certain useful practical applications, there are
several challenges. Accuracy and ethics issues are more frequently raised challenges to
polygraph tests.
Inaccuracy
How accurate or scientific are the instruments is a major constraint of polygraph tests?
Validity is one of the important accuracy measures that makes instruments qualify for
wider practical applications. But polygraph tests do not satisfy this requirement.
Ethical Issues
Polygraph test tends to produce considerable ethical problems. One of the major ethnical
problems associated with the use of polygraph tests is the challenge to personal
autonomy of the test subjects. Polygraph tests are clear invasion into the personal privacy
and civil liberties of individuals as several crime suspects or examinees are forced to
become the subjects of the tests. The issue of privacy violation is true in the case of
industrial application of the tests as well. In the case industrial thefts, several employees
might be subjected to polygraph tests, regardless of their wish is an important challenge
to their personal autonomy.
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ADMISSIBILITY OF NEWLY INTRODUCED INSTRUMENT DETECTING DECEPTION
IN COURT
In virtually every jurisdiction, the answer is a resounding no. Though called lie detectors,
the reality is that a polygraph machine does not have any capacity for detecting the truth
or falsity of a statement. Rather, it measures a person's biological processes to determine
if they are experiencing a physiological event, such as an increase in blood pressure or
heart rate. These conditions are considered to be indicators that someone may be lying,
as the increased stress of telling a falsehood creates a subtle, but measurable change in
one's vital readings.
Unfortunately, dozens of other factors can also affect the readings detected by a
polygraph machine. For instance, nervousness of any kind could read with the same
increase in activity as a lie. This nervousness could simply be caused by being concerned
about the test giving a false positive, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. In fact, some
polygraph administrators, particularly in law enforcement, are given training on how to
induce a false positive response or to ask questions in a fashion that makes them difficult
to answer with a yes or no. On the other hand, those taking the test have reported being
able to evade the detection of a lie by using various techniques such as faking a cold,
squeezing the muscles of one's posterior, and so forth. These techniques would cause a
reading on the polygraph that would show increased physiological activity even when the
person is not lying, making it difficult to detect any variation when the person does tell a
falsehood.
As a result, polygraphs have been successfully challenged on several occasions in
various jurisdictions on the basis of their scientific uncertainty. Because the results of a
polygraph test can mean many things and are so unreliable in detecting actual lies, they
do not rise to the level of reliability required for scientific evidence in a courtroom and
polygraph test results are usually inadmissible as evidence.
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CONCLUSION
Polygraph tests are kind of magical instruments that help detect whether or not a
person is lying. The underlying assumptions behind polygraph testing is that the act of
telling lies is reflected in the physiological responses as the human body tends to react
differently when deliberately trying to hide the truth or facts. Polygraph tests have several
useful practical applications. Application of polygraph test is extremely significant in such
fields as criminal investigation, national security, and employee recruitment and employee
theft. There are different forms of polygraph tests available today. However, the success
of polygraph testing will depend heavily on its ability to minimize misclassification of
subjects. The biggest danger is “false positives” that declare innocent suspects as guilty.
The polygraph tests appear to be better lie detection methods compared to the
conventional methods of interrogation. Generally, in conventional methods of
interrogation, the crime suspects are subjected to long periods of repeated interrogations
and the officers often use punitive measures in their attempts of ascertaining honesty and
truthfulness. The outcomes of such investigations may not be accurate as well. In this
context, the simple and painless way of assessing honesty and truthfulness using
polygraph tests might be more appropriate.
It is apparent that the scope of polygraph tests would be quite broad especially in the
modern world where people everywhere are subject to different kinds of security threats
and terrorist attacks. If the national security departments use polygraph tests, they may
be able to identify terrorists who may disguise their identities to deceive government
agencies to some extent. Hence, the role of polygraphs tests in maintaining peace,
national security and social stability is quite impressive.
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SAMPLE PICTURES OF NEWLY INTRODUCED INSTRUMENT
DETECTING DECEPTION
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