Scientific Validity of Polygraph Testing: A

Research Review and Evaluation

November 1983

NTIS order #PB84-181411
OTA-TM-H-15, November 1983).

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 83-600618

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents,

U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402
Foreword

This technical memorandum presents the results of the Office of Technology Assessment’s (OTA) review and assessment of the scientific evidence on the validity of polygraph

testing. Conducted at the request of Rep. Jack Brooks, Chairman, House Committee

on Government Operations, and Rep. Frank Horton, the Ranking Minority Member,

the OTA memorandum is intended to assist the committee in its deliberations on proposed changes in polygraph use by the Federal Government.

As requested, OTA has limited this technical memorandum to issues directly related

to the scientific validity of the polygraph. OTA did not consider utility, privacy, constitutional, and ethical issues, among others that have been raised in the debate over

polygraph testing.

We first discuss the various types of polygraph testing procedures and ways in which

the polygraph is used, and then summarize the judicial, legislative, and scientific controversy over polygraph testing validity. Next, we review and evaluate both prior reviews

of the scientific research on polygraph validity and the individual research studies. Finally,

we discuss the range of factors that may affect polygraph validity and the possibilities

for future research, and present OTA’S conclusions about the scientific evidence for current and proposed Federal Government polygraph use.

In preparing this memorandum, OTA has drawn on research information available

from a wide variety of sources, including the major Federal Government polygraph users,

the American Polygraph Association, various private polygraph practitioners, and

polygraph researchers both in the United States, and abroad.

In addition to the members of the project advisory panel, this memorandum benefited

from the consultation and review of a large number of persons in the Federal Government, universities, and the polygraph community. It is, however, solely the responsibility of OTA, not those who advised and assisted us in its preparation.

. . . ///
Polygraph Validity Advisory Panel

Edward S. Katkin, Chairman

Professor of Psychology, State University of New York at Buffalo

Joseph P, Buckley Steve Pruitt

President Director of Congressional Affairs

John E. Reid & Associates Public Employees Department, AFL-CIO

Robert Edelberg

Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology

UMDNJ-Rutgers Medical School

Frank Horvath

Associate Professor

School of Criminal Justice

Michigan State University

David T. Lykken

Profesor of Psychiatry and Psychology

University of Minnesota Medical School

Gail J. Povar

Assistant Professor of Medicine and

Health Care Sciences

The George Washington University Medical

Center

Christopher H. Pyle

Associate Professor of Politics

Mt. Holyoke College

David C. Raskin

Professor of Psychology

University of Utah

Harold Sigall

Professor of Psychology

University of Maryland

George B. Trubow

Professor of Information Law and Policy

The John Marshall Law School

Althea M. I. Wagman

Research Associate of Psychiatry

Maryland Psychiatric Research Center

University of Maryland School of Medicine
OTA Polygraph Validity Project Staff

John H. Gibbons, Acting Assistant Director, OTA

Health and Life Sciences Division *

Clyde Behney, Health Program Manager

Fred B. Wood, Project Director

(Communication and Information Technologies Program (CIT))

Leonard Saxe, Principal Investigator and Author (Boston University)**

Denise Dougherty, Co-author and Analyst (Health)~

Theodore Cross, Co-author (Boston University)tt

Jack Langenbrunner, Analyst (Health)

Katherine Locke, Research Assistant (Health)

Administrative Support

Ginny Cwalina, Administrative Assistant (Health)

Elizabeth Emanuel, Administrative Assistant (CIT)

Jennifer Nelson, Secretary (Health)

Shirley Gayheart, Secretary (CIT)

Other Contributors

MichaeI Saks, Boston College

Daniel Ozer, Boston University

Yoram Bar-Tal, Boston University

Mary Beasley, Boston University

Marie Calabrese, Boston University

Molly Zane, Boston University

OTA Publishing Staff

John C. Holmes, Publishing Officer

John Bergling Kathie S, Boss Debra M. Datcher Joe Henson

Glenda Lawing Linda A. Leahy Cheryl J. Manning

“Since September 1983; H David Banta served as Assistant Director until .4ugust 1983.

* ● Assistant Professor of Psychology, Boston University,

tOTA Analyst since September 1983; Boston Umversity Graduate Research Assistant until August 1983

ttGraduate Research Assistant, Boston University

v

.
Acknowledgments

OTA acknowledges the contribution of the following agencies and individuals that provided information,

advice, and/or substantive reviews of draft materials:

Federal Government Agencies

Department of Defense (Office of Deputy Under

Secretary of Defense for Policy, Army, Air Force,

Navy, Marines, National Security Agency)

Department of Justice (Federal Bureau of Investigation,

Drug Enforcement Administration)

Department of State

Department of the Treasury (Secret Service, Bureau

of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms)

Postal Service

Office of Personnel Management

Central Intelligence Agency

Director of Central Intelligence (Security Committee)

Individuals

Maynard Anderson, Department of Defense

Norman Ansley, National Security Agency

Gordon H. Barland, Barland & Associates

Antonio S. Barrio, Central Texas College System

Louise Becker, Congressional Research Service

William H. Bell, Department of Defense

B. F. Bloomingburg, Naval Investigative Service

Irv Boker, General Accounting Office

Robert A. Brisentine, Army Criminal Investigation

Command

Henry L. Canty, Consultant

Richard P. Clayberg, SRI International

Eileen Correa, Veterans Administration Medical

Center

Ron Decker, Army Military Policy School

Jack Donnelly, Department of Defense

William R. Fedor, Department of Defense

Michelle Fine, University of Pennsylvania

Robert J. Gatchel, University of Texas at Dallas

Fitz Godwin, Army

Lewis R. Goldberg, University of Oregon

Gisli Gudjonson, London Institute of Psychiatry

David L. Hammond, Psychologist

James E. Hardy, Air Force Office of Special

Investigations

Fred Hegge, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research

Eric J. Holden, Baker, Holden & Associates

Charles Robert Honts, University of Utah

William G. Iacono, University of British Columbia

Michel Pierre Janisse, University of Manitoba

Richard C. Johnson, Polygraph, Inc.

Scott Kingsley, National Security Agency

Benjamin Kleinmuntz, University of Illinois at Chicago

Circle

Brian E. Lynch, Canadian Police College

Lynn P. Marcy, American Polygraph Association

Paul K. Minor, Federal Bureau of Investigation

L. D. Noland, Army Intelligence and Security

Command

Jesse Orlansky, Institute for Defense Analysis

John A. Podlesny, Federal Bureau of Investigation

Roland Radloff, National Science Foundation

Richard K. Riegelman, George Washington University

Medical Center

John Roberts, Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts

Robert Rosenthal, Harvard University

Akihiro Suzuki, Japanese Institute of Police Science

Julian J. Szucko, University of Illinois at Chicago

Circle

William A. Thomas, American Bar Foundation

Howard W. Timm, Southern Illinois University of

Carbondale

H. Herbold Wooten, Institute of Applied Polygraph

Science

Lawrence S. Wrightsman, University of Kansas

vi
Contents

Chapter Page

1. SUMMARY

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Federal Polygraph Use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Federal Polygraph Policy Changes . . . . . . .

Polygraph Validity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Findings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Personnel Security Screening . . . . . . . . . .

Criminal Investigations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

False Negatives/Countermeasures . . . . . .

False Positives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Voluntary v. Involuntary. . . . . . . . . . . . .

Polygraph Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Further Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Chapter-by-Chapter Overview. . . . . . . . . . .

Conclusions ..., . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

2. VARIETIES OF POLYGRAPH TESTING

AND USES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Polygraph Instrument . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Types of Testing Procedures . . . . . . . . . . . .

The Pretest Interview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Types of Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Polygraph Question Techniques . . . . . . .

Post-Test Interview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Uses of Polygraph Testing . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Current Use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

3. CONTROVERSY OVER POLYGRAPH

TESTING VALIDITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Judicial Reviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Polygraph Findings as Evidence . . . . . .

Laws Regulating Polygraphs in

Employment Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Federal Debate Over Polygraph Validity .

The 1960’s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The 1970’s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The1980’s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Draft Revisionsto DOD 521O.48 . . . . . .

NSDD-84 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Administration Polygraph Policy . . . . . .

Scientific Validity and Polygraph

Research Reviews. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Definitions of Scientific Validity . . . . . . .

Research Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

False Positives and Negatives . . . . . . . . .

Reviews of Polygraph Validity . . . . . .

Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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4. REVIEW AND ANALYSIS OF POLYGRAPH

FIELD STUDIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Study Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Studies Excluded . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

Studies Included . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

Coding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

Findings and Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

Variation Among Studies. . . . . . . . . . . . 52

Studies Using Panel Criterion

and Examiners’ Decisions . . . . . . . . . . 52

Studies Using Confession as a Criterion

and Blind Evaluations . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Studies Using Judicial Outcomes

and Original Examiners’ Results . . . . . 56

Other Considerations.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

5. REVIEWANDANALYSIS OF POLYGRAPH

ANALOG STUDIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Characteristics of Analog Studies . . . . . . . 61

Study Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

Description of Studies.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Control Question Technique . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

University of Utah Studies. . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Other Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

Concealed Information Tests . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

Lykken . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

Davidson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

Podlesny and Raskin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

Giesenand Rollison. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

Balloun and Holmes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

Bradley and Janisse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Preemployment Screening . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Correa and Adams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Barland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

Findings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

6, FACTORS AFFECTING POLYGRAPH

EXAMINATION VALIDITY . . . . . . . . . 83

Introduction. ....,... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

Polygraph Examiner, Subject, and Setting. 83

Examiner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

Subjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

Setting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

Countermeasures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

Physical . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

vii
Drugs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

Hypnosis/Biofeedback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Mental . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Research Implications of Factors

Affecting Validity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

Theory ...........,.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

Scoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

Question Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

Countermeasures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

Comparison With Other Techniques . . . 92

Field Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

7. CONCLUSIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

Overall Scientific Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . 95

Specific Scientific Conclusions in

Policy Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

Specific-Incident Criminal

Investigations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

Personnel Security Screening . . . . . . . . . . 99

False Negatives/Countermeasures . . . . . . 100

Voluntary, Involuntary . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

Further Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

Concluding Comment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

Appendixes

A. Informed Consent Forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

B. Results of the OTA Survey of Federal

Government Polygraph Testing . . . . . . . 107

C. Coding Form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114

D. Acronyms and Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120

List of Tables

Table No. Page

1.

2.

3.

4,

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

B-1

B-2.

B-3.

B-4.

B-5.

Polygraph Examinations Conducted

by Federal Agencies, 1982 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Reviews of Field Studies of

Polygraph Validity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Characteristics of Field Studies . . . . . . . . . . 48

Mean Detection Rates as a Percentage

of Total in Field Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

Outcomes of Field Studies of Validity . . . . 53

Outcomes of Control Question

Analog Studies of Validity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

Outcomes of Guilty Knowledge

Analog Studies of Validity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

Mean Detection Rates as a Percentage

of Total in Analog Studies of

Control Question Technique . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Mean Detection Rates as a Percentage

of Total in Analog Studies of

Guilty Knowledge Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Number of Polygraph Exams

and Examiners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

Purpose of Polygraph Exam . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

Length and Results of Exams . . . . . . . . . . . 111

Long-term Confirmation

of Exam Results. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

Selected Federal Agency

Polygraph Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

List of Figures

Figure No. Page

1. Debate at the Federal Level 1963-83 . . . . . . 33
Chapter 1

Summary
Chapter 1

Summary

INTRODUCTION

The primary purpose of this OTA technical

memorandum is to review and evaluate current

scientific evidence about the validity of polygraph

testing. This memorandum responds to the February 3, 1983, letter of request from the Committee on Government Operations, U.S. House of

Representatives, and the need to provide information that is relevant to congressional consideration of the polygraph aspects of the President’s

National Security Decision Directive-84 (NSDD84), proposed revisions to Department of Defense

(DOD) Directive 5210.48 governing the DOD

polygraph program, and the recently revised administration policy on polygraph use by Federal

agencies.

FEDERAL POLYGRAPH USE

OTA found that Federal Government use of

polygraph tests has more than tripled over the last

10 years, with about 23,000 examinations conducted in 1982 compared to about 7,000 exams

in 1973. Current use now exceeds the previous

known peak level of use (about 20,000 exams) in

1963. In all Federal agencies except the National

Security Agency (NSA) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), more than 90 percent of

polygraph testing in 1982 was for criminal investigations. Only NSA and CIA make significant

use of the polygraph for personnel security screenThe OTA technical memorandum is limited to

a critical review and evaluation of prior research.

The memorandum does not consider, in detail,

other polygraph issues such as utility, ethics, impact on employee morale and productivity, privacy, and constitutional rights. The technical

memorandum, instead, focuses on the nature and

application of polygraph tests, scientific controversy over polygraph testing, data from field and

simulation studies, and factors that affect test

validity.

ing—preemployment, preclearance, periodic, or

aperiodic—to establish initial and continuing

eligibility for access to highly classified information. However, NSA accounted for almost half

of all Federal polygraph examinations administered in 1982. Federal agencies at present make

only limited use of the polygraph for investigation of unauthorized disclosure of sensitive or

classified information-261 examinations (excluding NSA and CIA) for this purpose over the 1980-

82 period.

FEDERAL POLYGRAPH POLICY CHANGES

The March 1983 draft proposed revisions to the would be on an aperiodic (i. e., irregular) basis.

DOD polygraph regulations (5210.48) authorize These expanded uses of the polygraph would be

the use of polygraph tests to determine initial and part of DOD personnel security screening.

continuing eligibility of DOD civilian, military,

and contractor personnel for access to highly clas- Also, the proposed revisions to DOD 5210.48

sified information (Sensitive Compartmented In- provide adverse consequences for refusal to take

formation and/or special access). The use of poly- a polygraph examination, when established as a

graph tests in determining continuing eligibility requirement for selection or assignment or as a

3
4

condition of access. Refusal to take an examination may, after consideration of other relevant factors, result in nonelection for assignment or

employment, denial or revocation of clearance,

or reassignment to a nonsensitive position.

NSDD-84, issued by the President on March

11, 1983, authorized agencies and departments to

require employees to take a polygraph examination in the course of investigations of unauthorized disclosures of classified information. NSDD84 also provides that refusal to take a polygraph

test may result in adverse consequences such as

administrative sanctions and denial of security

clearance.

On October 19, 1983, the Department of Justice

(DOJ) announced that administration policy

POLYGRAPH VALIDITY

In 1965 and again in 1976, the House Government Operations Committee concluded that there

was not adequate evidence to establish the validity

of the polygraph. OTA has assessed the research

to determine the present state of scientific evidence,

OTA concluded that no overall measure or

single, simple judgment of polygraph testing

validity can be established based on available

scientific evidence. Validity is the extent to which

polygraph testing can accurately detect truthfulness and deception.

There are two major reasons why an overall

measure of validity is not possible. First, the polygraph test is, in reality, a very complex process

that is much more than the instrument. Although

the instrument is essentially the same for all apFINDINGS

would also permit Government-wide polygraph

use in personnel security screening of employees

(and applicants for positions) with access to highly

classified information. The new policy provides

agency heads with the authority to give polygraph

examinations on a periodic or aperiodic basis to

randomly selected employees with highly sensitive

access, and to deny such access to employees who

refuse to take a polygraph examination,

Thus, the combined effect of NSDD-84, the

DOD proposals, and administration policy is to

authorize substantially expanded use of the polygraph for purposes of

ing and unauthorized

personnel security screendisclosure investigations.

placations, the types of individuals tested, training of the examiner, purpose of the test, and types

of questions asked, among other factors, can differ

substantially. A polygraph test requires that the

examiner infer deception or truthfulness based on

a comparison of the person’s physiological responses to various questions. For example, there

are differences between the testing procedures

used in criminal investigations and those used in

personnel security screening. Second, the research

on polygraph validity varies widely in terms of

not only results, but also in the quality of research

design and methodology. Thus, conclusions about

scientific validity can be made only in the context of specific applications and even then must

be tempered by the limitations of available research evidence.

Personnel Security Screening directly relevant to personnel security screening

use (one by DOD). None of these studies specifOTA concluded that the available research evi- ically assessed validity of polygraph testing for

dence does not establish the scientific validity of the purposes proposed by DOD or the administrate polygraph test for personnel security screen- tion, and all had serious limitations in study

ing. OTA was able to identify only four studies design.
5

A 1980 survey conducted by the Director of

Central Intelligence Security Committee concluded that the polygraph was the most productive of all background investigation techniques.

However, this was a utility study not a validity

study, and had many qualifications.

OTA recognizes that NSA and CIA believe that

the polygraph is a useful screening tool. However,

OTA concluded that the available research evidence does not establish the scientific validity of

the polygraph for this purpose.

In addition, there is a legitimate concern that

the use of polygraph tests for personnel security

screening may be especially susceptible to: 1)

countermeasures by persons trained to use physical movement, drugs, or other techniques to avoid

detection as deceptive; and 2) false positive errors where innocent persons are incorrectly identified as deceptive.

Criminal Investigations

OTA found meaningful scientific evidence of

polygraph validity only in the area of investigations of specific criminal incidents. However,

OTA concluded that, even here, findings about

polygraph validity must be qualified, This is

because prior research has used widely varying

types of questions, examiners, and examinees,

among other differences. And there is, to date,

no consistently used and accepted methodology

for polygraph research. Also, the cases selected

in field studies and situations simulated in analog

studies may not be representative of most actual

polygraph testing conditions. Therefore the ability

to generalize from the results of prior research is

limited.

OTA found a wide divergence in the results of

relevant research, due in part to variations in

research quality and design. Six prior research

reviews showed average validity ranging from a

low of 64 percent to a high of 98 percent. OTA’S

own review of 24 relevant studies meeting minimum acceptable scientific criteria found that, for

example, correct guilty detections ranged from

about 35 to 100 percent. Overall, the cumulative

research evidence suggests that when used in criminal investigations, the polygraph test detects

deception better than chance, but with error rates

that could be considered significant.

In a typical criminal investigation, the polygraph, if used at all, is used only after prior investigation has been completed, and a prime suspect or suspects have been identified. To the extent polygraph use in unauthorized disclosure investigations would be similar, then the available

research provides some evidence of polygraph

testing validity. However, for so-called “dragnet”

screening where a large number of people would

be given polygraph tests in the investigation of

unauthorized disclosures, relevant research evidence does not establish polygraph testing validity. There has been no direct scientific research on

this application.

False Negatives/Countermeasures

Theoretically, polygraph testing—whether for

personnel security screening or specific-incident

investigations—is open to a large number of countermeasures, including physical movement or

pressure, drugs, hypnosis, biofeedback, and prior

experience in passing an exam. The research on

countermeasures has been limited and the results—while conflicting-suggest that validity

may be affected. OTA concluded that this is particularly significant to the extent that the polygraph is used and relied on for national security

purposes, since even a small false negative rate

(guilty person tested as nondeceptive) could have

very serious consequences.

False Positives

OTA concluded that the mathematical chance

of incorrect identification of innocent persons as

deceptive (false positives) is highest when the

polygraph is used for screening purposes. The reason is that, in screening situations, there is usually

only a very small percentage of the group being

screened that might be guilty. So, in a typical situation, there may be, perhaps, one person per

1,000 engaged in unauthorized activity. Therefore, even if one assumes that the polygraph is

99 percent accurate, the laws of probability indicate that one guilty person would be correctly

identified as deceptive but 10 persons would be
6

incorrectly identified (false positives). This potential problem has not been researched in field or

analog studies and clearly warrants attention.

Voluntary v. Involuntary

NSDD-84, the DOD proposals, and administration policy authorize adverse consequences for refusal to take a polygraph test. Apart from the ethical and legal implications, which OTA did not

address, it is generally recognized that, for the

polygraph test to be accurate, the voluntary cooperation of the individual is important. Thus,

OTA concluded that imposing penalties for not

taking a test may create a de facto involuntary

condition that increases the chances of invalid or

inconclusive test results. However, no direct research on this topic was identified.

Polygraph Theory

The basic theory of polygraph testing is only

partially developed and researched. The most

commonly accepted theory at present is that,

when the person being examined fears detection,

that fear produces a measurable physiological reaction when the person responds deceptively.

Thus, in this theory, the polygraph instrument is

measuring the fear of detection rather than deception per se. And the examiner infers deception

when the physiological response to questions

about the crime or unauthorized activity is greater

than the response to other questions. However,

the examinee’s intelligence level, state of psychological health, emotional stability, and belief in

the “machine” are among the several other factors that may, at least theoretically, affect physiological responses,

A stronger theoretical base is needed for the entire range of polygraph applications. Basic polygraph research should consider the latest research

from the fields of psychology, physiology, psychiatry, neuroscience, and medicine; comparison

among question techniques; and measures of

physiological response.

Further Research

OTA identified a need for further research on

polygraph countermeasures, polygraph theory,

and polygraph validity under field conditions (for

both screening and criminal investigative situations). The currently planned Federal research on

countermeasures appears to be inadequate. There

is no known Federal research planned on polygraph theory. And the Army’s current 10-year

research program to develop a new, perhaps computerized, state-of-the-art polygraph instrument

should be reevaluated to determine if research

priorities and direction need adjustment. Finally, the planned FBI-Secret Service polygraph validity study needs an extensive independent scientific review.

CHAPTER-BY-CHAPTER OVERVIEW

The preceding discussion summarizes OTA’S iological responses in order to detect deception

major findings. This section provides a brief chap- or establish truthfulness. This chapter discusses

ter-by-chapter overview of the technical memo- the procedures and their common applications,

randum. and explains why different polygraph testing techChapter 2 describes the varieties of polygraph niques appear to be required depending on intended uses. questioning techniques and a number of uses for

polygraph examinations, with an emphasis on The validity of polygraph examinations to deFederal Government use. The chapter describes tect deception has long been a controversial issue

the polygraph instrument as relatively standard, Chapter 3 describes how the courts, State

and, by itself, unable to detect truthfulness or de- legislatures, and the executive and legislative

ception. What is often referred to as “the poly- branches of the Federal Government have viewed

graph” is actually a set of relatively complex pro- assessments of scientific validity as central to decicedures for asking questions and measuring phys- sions about polygraph use. Despite many decades
7

of discussion, no consensus has emerged about

the accuracy of polygraph tests. The chapter defines scientific criteria for establishing validity and

reviews previous efforts to evaluate the scientific

literature on polygraph testing. Disagreement

about the validity of polygraph testing in the scientific community reflects wide variations in the

criteria used for inclusion of studies in prior research reviews, differences in research design and

definitions of validity among specific research

studies, and, perhaps most important, failure to

clearly differentiate the scientific evidence in terms

of the purposes for which polygraph examinations

are conducted and the techniques employed.

Chapter 4 presents OTA’s own analysis of

polygraph field studies in order to make an independent assessment of validity. Field studies involve real-life uses of polygraph testing. With one

exception, all of the available field evidence meeting minimal scientific criteria comes from cases

involving specific-incident criminal investigations

using the control question technique. OTA found

no field studies on the validity of polygraph testing for preemployment screening or periodic

screening. Overall, the studies varied in important ways with respect to, in particular, the

criteria used to verify truth, and whether original

examiners’ decisions or blind evaluation of charts

were used as the basis of comparison with ground

truth. In addition, all studies had substantial problems of research design, especially with case and

examiner selection. As a result, the studies may

represent a highly select sample of cases. These

caveats limit the confidence that can be placed in

any conclusions about polygraph validity based

on field research.

Chapter 5 parallels chapter 4 and presents

OTA’S analysis of polygraph analog studies in

which field methods of polygraph examinations

are used in simulated rather than real-life situaCONCLUSIONS

A major reason why scientific debate over poly-

graph validity yields conflicting conclusions is that

the validity of such a complex procedure is very

difficult to assess and may vary widely from one

tions. These analog studies were conducted primarily in psychology laboratories using college

students as subjects. Like the field studies, analog

studies have primarily investigated the control

question technique in specific-incident criminal investigations, although there are some studies of

an alternative (“guilty knowledge”) technique for

criminal investigations and two studies of preemployment screening, one using military intelligence personnel as subjects. While using a more

standardized methodology than field studies, the

analog studies had other kinds of significant research design problems, and the range of error

in polygraph results was greater than in field

studies. The two studies of preemployment screening were of poor methodological quality, and did

not adequately reflect screening for national security purposes.

Chapter 6 discusses a number of factors that

may affect the accuracy of polygraph examinations. Some of these account for the variation in

study results discussed previously. Examiner, subject, and setting characteristics are considered,

with special attention to the use of physical, drug,

and mental countermeasures that may be employed by individuals to attempt to beat the polygraph. This chapter also presents some possible

priorities for further research on factors affecting

polygraph validity.

Chapter 7 highlights the major conclusions and

policy implications of the scientific analysis. Appendix A includes illustrative informed consent

forms use in Federal Government polygraph examinations. Appendix B presents the results of

OTA’S survey of Federal Government polygraph

use and practice. Appendix C includes the coding

form for OTA’S analysis of field and analog

studies. Appendix D provides a list of acronyms

and glossary of key terms.

application to another. The accuracy obtained in

one situation or research study may not generalize

to different situations or to different types of persons being tested. Scientifically acceptable re-
search on polygraph testing is hard to design and

conduct.

Advocates of polygraph testing argue that thousands of polygraphs have been conducted which

substantiate its usefulness in criminal or screening situations. Claims of usefulness, however, are

often dependent on information (e.g., confessions

and admissions) obtained before or after the actual test, and on its perceived value as a deterrent.

The focus of the OTA technical memorandum

is not whether the polygraph test has been useful,

but whether there is a scientific basis for its use.

OTA concluded that, while there is some evidence

for the validity of polygraph testing as an adjunct

to criminal investigations, there is very little research or scientific evidence to establish polygraph

test validity in screening situations, whether they

be preemployment, preclearance, periodic or

aperiodic, random, or “dragnet. ” Substantial research beyond what is currently available or

planned would have to be conducted in order to

fully assess the scientific validity of the NSDD84, DOD, and administration polygraph proposals.
Chapter 2

Varieties of Polygraph Testing

and Uses
Chapter 2

Varieties of Polygraph Testing and Uses

INTRODUCTION

Polygraph examinations have been likened to

psychological testing (cf. 89, 92, 101). As such,

polygraph testing is best described not in the

singular but, instead, as a series of tests. These

tests are designed to assess truthfulness and deception in situations that range from screening job

applicants to investigations of specific criminal

incidents. Polygraph examiners, employed both

within and outside Government agencies, use a

variety of polygraph testing techniques, each of

which has a somewhat different underlying logic

and demonstrated validity.

The choice of polygraph technique depends

primarily on the circumstances under which the

POLYGRAPH INSTRUMENT

Although there are numerous variations in testing procedures, the polygraph instrument itself

is fairly standard. The polygraph measures several, usually three, physiological indicators of

arousal. Changes in physiological arousal exhibited in response to a set of questions are taken to

indicate deception or truthfulness, The polygraph

instrument, it should be noted, is not a “lie detector” per se; i.e., it does not indicate directly

whether a subject is being deceptive or truthful.

There is no known physiological response that is

unique to deception (108,122,123). Instead, a polygraph examiner obtains a subject’s responses to

a carefully structured set of questions, and based

on the pattern of arousal responses, infers the subject’s veracity. This assessment has been called the

“diagnosis” of truthfulness or deception (139).

h actual field testing, subjects’ physiological

responses are measured by a three- or four-channel polygraph machine that records responses on

polygraph is being used. The test of a subject who

is suspected of a specific criminal activity typically

involves application of a different polygraph technique than the examination of a prospective Government employee. Some variation in technique

is also related to examiners’ training, but such differences probably affect the way in which a technique is employed rather than which technique

is used. A description of the instrument used in

polygraph testing and an analysis of the types of

test situations and polygraph techniques are presented below.

a moving chart. Usually, three different types of

physiological responses are measured. The rate

and depth of respiration is measured by pneumographs strapped around the chest and the abdomen. A blood pressure cuff (sphygmomanometer)

placed around the bicep is used to measure cardiovascular activity. In modern polygraph instruments, sphygmomanometer readings are electronically enhanced so as to permit lower pressure in

the cuff. The electrodermal response (EDR), a

measure of perspiration, requires electrodes attached to the fingertips. This has also been referred to as galvanic skin response (GSR) or skin

conductance response (SCR). Each of these physiological assessments has been shown to be related

to physiological arousal (36). There is some literature to suggest that one or more of the physiological channels (EDR, in particular) is most sensitive (e. g., 123). Actual field testing, however,

almost always involves measurement of all three

types of responses.

11
12

TYPES OF TESTING PROCEDURES

A polygraph examination normally takes anywhere from 1 to 3 hours, although shorter or

longer tests may result in a variety of circumstances. The length of an examination depends on

the purpose of the examination, as well as the subject’s attitude and a number of other factors. Examinations may be very short because a subject

“confesses” or may be lengthy when an examiner

seeks to resolve an inconsistent or inconclusive

pattern of responses. The examination can be divided into at least three components: pretest interview; question procedure; and post-test interview. The actual questioning aspect of the examination, which may be repeated three or four

times, lasts no longer than a few minutes for each

question set (limited, in some cases, because the

blood pressure cuff can be inflated for only 10 to

12 minutes without causing the subject undue discomfort). Each aspect of a polygraph test is

described below in detail. Unless specifically

noted, generally used polygraph procedures are

described, Federal Government procedures are

often different and, where important such differences are noted.

The Pretest Interview

The pretest interview has been considered an

indispensable component of the polygraph examination (121,139,194). The importance of the

pretest is not only in its role to provide subjects

with information about the examination and to

inform them of their legal rights, but also in its

ability to generate the psychological climate considered necessary for a valid polygraph test. An

important purpose of the interview is to persuade

a subject that the examination is professionally

conducted and that any deception attempted “will

be very obvious to the examiner” (20). Such instructions, it is thought, place truthful subjects at

ease and increase anxiety in subjects who intend

to be deceptive. Persuading subjects about the effectiveness of the examination should sharpen differences between deceptive and nondeceptive subjects in their reactions to questions about a particular incident.

The pretest also allows the examiner to assess

the effect of special conditions or circumstances

which might affect physiological responsiveness.

Thus, for example, subjects are typically queried

about medical problems and use of drugs that

could influence autonomic responding. Such assessments are usually made without collecting

“hard” data, such as blood samples.

Consent Procedures

Depending on which polygraph method is employed, as well as the subject’s attitude and the

situation under investigation, pretest interviews

may take from 20 to 90 minutes (20,27). One aspect of the pretest interview involves obtaining

the subject’s consent to be examined. Consent procedures vary depending on the nature of the interview, most importantly between criminal or

preemployment polygraph tests. According to

Barland and Raskin (20), a typical polygraph examination conducted as part of a criminal investigation requires that the examiner advise the examinee of his or her Miranda rights (or rights

under the Uniform Code of Military Justice). The

subject is also told that the polygraph examination is voluntary. Subjects should also be informed whether or not the examination will be

observed from outside the room or recorded.

These disclosures are usually included in a written form which the subject is asked to sign. According to Reid and Inbau (139), criminal suspects

may already have been informed of their Miranda rights and been asked to sign a consent form

before coming to the examination room.

Applicants for employment need not be advised

of their right to speak with an attorney but may,

depending on local laws, need to be advised about

the voluntarism of the examination. In the case

of such employment-related tests, along with a

provision concerning voluntary consent, subjects

will be told how the results of the examination

will be used. Thus, for example, they maybe told

that a copy of the test results will be provided to

the sponsor of the exam, that the subject has a
13

right to obtain a copy of the test results, that the

subject will not be asked questions concerning

such areas as political activities, union affiliations,

racial or religious beliefs, or sexual activities unless

these areas are specifically related to the issue

under investigation (37).

Examples of consent forms used in criminal investigations by Federal agencies are shown in appendix A. The contents of Federal consent forms

vary somewhat by agency, although all require

that the subject “voluntarily” consent to the examination. Some agencies (e. g., Department of

the Treasury (186)) indicate that the subject has

the right to stop the examination at any time. Although the National Security Agency (NSA) reports that the full cooperation of the subject “is

essential or the results will be inconclusive, ” NSA

also reports (see app. B) that the polygraph examination is part of the Agency’s security processing, and that failure to complete processing (which

includes polygraph testing) may result in failure

to be accepted for employment. As discussed more

fully below (see Current Federal Government

Use), NSA conducts polygraph examinations primarily in the context of preemployment and periodic security screening; most other agencies conduct polygraph examinations as part of specificincident criminal investigations.

The remainder of the pretest interview also

varies. In the method taught to Federal examiners at the U.S. Army Military Police School

(USAMPS), * the interview focuses on questions

about the subject’s background: employment,

family, education, health, and any previous legal

problems (20). The examiner aims to learn enough

to assess the subject’s readiness for the examination and to prepare anxiety-provoking control

questions, if they are to be used. The polygraph

examiner then explains the polygraph technique

to the subject and queries the subject in detail

about the incident being investigated.

Another form of the pretest interview advocated by Reid (founder of the Reid College of Lie

Detection) in criminal investigations makes use

of a structured series of questions and deempha-

*The USAMPS provides polygraph examiner training for almost

all Federal Government polygraph examiners, with the except ion

of CIA and NSA examiners,

sizes gathering biographical data (77,139). Questions deal with matters such as the subject’s suspicions about who committed the crime and the

subject’s feelings about the test. Questions are intended to provoke so-called “behavioral symptoms” (139) that are believed to be indicators of

deception. These symptoms include evasiveness

in answering, or complaints that one’s physical

disabilities will invalidate the recordings. When

an examiner who uses the Reid method later

makes an assessment of truthfulness, this information is used to supplement the data gathered

from the physiological measures.

Whatever the format of the pretest interview,

if control questions are to be used in the test, the

last part of the interview will be used to design

such questions and review them with the subject.

In this phase, biographical and behavioral information collected earlier becomes essential. The information permits the examiner to tailor control

questions to the individual subject. The process

of designing control questions is complex and is

discussed further in the section below which describes the control question technique (CQT).

Testing Procedure

Actual testing procedures have been described

in detail by Barland and Raskin (20) and Reid

and Inbau (139). Polygraph measuring devices,

including pneumographs, a sphygmomanometer,

and electrodes, are placed on the subject either

during the pretest interview or at its conclusion.

After the end of the pretest interview, the sphygmomanometer is inflated, and the recording of

responses begins. A short period, of about 10 to

15 seconds, is used to observe initial respiratory

cycles (baseline) and to allow any initial response

to fade; then, the examiner asks the first question.

Between each question, the examiner waits about

15 to 20 seconds until the response to the last question is finished and physiological response is closer

to baseline. The examiner notes on the chart when

the exam begins, when questions are asked, and

when it ends. Extraneous behavior that affects the

recordings may also be noted. When questions for

the first chart end, the examiner deflates the cuff.

The examiner then inspects the chart and asks

the subject about his or her reaction to the questions. The usual purpose for obtaining subjects’
14

reactions is to allow refinements in the questions.

The questions are reviewed again, and, when necessary, further clarified. The examiner may then

administer a stimulation test, designed to improve

test validity. The examiner will then continue to

test and obtain two or three more charts in the

same way. The examiner may use other stimulation tests between charts, and different questioning techniques (see below) to record different

charts. Different questioning techniques may then

be used based on information revealed by the subject. In most techniques, any new questions would

be discussed with the subject before being asked.

The procedure in preemployment screening or in

other personnel screening tests may differ.

Stimulation Tests

Polygraph examiners typically conduct what is

known as a “stimulation”or “stim” test, designed

to further convince subjects of the accuracy of the

polygraph examination. Although not actually a

part of the pretest, stimulation tests can be given

either before the first actual set of test questions

or after the first chart has been recorded. Stimulation tests are intended to reassure truthful subjects and provoke anxiety in deceptive subjects

(cf. 15). Their effect should be to increase differential responsivity of deceptive and nondeceptive

subjects to different questions on the examination.

Some research suggests stimulation tests increase

the validity of polygraph examinations (35,149).

The most common “stim” test is a “number”

or “card” test. A subject is instructed to select,

from a deck, a card that has a number, word, or

suit on the back, or to write a number within a

certain range (50,57). Sometimes, the cards are

secretly marked or otherwise arranged so that the

examiner is sure to know the correct answer (139).

Many polygraph examiners claim this is unnecessary, however, because the technique is accurate

enough without use of such deception (cf. 123),

and secret markings are not employed by Federal

agencies. The examiner then may repeat a range

of suits, numbers or a set of words, asking the

subject if each is the concealed item. The suit,

number, or word that is actually the concealed

item is supposed to provoke the greatest physiological response. Often, the examiner will show

the subject the polygram (i.e., the actual chart

recordings) to further convince subjects of the instrument’s efficacy.

Types of Questions

The central element of any polygraph examination is the test of subjects’ responses to a set of

questions or items within questions. How these

questions are structured represents the principal

difference among polygraph techniques. There are

four different kinds of questions or items used in

polygraph testing, different combinations of questions (generally referred to as question techniques), and different applications for the various

techniques. Distinctions among questions and

techniques are important. Only one type of question technique in one application (CQT in criminal investigations) has been extensively researched

(see chs. 4 and 5); and there are significant differences between CQT and other techniques. The

range of questions, techniques, and applications

is described more fully below.

Questions

The kinds of questions that are used for polygraph testing have been labeled relevant questions, control questions, irrelevant questions, and

concealed information or guilty knowledge questions. Basically, relevant questions are questions

about the topic under investigation (a theft, drug

use, contact with foreign agents). Suspects’ responses to relevant questions are of greatest

interest to polygraph examiners.

Control and irrelevant questions can be

grouped together as questions used for purposes

of comparison to relevant questions. It is important to note, however, that the name one gives

to a question may depend on the specific context

in which it is used. Thus, one cannot easily give

an example of a relevant question or a control

question because in different situations and at different times during an examination relevant questions may be used as control questions. Likewise,

irrelevant questions may become relevant, depending on a subject’s response (201).

Relevant Questions

Functionally, relevant questions are questions

directly related to the focus of an investigation.
15

In the investigation of a theft, for example, a relevant question might be “Did you steal that

money?” or even more specifically, “Did you take

$750 from Jones’ office?” Relevant questions can

be broader, however. In preemployment screening and periodic or aperiodic screening, the area

of interest may be the subjects’ entire background.

Thus, there may be a series of relevant questions,

such as “Have you ever been fired from a job?”

or, “Have you stolen more than $50 in moneys

in any one year from any of your employers?”

(115). Intelligence agencies may ask broad questions concerning unauthorized contact with foreign intelligence agents or involvement in communist activities. Questions in an intelligence

screening may also deal with areas which, potentially, may make an applicant susceptible to

blackmail. It is important to note, however, that

when several relevant questions relating to different issues are used, subjects are not expected

to exhibit physiological responses to all of them;

the relevant questions that do not evoke responses

are used, after the fact, as a type of control

question.

To summarize, relevant questions are questions

about the topic under investigation, but topics can

be very specific (Did you take $750 from Jones’

office?) or cover a long period of time and a variety of acts (Have you ever stolen money from an

employer? Have you ever had unauthorized contact with a foreign agent?). It is not clear what

effect, if any, the breadth of a relevant question

has on polygraph results, nor has there been any

research done on this issue. As is discussed further in chapters 4 and 5, the preponderance of

research evidence concerns the use of relevant

questions to evoke reactions to specific acts.

Comparison Questions

In contrast to relevant questions, which concern issues of direct interest to the examiner, control and irrelevant questions are used for purposes

of comparison. As noted above, there is no

known physiological response unique to lying.

Thus, a polygraph examination could not consist

merely of relevant questions. If only relevant

items were used, an examiner would not be able

to establish the actual reason for the response.

There are a number of reasons, other than fear

of detection (or another hypothetically lying related reaction (19)) for a subject to become physiologically aroused during the presentation of relevant questions (48,108,136, 194). Even with the

addition of nonrelevant comparison items, it is

necessary to run several polygraph charts using

the same questions (though, perhaps in different

order) to be sure that reactions are consistent. If

several charts are not run, a subject’s responses

could be attributed to surprise, physical movement, or some reasons for concern other than a

lying-related cause (203). On the other hand, the

administration of several charts could theoretically just repeat the initial situation leading to the

physiological response if the cause were not a random one (e.g., presence at the scene, knowledge

of the incident, concern over being falsely identified). Thus, the essence of polygraph testing is

the comparison of responses to the relevant questions with responses to nonrelevant questions,

which have been labeled control questions and

irrelevant questions.

Control Questions

Control questions, then, are used for purposes

of comparison. Essentially, truthful subjects are

believed by polygraph examiners to be more concerned (and, thus, more physiologically aroused)

about control than relevant questions. The responses to both control and relevant questions are

compared. However, control questions, like relevant questions, vary in breadth and type. One

type of control question concerns what is hypothesized to be the same kind of issue that is under

investigation at the time of examination. For example, a control question for “Did you take the

$750 from Jones’ office?” might be “Other than

what you have told me [during the pretest interview], have you ever stolen anything in your life?”

In an investigation of unauthorized disclosure of

classified information, a control question might

be “Have you ever betrayed anyone who trusted

you?” Subjects innocent of the crime under investigation are presumed to be more concerned

about having ever done anything of this sort (and,

thus, being the “kind of person” who might have

committed the crime under investigation). It is

theorized that although guilty subjects will also

be concerned about control questions, they will
16

be more concerned about and thus exhibit more

physiological reactions to relevant questions.

There are a number of views, however, about

what distinguishes a control question from a relevant question. One distinction among control

questions is whether a question is inclusive or exclusive. Inclusive control questions are questions

which include the specific incident under investigation. An example of an inclusive control question in an investigation of an internal theft would

be “Have you ever stolen money from an employer?” Exclusive control questions, on the other

hand, cover a period of time not including the incident under investigation. An example is, “Before

age 18, did you ever take anything of value?”

There is some controversy over how far back in

time an exclusive control question must be set for

the subject to consider it psychologically separate

from the incident under investigation and, thus,

not a relevant question. Because inconclusive control questions may, from the suspect’s perspective, include the act under investigation, some

polygraphers contend that they are really relevant

questions; i.e., they cannot be used for purposes

of comparison. The Federal Government, for example, typically uses exclusive control questions

because it views inclusive controls as relevant

questions. Examiners from the private polygraph

firm of John E. Reid & Associates use both inclusive and exclusive control questions.

Other kinds of nonrelevant questions other than

those that cover the same kind of incident as the

one under investigation, or which cover it in a

different way, are also considered to be control

questions. Thus, for example, “Have you ever fantasized about giving a document to a foreign

agent?” is a type of control question used in some

intelligence investigations. In some screening examinations, in which contact with a foreign agent

is of primary concern (i. e., constitutes the relevant question), “Have you ever done anything for

which you are now ashamed?” could be a control question. When a different issue than susceptibility to blackmail is under investigation, “Have

you ever done anything for which you could be

blackmailed?” can be used as a control question.

It is noteworthy that in a different context, such

as a broader screening examination, these would

be considered relevant questions.

Control questions, then, are questions for

which the responses are designed to be compared

to responses to relevant questions. In some screening examinations, relevant questions may function as control questions after the fact. That is,

if a relevant question produces a relatively mild

physiological response, it may be compared to

other relevant questions that produce greater response. Most often, control questions are designed

to be arousing for innocent subjects (i.e., those

who are not being deceptive on the relevant questions), relative at least to relevant questions. This

is usually the central point of control questions,

and is central to the control question technique

(CQT) discussed below.

Irrelevant Questions

Another type of question used, in part, for purposes of comparison to responses to relevant questions is the so-called irrelevant question. Examples

of irrelevant questions commonly used in investigations are; “Are you called [subject’s name]?”

or “Is today Tuesday?” Irrelevant questions are

questions which are believed to have no, or very

little, emotional impact on a subject. Thus, such

questions can be used as an indicator of a particular subject’s normal baseline level of arousal; no

universal standard of physiological arousal can

be applied because individuals differ markedly.

Irrelevant questions are hypothesized to serve purposes other than providing a physiological baseline (139). Perhaps most important, irrelevant

questions interspersed among relevant questions

are hypothesized to provide a type of rest period

for the subject.

Concealed Information Questions

Questions about concealed information are the

fourth type of question used in polygraph testing.

Unlike control and relevant questions, which ask

subjects whether they have committed a crime,

concealed information items aim to detect information about a crime that only a guilty subject

would have. Such information might include details about the site of the crime or the means of

committing it, such as the type of murder weapon used. It is hypothesized that guilty subjects will

exhibit a different physiological response to the

correct (relevant) detail than to the incorrect de-
17

tails, but that innocent subjects will respond the

same to all the items. Different types of concealed

information tests are described below (see Concealed Information Tests).

Summary

For any technique, deception is detected by

comparison of suspects’ physiological responses

on critical or “relevant” questions or items with

their responses on noncritical (irrelevant or control) items. Greater physiological responses to

relevant items than to noncritical (control, irrelevant) items are assumed

ception.

Polygraph Question

to be indicative of deTechniques

Three types of question techniques combining

the four question types are described below: the

relevant/irrelevant (R/1) technique, the control

question technique (CQT), and concealed information techniques. Each of these test types tends to

be used for particular purposes; e.g., the R/I technique is used in the great majority of preemploy -

ment screening interviews, while CQT is normally

used in criminal investigations. There have been

adaptations of these techniques for other uses,

some of which are discussed below. Also, examiners may combine different techniques in an investigation (see, e.g., 139). In general, R/I has the

broadest potential use while the concealed information techniques are the least applicable. Within

each category, particularly CQT, there is considerable variability and several versions of each

technique are employed.

Relevant/Irrelevant (R/1) Techniques

The R/I technique was the first standard method of polygraph questioning. The method was developed by Marston (114), a psychologist and the

original proponent of polygraph examinations.

An adaptation of this traditional technique is used

in most of the preemployment screening conducted in the United States.

However, the R/I technique as used by the Federal Government involves somewhat different

types of questions than the traditional R/I, and

it must be explained separately. As currently used

by Federal examiners, the R/I relies on a type of

control question, and is claimed to be a version

of the control question technique. The versions

discussed in this section are:

1. the traditional R/I;

2. the Federal version of the R/I; and

3. the R/I as used in typical preemployment

screening tests.

In a traditional R/I examination, the two types

of questions used are relevant and irrelevant questions. Deceptive subjects are assumed to have a

significantly greater reaction to the relevant questions than to the irrelevant questions. An underlying assumption of this technique is that nondeceptive subjects should have an equal response

to all questions, because, being nondeceptive, they

would not fear questions about the crime any

more than irrelevant questions.

There are numerous well-recognized problems

with the traditional R/I technique, at least from

the perspective of psychologists who have evaluated polygraph test validity (cf. 108,126,136).

First, the intent of the relevant and irrelevant questions is transparent, which means that the relevant questions are likely to be more arousing for

the truthful as well as the deceptive subjects. Second, questions in the R/I technique are not usually

reviewed with the subjects before the test. A larger

response to the relevant question may, thus, be

due to surprise or misunderstanding, as well as

deception. Third, as with any question technique,

reactions may be flattened by drugs or by the generally reduced responsivity of certain subjects

(136). These effects are probably more difficult

to detect with R/I than with other question techniques.

Because of these problems, the confidence one

can place in the R/I technique is limited (136). As

a consequence, the R/I technique is typically not

used in the case of specific incident examinations

by either public or private examiners. It is used

almost exclusively with employees in nonspecific

investigations. The Federal Government occasionally uses the traditional R/I and also a version

of the R/I which is claimed to function as a control question test. The Federal Government version of the technique is called the general question test (GQT). Like the Reid CQT (discussed

below), it uses inclusive control questions, which

pertain to the subject’s entire life, such that a complete answer would also include the specific inci-
18

dent being investigated. Thus, with a question

like, “Did you ever steal anything from a place

where you worked?” the theft being investigated

would in actuality be part of the answer, Technically these are seen as “relevant” questions,

because they are pertinent to the incident in question. Yet they are claimed to function as control

questions, because they are intended to provoke

a greater response in innocent subjects than questions about the misdeed provoke.

An adaptation of the R/I technique is the principal method of questioning used in preemployment and periodic or aperiodic personnel screening. Unlike the questions used with other techniques, R/I questions need not focus on one specific wrongdoing (20,108). The examiner can,

thus, use the method to assess any number of

issues for which the subject’s veracity is to be

evaluated.

In polygraph examinations used to screen employees, the polygraph examiner usually presents

a series of relevant questions, with several irrelevant questions interspersed to provide a baseline.

Most relevant questions ask about past behavior

that might disqualify the subject from a job (e.g.,

employee theft, drug use, fighting on the job, incurring a large debt). Some examinations may include questions about a potential employee’s

background or intentions regarding a job, for example, “Did you actually graduate from college?”

(201) or “Are you seeking a job with this company for any reason other than legitimate employment?” (115). Listed below is an example of questions from a preemployment screening protocol

used by a commercial firm (115; also see 56,204).

Relevant questions:

Did you tell the complete truth on your job application?

Have you deliberately withheld information from your

job application?

Have you ever been fired from a job?

Are you seeking a permanent position with this

company?

Since the age of ( ) have you committed an undetected

crime?

Since the age of ( ) have you been convicted of a crime?

During the past year, have you used marihuana (sic)

more than ( ) per ( )?

Have you used any other narcotic illegally in the past

( ) years?

Have you sold marihuana (sic) or other narcotics illegally in the past ( ) years?

Have you ever stolen more than ($ ) worth of merchandise in any one year from any of your employers?

Have you even stolen more than ($ ) in moneys in any

one year from any of your employers?

Have you ever used a system to cheat one of your employers?

Have you ever had your driver’s license suspended or

revoked?

Have you ever had any traffic citations in the past five

(5) years?

Are you seeking a job with this company for any

reason other than legitimate employment?

Have you deliberately lied to any of these questions?

The method used by John E. Reid & Associates

employs four standard relevant questions:

In the last five years did you steal any merchandise

from previous employers?

In the last five years did you steal any money from

previous employers?

In the last ten years did you take part in or commit

any serious crime?

Did you falsify any information on your application?

These standard questions may be modified depending on admissions made during the pretest

(e.g., a revision may be, “In the last five years

did you steal any merchandise other than minor

office supplies?”). In addition to the standard

questions a fifth relevant question (e.g., concerning the illegal purchase or sale of merchandise;

use of narcotics) may be added depending on the

nature of the job.

The Reid firm also uses what it regards as control questions in preemployment interviews. Control questions include, “Did you ever steal anything in your life?” and “Did you lie to any of

the questions you answered during the application process for this job?” It is not clear, however,

how the Reid preemployment control questions

differ from the relevant questions. It seems reasonable to suppose that both truthful and nontruthful subjects (in terms of the relevant questions) may be just as concerned with the subject

matter of the control questions as they are with

the relevant questions. It is also not clear why

employers would be less concerned with the control than with the relevant questions.
19

In the R/I questioning technique, a diagnosis

of truthfulness or deception indicated is made by

comparison of responses to each relevant question with the responses to the irrelevant questions

and the remaining set of relevant questions (or

in the Reid, and Army examples, control questions). Presumably, an applicant will be deceptive on no more than a few questions. These questions will provoke a greater physiological response

than the others, leading to further inquiries and

an eventual diagnosis (56,204).

Other types of questions are used in some

screening examinations, such as questions about

sexual practices or gambling. Such questions seek

information about an applicant’s character rather

than his or her job performance and are considered by some to be unduly invasive (173). In response to this practice, ethical standards have

been developed for use of the polygraph in preemployment screening (cf. 154), and some States

(e.g., Illinois) prohibit their use. Preemployment

polygraph examinations fall under the guidelines

for employment interviewing of title VII of the

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission,

and so examiners are obliged to conduct the examinations in a way that would not discriminate

on the basis of sex, race, etc. (cf. 154). One central principle of ethical standards is that relevant

questions be related to the job applied for.

Whether questions meet this criterion depends on

the job; e.g., information about one’s driving

record would be important in hiring a delivery

person, but not in hiring a bank teller. Screening

applicants for positions involving national security apparently require questions about sexual behavior, drug use, and mental health as well as

areas more directly related to national security

(e.g., involvement in espionage). The range of

topic areas covered in national security preemployment screening examinations by NSA is

discussed below under Current Federal Government Use.

In so-called periodic or aperiodic checking for

internal security purposes, employees are asked

to submit to occasional polygraph examinations.

These examinations can assess drug use, subjects’

own or others’ employee theft, and other matters

including job satisfaction and commitment. In this

type of examination, almost all of the questions

are relevant questions and apparent deception

(arousal) in response to any of the items is explored. Examples of the kinds of questions used

in aperiodic screening in a supermarket (204),

include:

Are you relatively satisfied with this job now?

Do you, as far as you know at this time, intend to stay

with this employer?

Have you ever intentionally underpriced or underweighed merchandise?

Is there a particular person at your store that is responsible for damaging merchandise due to real carelessness, not caring or intentionally?

The relevant topic areas covered by NSA in a

periodic screening are discussed later. Because of

its use of control questions, the Federal version

of R/I is discussed in the next section.

Control Question Technique (CQT)

The CQT is the most common technique used

in investigations of a specific issue. The CQT was

developed to deal with some of the inherent problems in the traditional R/I technique (139). Like

the R/I technique, it asks relevant questions about

the crime like “Did you steal the $750 from Jones’

office?” As with R/I, the deceptive subject is

assumed to produce a greater autonomic response

to the relevant than to other questions. But CQT

also adds control questions, which, as discussed

briefly above, are designed to provoke a greater

response in subjects who are innocent and truthful

about the crime being investigated.

As discussed above, control questions are designed to be arousing for nondeceptive subjects.

The questions are designed to cause innocent subjects to be doubtful and concerned about whether

they have actually told the truth or told a lie.

These questions usually probe for past misdeeds

of the same general nature as the crime being investigated but they are transgressions that poly -

graphers suspect most people have “committed”

or considered committing in some form (139). An

example of a control question might be, “Before

the age of 25, did you ever steal anything from

a place you worked?” Control questions are designed to cover a long period of time, which may

make the subject even more doubtful about the

veracity of answers provided,
20

Considerable attention in the pretest interview

is devoted to development of control questions

(139). The process of developing control questions, reviewing them with the subject, and then

refining them is designed to develop the most appropriate questions, and to convince subjects to

view control questions as seriously as relevant

questions. In addition, the pretest review is designed to get subjects either to be deceptive to control questions or at least to be concerned about

the accuracy of their recollections (20,37,91,139).

It is considered crucial to produce in the subject

the right psychological set in relation to the control questions. This set is then thought to lead subjects to be more concerned about control questions than relevant questions, and so to respond

more to them physiologically. This difference between response to control and relevant questions

is then the basis for the diagnosis of deceptive or

nondeceptive. Since the subject’s psychological set

is so crucial when control questions are used, differential responding to relevant or control questions (and ultimately, the validity of CQT), depends on the nature of the interaction between

examiner and subject. This is true regardless of

the act in question, the particular CQT method

used, or the method of making assessments of

truthfulness or deception. Even the validity of an

entirely computerized system of scoring and diagnosis would depend on the nature of the interaction between examiner and subject. In this sense,

CQT examinations, as the technology to conduct

polygraph tests now stands, always require examiners to make important judgments about and interventions in their interaction with subjects.

The polygraph examiner does not tell the subject that there is a distinction between the two

types of questions (control and relevant). Control questions are described as intending to determine if the subject is the “type of person” who

would commit a crime such as the one being investigated (136). The examiner stresses that the

subject must be able to answer the questions completely with a simple “yes” or “no” answer, that

the polygraph will record any confusion, misgivings, or doubts, and that the subject should discuss

any troublesome questions with the examiner (20).

Thus, the situation is set up such that the subject

is persuaded that the examiner wants the truth.

In reality, however, the examiner wants the subject to experience considerable doubt about his

or her truthfulness or even to be intentionally

deceptive. According to Raskin (91), “Control

questions are intentionally vague and extremely

difficult to answer truthfully with an unqualified

‘No’.”

To produce the final version of a control question, the examiner begins by asking the subject

a broad version of the question used in the pretest

interview. Thus, for example, the question might

be structured, “Did you ever steal anything in

your life?” At this point, different polygraph examiners use slightly different methods to handle

the discussion of past wrongdoing in response to

the control questions asked during the pretest interview. In the USAMPS method (91), if the subject confesses to a small transgression in the past

(e.g., taking home pencils from work), the examiner will dismiss it as of no consequence. For other

misdeeds, the examiner will rephrase the control

questions to rule them out (e.g., “Other than what

we have discussed, did you ever steal anything

in your life?”). The examiner will actively intervene to prevent subjects from unburdening too

much of their anxiety over their past wrongs with

the intention of keeping them concerned during

the actual polygraph testing. Any troublesome

past transgressions the subject brings up are excluded (by such phrases as “Other than what we

have discussed, . . . ?“) so the subject is always

brought to the point at which he or she answers

“No” to the control question. The control question is then ready to be used in actual testing.

The Reid method varies from the Federal method in some ways (139). If the subject does not admit to a past wrongdoing, the examiner may

probe until the subject admits to one, even a crime

as small as stealing pocket change from a relative

during childhood. Such transgressions are then

ruled out by adding the kind of exclusionary

phrase discussed above (i. e., “Other than what

we have discussed, . . . ?“). However, as in the

USAMPS method, it is assumed at this point that

the subject is either concealing other misdeeds or

is worried that there are others he or she has

overlooked (139). This worry has been heightened

because of the examiner’s emphasis on learning

the truth to “ascertain” that the subject is not the
21 —

kind of person that could have committed the

crime referred to in the relevant questions. In

addition to relevant and control questions, irrelevant questions are included during the actual interview in order to provide a baseline of physiological responsiveness.

Several versions of CQT are regularly employed and adaptations depend both on the training of the examiners and the testing situation. The

Reid version can include relevant questions about

several aspects of the crime (139). For example,

one chart could include questions about breaking into an office, stealing a check, and then

cashing it. Examiners who use Reid’s CQT make

a global comparison between the responses to the

relevant and the responses to the control questions. They also note the subject’s behavior

throughout the interview (as discussed above, the

Reid technique includes a series of questions in

the pretest interview designed to provoke certain

“behavioral symptoms” in deceptive subjects).

The examiner uses the global comparison of polygraph responses supplemented by information

about the behavior of the subject to make a judgment of the subject’s veracity. An example of a

Reid control question sequence, excluding the

pretest behavior provoking items, follows (139):

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

Do they call you “Red?” (where the pretest interview had disclosed he is generally called “Red.”)

Are you over 21 years of age? (or reference is made

to some other age unquestionably but reasonably,

and not ridiculously, below that of the subject. )

Last Saturday night did you shoot John Jones?

Are you in Chicago (or other city) now?

Did you kill John Jones?

Besides what you told about, did you ever steal

anything else?

Did you ever go to school?

Did you steal John Jones’ watch last Saturday

night?

Do you know who shot John Jones?

Did you ever steal anything from a place where

you ‘worked?

In contrast, Backster’s (10) zone of comparison

(ZOC) technique makes a diagnosis of deceptive

or truthful from a standardized numerical scoring of the charts. Each relevant question is paired

with a control question. Scores are derived for

each relevant question by comparing it only with

the previous control question. On each physiological measure, the examiner derives a “plus” (truthful) score if the subject responds more to the control question and a “minus” (deceptive) score if

the subject responds more to the relevant question. A positive score above a certain criterion

level is diagnosed as truthful, a minus score below

a certain level is diagnosed as deceptive, and

scores in between are considered inconclusive.

A version of ZOC is used by Federal polygraph

examiners. The Federal version differs from the

Backster ZOC in that it may ask about several

aspects of the crime in one chart. Relevant questions are asked about primary involvement (e. g.,

“Did you steal ?“), secondary involvement (e. g., “Did you help steal ?“),

and so called evidence connecting (e. g., “Do you

know where any of that money is now?”). In addition to relevant, control, and irrelevant questions, the Government ZOC test contains a version of the peak of tension test (see below), and

“symptomatic” questions of two types. One type

of symptomatic question (e. g., “DO you understand that I’m not going to ask any trick or surprise questions?”) is designed to test whether the

examinee trusts the examiner’s word that no surprise questions will be asked. A large response is

symptomatic of distrust. A second type of symptomatic question (e.g., “Is there something else

you are afraid I will ask you a question about,

even though I have told YOU I Would not?”) is to

test whether there is some other issue the examinee

is concerned about (e. g., another crime) that may

be absorbing his or her arousal.

Other versions of CQT or related techniques

are also used by Federal agency examiners. One,

the modified general question test (MGQT), resembles the Reid CQT with the following differences: 1) only the polygraph charts are used to

make determinations of truth and deception and

global evaluations using inferences about behavior

are dispensed with; 2) charts are numerically

scored; 3) control questions exclusively concern

a time and place separate from the time and place

of the crime under investigation, with the intention of clearly separating responses related to the

crime and the control question; and 4) the content of control questions is always related to the

crime under investigation, i.e., control questions

about theft are used to investigate a theft, con-
22

—

trol questions about assault are used to investigate

assault, etc. Presumably, when unauthorized disclosures are at issue, control questions would concern some sort of unauthorized disclosures in the

past.

To summarize, there are a number of control

question techniques, the most commonly used being the Reid CQT, MGQT, and ZOC. Despite differences among them, they share the same premise

and underlying rationale. Use of each of the control question procedures relies on subjects’ not

knowing when they are being asked the relevant

and control questions. If they know which questions are more important for scoring purposes

they may be able to make anticipatory responses

which could invalidate their charts (see ch. 6).

Concealed Information Tests

Another polygraph questioning technique

works on an entirely different premise than either

CQT or R/I. Instead of detecting deception about

having committed a crime per se, concealed information tests aim to detect whether a suspect

has information about a crime that only a guilty

subject would have or, in some cases (e. g., the

actual amount of money embezzled) to detect the

information itself. Such information might include

details about the site of the crime or the means

of committing it (e. g., the type of murder weapon

used). Raskin (136) has aptly described these as

“concealed information tests. ” Concealed information tests take two forms: the peak of tension

(POT) test and the guilty knowledge test (GKT).

POT was developed by Keeler (cf. 69) and has

long been used in criminal investigations. The

POT test uses a set of five to nine nearly identical “yes or no” questions asking if the subject

knows about a particular detail related to a crime.

The detail may be a type of object used, or the

color of an item. One question actually includes

the relevant detail, while the others include plausible but false details of a parallel nature. The questions and the sequence in which they are asked

are reviewed with the subject in the pretest interview. The subject is usually instructed to answer

“no” to each question. The question with the true

detail is usually presented in the middle of the

sequence, so that the subject’s physiological reactions will increase up to the critical question,

where they will reach a peak, hence the name,

and fall back down again. The card and number

stimulation tests discussed above are actually examples of POT. Barland and Raskin (20) provide

a hypothetical example of a POT in a criminal

case:

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7,

Regarding the color of the stolen car, do you know

it was yellow?

Do you know

Do you know

Do you know

Do you know

Do you know

Do you know

Occasionally,

it was black?

it was green?

it was blue?

it was red?

it was white?

it was brown?

criminal investigators use the

POT technique to discover and develop additional

information about a case. The examiner asks the

suspect about a series of details, but does not

know which is actually relevant to the crime. The

detail that provokes an exceptional physiological

response is used as a clue in the investigation. For

example, an examiner might use POT to determine the exact location where stolen goods were

hidden. This kind of examination is called a

searching peak of tension test (20). The searching

POT technique has been used, for example, in

cases in which employees are suspected of having stolen money, but there is no evidence about

the extent of the theft (108). The examiner asks

the employee if he has stolen money ranging from

a small amount to the entire amount taken. The

amount that provokes the largest response is

assumed to be the amount of the total that the

employee stole.

The GKT, described initially by Lykken (105,

106) works in much the same way as POT. GKT,

however, often includes a larger set of questions,

and the questions may be of the multiple-choice

type rather than the “yes or no” type. Also, studies

investigating GKT have only used the electrodermal response, while POT tests have employed

standard three-channel polygraph recordings. An

example of two questions from a GKT used in a

laboratory study by Lykken (105) is listed below:

1. If you are the thief, you will know where the desk

was located in the office in which the theft occurred.

Was it (a) on the left, (b) in front, or (c)on the right?

2. The thief hid what he had stolen. Where did he hide
—

23

.- — — —

it? Was it (a) in the men’s room, (b) on the coat

rack, (c) in the office, (d) on the windowsill, or (e)

in the locker?

There is a major difference, however, in the use

suggested for GKT as compared to the use of the

POT. POT is usually used as a supplement to a

CQT, or as an aid in investigation. GKT, however, has been proposed as an alternative to control question techniques (92,107,108). proponents

argue that GKT may reduce the number of false

positives, because it focuses on specific details that

would be salient only to the perpetrator of a crime

(108,110). Also, they claim, the validity of GKT

can be substantially improved by increasing the

number of questions on the test. Critics claim that

it is especially susceptible to false negatives (136),

that is, guilty persons not detected, and that GKT

POST-TEST INTERVIEW

Interspersed among test questioning and measurement of physiological responses are a number

of opportunities for examiners to discuss the test

with the subject. At each occasion, the examiner

reviews the questions, and, depending on the responses, questions subjects about their responses.

At the end of the examination, the examiner will

make an assessment of whether a subject is being

deceptive or nondeceptive. In some methods, e.g.,

Reid’s (139), the assessment is a global one employing behavioral as well as polygraph data. But

USES OF POLYGRAPH TESTING

As has been implied in much of the above discussion, polygraph examinations are used for a

variety of purposes. The goal of all such applications of the polygraph is the detection of deception or substantiation of truthfulness. The nature

of the test situation, however, leads to important

differences in the way a polygraph examination

is conducted. Unfortunately, the published research literature deals almost exclusively with the

use of the polygraph by police and military examiners for criminal investigations. The research

literature on a number of important uses of poly -

proponents do not adequately assess the consequences of false negatives.

Concealed information tests have, according to

several reviewers (e.g., 108,136), other important

limitations. One problem is that they may not be

widely applicable. Knowledge about an incident

may not differentiate between a guilty and innocent person where, for instance, a suspect is present at the scene of a crime but claims that someone else is responsible (108,136). Furthermore,

concealed information tests require investigators

to gather information that is not always possible

to obtain, or must be disclosed to suspects in other

parts of the investigation (136). In some cases,

publicity about the details of a crime eliminates

the possibility of a concealed information test,

since the information is public knowledge (136).

the USAMPS Backster’s ZOC and other methods

attempt to rely strictly on polygraph chart interpretation (11,20). In examinations conducted by

the Federal Government, the final official determination is made after supervisory review of polygraph charts. If the subject is judged to be deceptive during the examination, the examiner will attempt to elicit a confession. Usually, this is not

done directly but is couched in terms of providing

the subject with an opportunity to clarify/explain

the responses and differences obtained.

graph testing, such as for national security purposes and for employment screening, is extremely limited.

Current Use

The majority of uses of polygraph testing appear to be on behalf of private employers, the next

greatest number are in the context of local criminal

justice investigations, and the remainder are done

by the Federal Government. Of greatest concern

for the present analysis are the numbers and types
24

of examinations currently conducted by agencies

of the Federal Government. This section will devote most attention to such uses, although local

government and private use are briefly discussed

in order to place Federal use in context.

Current Federal Government Use

In order to assess the extent of polygraph use

among Federal agencies, the Office of Technology

Assessment (OTA) conducted a survey of Government use during May 1983. The request for

information was sent to the Departments of

Defense (DOD), State, Justice, Treasury, the U.S.

Postal Service, and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), all of which were believed to employ

polygraph examinations. Information was requested about the number of examinations, purposes, and results, as well as about research conducted and/or planned (see app. B). At the time

of this technical memorandum, all agencies excepting CIA had provided written responses to

the request for information about the number and

type of polygraph examinations that have been

administered.

CIA declined to respond because of the classified nature of the information. However, some

data about CIA’s use for background investigations were reported in a 1980 study (165). The

number of polygraph examinations are summarized in table 1. Table 1 indicates that Federal

agencies reported administering a total of 22,597

polygraph examinations in fiscal year 1982. As

shown in appendix B, about half of these were

in the context of criminal investigations. Polygraph examinations are also reported to be used

for intelligence and counterintelligence investigations (some (NSA) at aperiodic intervals), and

preemployment screening. The largest single number of polygraph examinations conducted in 1982

were conducted by NSA, a component of DOD,

primarily for preemployment screening. These

numbers can be compared to previous surveys

conducted in 1963, when Federal agencies, excluding NSA and CIA, conducted 19,796 polygraph

examinations, and 1973, when 6,946 examinations

(including 3,081 by NSA) were conducted.

As shown in appendix B, NSA reports that it

uses primarily the R/I technique. NSA reports

that counterintelligence-type screening examinaTable 1 .–Polygraph Examinations Conducted by

Federal Agencies, 1982a

Agencv b

Total

Department of Defense:

Army Criminal Investigation Command . . . . . . .

Army, Intelligence Command

Navy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Air Force . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Marines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

National Security Agency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Department of Justice:

Federal Bureau of Investigation . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Drug Enforcement Agency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Department of the Treasury:

Secret Service. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms . . . . .

U.S. Postal Service. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Central Intelligence Agency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Totals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

3,731

279

1,337

3,019

263

9,672

2,463

211

714

256

652

n.a.c

22,597

aData were ~l~o ~epo~ed for fiscal years 1980, 1981, and, i n some cases year

to date 1983. See app. B for complete report.

bThe US. Customs Service (Department of the Treasury), Department of Health

and Human Services, and Tennessee Valley Authority conduct a limited but

unknown number of polygraph examinations

Cclas~lfled or partly classified.

SOURCE” Office of Technology Assessment

tions—i.e., tests given to NSA (or affiliated) personnel who already have access to classified information-would have relevant questions on the

topics of involvement in espionage or sabotage

against the United States; knowledge of others involved in espionage or sabotage against the United

States; involvement in giving or selling classified

materials to unauthorized persons; knowledge of

others giving or selling classified material to unauthorized persons; and unauthorized contact

with representatives of a foreign government

(187). Examinations that are given to applicants

for employment and contractors who are applying for access to Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) consist of questions about the topics

covered in counterintelligence-type aperiodic

screenings (phrased as “Do you plan to commit. . . ?“) as well as questions about a broader

range of issues: involvement in communist, fascist, or terrorist activity; commission of a serious

crime; involvement in adult homosexual activity; involvement with illegal drugs or narcotics;

deliberate falsification of security processing

forms; treatment for a serious nervous or mental

problem (187). According to NSA, the scope of

specific issue examinations is limited to questions

that are relevant to the issue to be resolved. Pre-
25

sumably, specific issue examinations would be

conducted using the control question technique,

Current DOD regulations also allow the use of

polygraph examinations to investigate situations

in which credible derogatory information about

an individual with clearance is provided to officials. The frequency of this type of investigation, however, was not reported, Prior to the

President’s National Security Decision Directive

of March 11, 1983, use of the polygraph in personnel investigations of competitive service applicants and appointees to competitive service

positions was limited to executive agencies with

highly sensitive intelligence or counterintelligence

missions affecting the national security (e. g., a

mission approaching the sensitivity of that of CIA;

see 188). Approval to use the polygraph could be

granted for only 1-year periods. Refusal to consent to a polygraph could not be made a part of

an applicant or appointee’s personnel file. See

chapter 3 for a description of proposed changes

in Federal use of polygraph testing.

Non-Federal Government Use

Outside the Federal Government, polygraph examinations are administered as part of criminal

investigations, as well as preemployment screening and periodic screening of employees for purposes of controlling internal crime and recommending promotions. Less frequent uses include

examinations in such situations as paternity investigations and workers’ compensation cases. It

has been estimated that over a million polygraph

examinations are given a year (107), 300,000 of

them for employment purposes alone (128),

Both private and police polygraphers use polygraph examinations in the process of criminal

CONCLUSIONS

What is often referred to as “the polygraph” is

actually a set of relatively complex procedures for

asking questions and measuring physiological responses in order to detect deception or establish

truth. Polygraph testing is employed for a variety of uses, ranging from ascertaining the guilt of

a criminal suspect to assessing the honesty of a

investigations (see 136). In some cases (most typically, rape and kidnapping cases, but also, for

example, investigations of improper or illegal conduct by public officials (177)), witnesses and victims whose veracity is in doubt are asked to take

a polygraph examination. Suspects who claim innocence may be asked by their defense attorneys

or the prosecution to support their claim by taking a polygraph examination. In such cases, prosecutors and defense attorneys may make informal agreements to drop the charges if the polygraph examination indicates no deception. Or, the

prosecution and the defense may formally stipulate that if deception is indicated, results of the

polygraph examination will be admissible at trial.

In some cases (New Mexico, Massachusetts, and

the 9th Federal Circuit Court of Appeals (8,136,

156,157)) polygraph evidence has been admitted

over objection. Polygraph evidence is also used

occasionally in postconviction proceedings such

as sentencing and motions for a new trial (136).

In polygraph examinations as part of criminal investigations, some version of the control question

technique is typically used.

The use of the polygraph examination by employers is reported to be widespread (144). Although it is illegal to ask employees to take an

examination in 19 States and the District of Columbia, it is legal to do so in 31 States (8,156,157).

Polygraph examinations are used most commonly

in commercial banking, investment banking, and

retail operations. In such settings, both risk of

theft and fraud are high and, in addition, employee turnover is high. The use of polygraph examinations is also recommended to employers as a

check before making promotion decisions (204).

prospective employee. Because different polygraph procedures are required depending on intended use, it is necessary to consider validity by

polygraph technique and situation. In subsequent

chapters, such a variegated analysis is presented

and the scientific and policy contexts are more

fully described.

25-29Q Q - 83 - 3 : QI, 3
Chapter 3

Controversy Over Polygraph

Testing Validity
Chapter 3

Controversy Over Polygraph

Testing Validity

INTRODUCTION

The validity of polygraph examinations to detect deception has long been a controversial issue

(cf. 108,136,194,195). Since development of polygraph techniques almost 80 years ago, their use

both within and outside the Federal Government

has been the focus of numerous judicial opinions

and, as well, legislative and executive branch

debate. Polygraph examinations have been advocated as a way to ascertain guilt of criminal suspects, to exculpate innocent suspects, to protect

national security, and to maintain employee honesty. Polygraph examinations have, at the same

time, been criticized for providing inaccurate and

misleading information, for failing to detect security risks (167), for interfering with the rights of

private citizens (128), and for lowering employees’

morale. At the center of controversy over the use

of polygraph examinations is the question of its

validity: does a polygraph examination actually

identify truthful and nontruthful individuals?

Recent interest in polygraph examinations and

their validity stems from efforts to broaden Federal Government use. The Department of Defense

(DOD), in late 1982, drafted revisions to existing

regulations (5210.48). DOD proposed expansion

of the use of polygraph tests for preemployment

screening and periodic or aperiodic testing of

employees who have access to highly classified

information. Currently, only the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Central Intelligence

Agency (CIA) are able to use polygraph tests in

this way, Expanded use of polygraph testing in

all Federal agencies was made explicit in a PresiJUDICIAL REVIEWS

dential National Security Decision Directive (Mar.

11, 1983, NSDD-84). In part, the directive requires

agencies and departments which handle classified

information to revise existing regulations to permit use of polygraph examinations as part of internal investigations of unauthorized disclosure of

classified information. Prior to the directive, investigations of unauthorized disclosures had to

be referred to the Department of Justice (DOJ).

Employees who refuse to submit to a polygraph

examination could, if NSDD-84 is implemented,

be subject to adverse consequences. In October

1983, DOJ announced that administration policy

would also permit Government-wide polygraph

use in personnel security screening of employees

(and applicants for positions) with access to highly

classified information,

Proposals to expand use of polygraph examinations to maintain national security have renewed

the debate about the appropriateness of various

polygraph techniques and their ability to detect

deception. In order to provide a context for the

present evaluation of scientific evidence on the

validity of polygraph testing, previous assessments of accuracy of polygraph testing are reviewed in this chapter. Legal precedents regarding

polygraph testing and congressional hearings on

its use, both within and outside of

are briefly considered. The chapter

scientific criteria for establishing

reviews other efforts to evaluate

literature on testing.

Government,

also describes

validity and

the scientific

When courts have been called on to resolve dis- nique’s validity and whether its use, however

putes concerned with use of polygraph examina- valid, interfaces with other vaIues that the law

tions, they have had to consider both the tech- seeks to protect. The varying decisions reached

29
30

by State appellate courts and Federal circuits (see

8) may in large measure reflect varying beliefs

about the validity of polygraph examinations. Indeed, for many years, the leading case on the admissibility of novel scientific evidence (Frye v.

United States (58)) was a case about the admissibility of polygraph evidence, and the opinion centered on the question of validity. The issue of how

a court is to decide the question of any scientific

technique’s validity has brought the Frye test into

question in recent years and makes salient the

problem of establishing judicial standards for

assessing validity (60).

Polygraph Findings as Evidence

The Frye case involved a 19-year-old defendant

convicted of robbery and murder. Prior to his

trial, a well-known psychologist and one of the

originators of polygraph testing, Dr. William

Marston, administered a “systolic blood pressure

test” to detect deception (e.g., 114). Dr. Marston

determined, on the basis of this test, that Frye was

truthful when he denied involvement in the robbery and murder. The trial judge, however, refused to permit Dr. Marston to either testify about

the examination or conduct a reexamination using

the blood pressure test in court,

Frye appealed his conviction on the grounds

that relevant exculpatory evidence had not been

admitted. The appeals court, however, concurred

with the initial trial court judgment. The court

reasoned that the systolic blood pressure deception test was validated only by “experimental”

evidence and was not based on a “well-recognized

scientific principle or discovery. ” The decision

stated that, “while courts will go a long way in

admitting expert testimony deduced from a wellrecognized scientific principle or discovery, the

things from which the deduction is made must be

sufficiently established to have gained general acceptance in the particular field in which it belongs.

Just when a scientific principle crosses the line between experimental and demonstrable is difficult

to define, ”

Ironically, Frye’s conviction was later reversed

when another man confessed to the crime, thereby

providing Frye with more convincing corroboration of his denials of guilt. This did not settle the

case, however, and recent discussion of the facts

of the case indicate that Frye was, indeed, guilty.

The crude polygraph examination conducted by

Marston, thus, appears to have yielded an inaccurate conclusion.

The Frye test is still used as precedent in most

Federal courts. Subsequent opinions (in areas

other than the polygraph) have tried to better define that line between “experimental” and “demonstrative” stages of a scientific innovation. For example, the court in United States v. Stifel (190)

held that “neither newness nor lack of absolute

certainty in a test suffices to render it inadmissible in court. ” In a second case, United States v.

Brown (189), the court also seemed to be concerned with validity: “The fate of a defendant in

a criminal prosecution should not hang on his

ability to successfully rebut scientific evidence

which bears an ‘aura of special reliability and

trustworthiness, ’ although, in reality the witness

is testifying on the basis of an unproved hypothesis in an isolated experiment which has yet to

gain general acceptance in its field.” The F~e test

has been held to be too high a hurdle by some

trial courts, which have replaced it with the test

for admissibility of expert testimony generally:

“testimony by a witness as to matters which are

beyond the ken of the layman will be admissible

if relevant and the witness is qualified to give an

opinion as to the specialized area of knowledge”

(190).

A closely related question for the courts has

been who should determine whether some procedure has gained general acceptance in its field,

Some have held that the courts must look to the

judgment of the scientific community (e.g., 191).

In other decisions, the court refused to “surrender

to scientists the responsibility for determining the

reliability of (scientific) evidence, ” and that “a

determination of reliability cannot rest on a process of ‘counting (scientific) noses. ’ “

Saks and Van Duizend (145) concluded that

whichever set of tests is employed, the courts are

in a weak position to assess validity directly or

to count scientific noses. The result has been:

1) general deference by the courts to the judgments

of scientific communities; and 2) “numerous incongruities . . . where less reliable scientific and

technological information is admitted but the ad-
31

——

mission of demonstrably more reliable techniques

is delayed until the requisite consensus has

formed” (145; see, also, 60).

When the courts examine polygraph testing,

they are faced with a series of dilemmas. To which

“particular field” of expertise can the courts turn:

physiology, psychology, polygraph? If they look

to the data themselves, what are they to make of

it? As the present report suggests, validity assessment involves a complex situation and techniquespecific answer. Even if a final, single accuracy

rate could be established, how should a court use

it. How accurate must a diagnostic or predictive

technique be to be deemed valid for evidentiary

purposes? Regularly admitted psychiatric evidence

is widely recognized (including by the U.S. Supreme Court, see Addington v. Texas, (2)) as having accuracy rates comparable to flipping coins

(e.g., 55,208). In Barefoot v. E’stelle (13) the Supreme Court acknowledged that psychiatric predictions of dangerousness and violent behavior

do not exceed an accuracy level of 33 percent (see

118). Yet, this evidence was held admissible in

Barefoot and sufficiently valid to uphold a decision to execute a convicted person.

In summary, then, the courts have found themselves disagreeing on methods to establish validity

for purposes of admissibility of evidence, where

the critical focus of such judgment should rest.

In addition, courts are inconsistent about what

decision to make on the basis of judicial findings

of fact regarding the validity of a diagnostic or

predictive device.

Laws Regulating Polygraphs

in Employment Settings

As described in chapter 2, screening employees

is the most frequent application of polygraph testing. Many employers argue that use of polygraph

testing for preemployment screening, periodic

checking, and to resolve actual thefts is necessary.

Internal crime has been estimated to cost private

industry up to $10 billion annually (see 172), and

polygraph testing is regarded as a cost-effective

tool. Employers argue that screening applicants,

and periodic checking of employees, are the most

efficient ways to control pilferage, embezzlement,

poaching, and other forms of theft. The need for

polygraph testing is felt particularly in industries

which have high risk of theft and fraud (e. g., commercial banks), high turnover (supermarkets,

other retail operations), or both.

According to Ansley (8), the use of private polygraph testing is limited by statute in 18 States

plus the District of Columbia. Most of these laws

seek to protect employees from being requested,

required, demanded, or subjected to polygraph

examinations by their employers. Employers are

reported to be able to find ways around these

laws. For example, employers may tell the employee that they suspect them of theft, but that

if the employee can find a way to demonstrate

innocence, the employer will not discharge the

employee. In addition to polygraph validity, other

polygraph-related concerns include issues of voluntariness, invasions of privacy, being compelled

to inform on other employees, inhibiting union

activity, and the polygraph as a cover for racism

and sexism. This list does not exhaust concerns

that have been expressed.

A survey of 143 private firms by Belt and Holden (25), regarding their use of polygraph testing,

yielded a number of interesting findings. Twenty percent of respondents reported using polygraph examinations for preemployment screening, periodic surveys, and investigations of specific onsite crimes. It is interesting that of reasons

given for using or not using polygraph tests, users

ranked moral or ethical considerations last and

efficiency first; nonusers, however, ranked validity and reliability second in importance, cost third,

and the availability of qualified operators fourth

in importance. The survey found a positive relationship between a State having a licensing requirement for polygraphers and employers’ use

of polygraph testing. According to Ansley (8), 25

States have licensing requirements for polygraphers; licensing is optional in one State.

Although there is testimony that use of polygraph testing reduces employee crime (172), no

formal cost-benefit analyses appear to have been

conducted. In addition, there is no research on

the predictive validity of polygraph results

(72,144). Although employee issues are critical to

proposed Government uses of polygraph testing,

few data are available on Government employees

(see chs. 4 and 5).
32

One additional area of controversy has concerned employee rights and employer-employee

relationships. The general matter of invasion of

privacy is particularly pertinent in preemployment

screening and periodic checking. In preemployment screening, the range of questions that may

be asked has been subject to particularly heavy

criticism. Questions have been reported to include

items concerning union activity, sexual preference, and family problems (169); and, in addition,

willingness to make a commitment to the job

(144){ and whether the respondent has ever been

tempted to steal (71). During periodic checking,

respondents are sometimes asked not only about

their own possible improper behavior (e.g., underringing in supermarkets), but also about their

level of job satisfaction, intention to remain with

the employer, and activities of their fellow employees (204). There is some concern about

whether prejudices of the polygraph examiner

based on racial, ethnic, and gender stereotypes

bias employees’ responses (144). These assertions

do not appear to have been researched. And no

related claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights

Acts have been upheld.

One argument against the use of polygraph examinations in the employment situation is that it

destroys the trust relationship between employers

and employees, and creates employee dissatisfaction. However, the few employee surveys that

have been conducted have not supported this argument. Apparently, five studies have examined

whether the use of the polygraph causes private

sector employees to be dissatisfied. In one study

(144), 96 percent of applicants were willing to take

a polygraph examination to get a job, 86 percent

of the applicants thought the preemployment examination was fair, and 88 percent were willing

to take it routinely as a condition of employment.

A problem with the study was that applicants

were surveyed immediately after taking the polygraph examination so they may have thought their

responses were part of the screening process. In

the one known survey of Federal employees, the

Air Force (183a) surveyed individuals who had

volunteered to participate in a pilot project on the

use of the polygraph for counterintelligence/security examinations. About 99 percent of the respondents felt that the examination was fair, and

were willing to take an examination for counterintelligence purposes.

FEDERAL DEBATE OVER POLYGRAPH VALIDITY

Concern about and debate over Federal Government use of the polygraph have emerged at

several points during the past 20 years. As shown

in figure 1, the history is essentially one of legislative concern triggered by some executive branch

proposal or action regarding polygraph testing.

The questions raised by Congress have included

constitutional and ethical as well as validity issues.

However, the scientific validity and reliability of

polygraph testing has been and is a central congressional concern. This chapter briefly describes

the history of Federal Government involvement

with the issue of polygraph validity.

The 1960’s

Congressional interest first intensified in 1963

when controversy developed over an executive

branch proposal to use lie detectors to find the

source of unauthorized disclosures of sensitive or

classified information, sometimes known as

“leaks” (192). The then chairman of the House

Committee on Government Operations asked the

Foreign Operations and Government Information

subcommittee to study the Federal Government’s

use of polygraphs. The study found that, excluding the National Security Agency and Central Intelligence Agency (for which information was

classified), Federal agencies had conducted 19,796

polygraph examinations in 1963. In 1964, the subcommittee held hearings and received testimony

from private polygraphers, researchers, and Federal officials. In a 1965 report (167), the House

Committee on Government Operations concluded

that there was no scientific evidence to support

the theory of the polygraph, and that the research
33
34

evidence as to its accuracy was inadequate. The

committee recommended that further research be

conducted and training for polygraph examiners

be upgraded, and that the President establish an

interagency committee to study and work out solutions to problems posed by Federal Government

use of polygraphs.

Later in 1965, an interagency polygraph committee of representatives from DOD, CIA, DOJ,

Bureau of the Budget (now Office of Management

and Budget), Office of Science and Technology

(now the Office of Science and Technology Policy), and other executive agencies was established.

The interagency committee concluded that: 1)

there was insufficient scientific evidence concerning the validity and reliability of polygraph testing; and 2) the use of the polygraph constituted

an invasion of privacy of the individual being interrogated. The committee recommended that the

“use of the polygraph in the executive branch

should be generally prohibited, and permitted

only in special national security operations and

in certain specified criminal cases” (166). The recommendations made at that time concerning personnel screening were promulgated as Civil Service regulations on regulating the use of polygraphs

in personnel investigations of competitive service

applicants and appointees to competitive service

positions (ch. 736, app. D, of the Federal Personnel Manual). According to these regulations,

which are still in effect, only executive agencies

with highly sensitive intelligence or counterintelligence missions directly affecting the national security such as “a mission approaching the sensitivity of that of the Central Intelligence Agency”

are permitted to use the polygraph for employment screening and personnel investigations of applicants for and appointees to competitive service

positions. All other uses of a polygraph to screen

applicants for and appointees to competitive positions are forbidden.

The regulations also set forth steps for determining whether agencies met the criteria of having a highly sensitive mission, and stipulated that

approval to use the polygraph would be granted

only for l-year periods. Agencies intending to use

the polygraph for personnel screening were required to prepare regulations and directives meeting certain minimum standards. The minimum

standards included directives concerning the specific purposes for which the polygraph may be

used, and directives that a person to be examined

must be informed as far in advance as possible

of the intent to use the polygraph and of the fact

that refusal to consent to a polygraph examination will not be made a part of the person’s personnel file.

Also in response to the House Government

Operations Committee’s 1965 report, DOD proposed, and in part undertook, an extensive polygraph research program. And in July 1965, DOD

issued directive 5210.48 (177) to regulate the conduct of polygraph examinations and improve selection, training, and supervision of its polygraph

operators. Some of the results of the DOD research program were later reported in a scientific

journal (29), but other reliability and validity

studies proposed were never carried out (183).

Between 1967 and 1973 a number of bills were

introduced which would have either limited the

questions that could have been asked or banned

altogether polygraph use by Federal agencies

(170). None of these bills was enacted.

The 1970’s

Ten years after the 1964 hearings, this same

House Government Operations subcommittee

conducted another review of polygraph use by

Federal agencies (169). In 1974 hearings, the subcommittee found that the use of polygraphs in the

Federal Government had declined substantially

since 1963. In fiscal year 1973, a total of 6,946

examinations were conducted, including 3,081 by

NSA. This compared to 19,796 in 1963, excluding

NSA and CIA. Tne subcommittee also found that

there was not much additional research on polygraph validity. The only federally funded studies

conducted had been those reported by the DOD

Joint Services Group (183), and these studies were

considered by DOD to be inadequate for determining the validity and reliability of Federal

polygraph testing.

In a 1976 report based partly on the 1974 hearings, the House Government Operations Committee concluded that “the nature of research undertaken, both federally and privately funded, and
the results therefrom, have done little to persuade

the committee that polygraphs . . . have demonstrated either their validity or reliability in differentiating between truth and deception, other

than possibly in a laboratory situation” (171). The

1976 report concurred with the 1965 report that

“There is no ‘lie detector’ “ (171). Because of the

polygraph’s “unproven technical validity” and the

suggestion that the “inherent chilling effect on individuals subjected to such examination clearly

outweighs any purported benefit to the investigative function of the agency, ” the Committee

recommended a complete ban on the use of polygraphs by all Federal Government agencies for

all purposes. However, 13 committee members

dissented, asserting both that the hearings had

been held during an entirely different Congress,

and participated in by an entirely different group

of Members, and that, while testimony at the

hearings represented a wide diversity of views,

no witness had urged prohibition of the polygraph

for all purposes. The dissenters urged adoption

of the recommendations originally proposed and

voted on by the members who had participated

in the hearings. These recommendations would

have, in part, prohibited the use of polygraphs

in all cases except “1) those clearly involving the

Nation’s security, and 2) those in which agencies

can demonstrate in compelling terms their need

for use of such devices for their law enforcement

purposes, and that such uses would not violate

the fifth amendment or any other provision of the

Constitution. ”

The concern with scientific validity and its

implications for the Federal Government’s use of

polygraph testing arose again in 1979 at hearings

held on preemployment security clearance procedures by the House Permanent Select Committee

on Intelligence, Subcommittee on Oversight (175).

The subcommittee found that there had been insufficient research on the accuracy of the polygraph technique in screening job applicants and

that “gaps in the statistics kept by the intelligence

services do not make it possible to make the clear

judgment that the polygraph is unique and indispensable” (173). The Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) was urged to conduct a study to validate the accuracy of the polygraph for preemployment screening. DCI did conduct a study in 1980

to examine the utility of polygraph tests, but it

was not a validity study (165).

As shown in figure 1, in addition to interest in

Federal use of polygraphs, Congress has shown

interest in the use of polygraph examinations by

private employers, in part because of constitutional and privacy issues (see, e.g., 169,172, 173;

the Privacy Protection Study Commission Report

(128) mandated by Public Law 93-579; and several

laws introduced since 1967), Various congressional committees have questioned the validity of

polygraph testing in a private employment context, in particular as a condition for employment.

Nevertheless, attempts to enact Federal legislation

regulating the use of polygraph examinations by

private employers and/or the Federal Government

have not been successful.

The 1980’s

In the recent past, the executive branch has

again taken initiatives concerning the Federal use

of polygraph testing. In April 1982, a DOD select

panel reviewed the DOD personnel security program (180) and expressed dissatisfaction because

of inconsistency in polygraph use across component programs (as did the U.S. Congress (173)),

and the lack of reinvestigations. The panel observed that military personnel, unlike civilians,

were appointed to NSA and allowed access to

Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) without undergoing a polygraph examination. In addition, personnel could continue to get clearances

throughout their careers without ever being subject to reexamination. The DOD panel recommended a broadened application of the polygraph

for security screening purposes, and selective use

of counterintelligence scope polygraph examinations during periodic reinvestigations. The panel

noted that the recommended expanded use of the

polygraph would require changes in DOD Directive 5210.48.

On August 6, 1982, the Office of the Deputy

Secretary of Defense (39) issued a memorandum

requiring employees with SCI access to agree to

submit to polygraph examinations on an aperiodic

basis, and revised DOD Directive 5210,48 accordingly. Later in 1982 and again in early and mid1983, further revisions to DOD Directive 5210.48
36

were drafted (181). In 1983, the President issued

a National Security Decision Directive (NSDD-84)

also authorizing broader use of the polygraph.

Congress responded to these developments by

conducting several sets of hearings, by requesting

OTA and General Accounting Office studies, and

by passing an amendment to the DOD appropriations authorization bill (S.675) putting a moratorium until April 15, 1984, on any revisions to

DOD Directive 5210.48 retroactive to August 5,

1982. On October 19, 1983, DOJ announced a

new administration polygraph policy that would

permit further expansion in polygraph use. The

DOD draft revisions, NSDD-84, and administration polygraph policy are discussed in more detail

below.

Draft Revisions to DOD 5210.48

The draft revisions to the DOD polygraph regulations have gone through several iterations. For

the purposes of this validity study, a primary proposed revision (as of the March 1983 draft) is to

authorize the use of the polygraph for determining initial and continuing eligibility of DOD

civilian, military, and contractor personnel for

access to highly classified information (SCI and/or

special access). The use of the polygraph in determining continuing eligibility would be on an

aperiodic (i. e., irregular) basis (Ml).

Also, the proposed revisions provide that refusal to take a polygraph examination, when

established as a requirement for selection or

assignment or as a condition of access, may, after

consideration of all other relevant factors, result

in adverse consequences for the individual. Adverse consequences are defined to include nonelection for assignment or employment, denial

or revocation of clearance, or reassignment to a

nonsensitive position.

Technically, these expanded uses of the polygraph are considered to be part of personnel security investigations. Use of the polygraph within

DOD is already authorized under the existing 1975

version of 5210.48 for various criminal, counterintelligence, and intelligence purposes,

A detailed review of the proposed changes is

beyond the scope of this technical memorandum.

NSDD-84

On March 11, 1983, the President issued a National Security Decision Directive intended, according to DOJ officials, to help safeguard against

unlawful disclosure of properly classified information. One provision of NSDD-84 requires that

persons with authorized access to classified information sign a nondisclosure agreement, and that

persons with access to SCI must also agree to prepublication review. These provisions are outside

the scope of this memorandum, as is a full analysis

of NSDD-84.

With respect to the polygraph, NSDD-84 in

effect authorizes agencies and departments to

require employees to take a polygraph examination in the course of internal investigations of

unauthorized disclosures of classified examinations. NSDD-84 also provides that refusal to take

a polygraph test may result in adverse consequences. NSDD-84 permits administrative sanctions, including denial of security clearance, to

be applied even when a person is not subject to

a criminal investigation (184).

Administration Polygraph Policy

On October 19, 1983, DOJ announced a comprehensive administration policy on Federal agency polygraph use. The policy authorizes polygraph testing:

1. as a condition of initial or continuing

employment with or assignment to agencies

with highly sensitive responsibilities directly affecting national security;

2. as a condition of access to highly sensitive

categories of classified information;

3. to investigate serious criminal cases; and

4. to investigate serious administrative misconduct cases including unauthorized disclosure

of classified information (185a).

The policy in essence authorizes use of the polygraph on a Government-wide basis for the expanded polygraph uses proposed by DOD. Thus,

for example, the policy provides agency heads

with the authority to give polygraph examinations

on a periodic or aperiodic basis to randomly

selected employees with access to highly sensitive

information, and to deny such access to employees refusing to take a polygraph exam.
37

SCIENTIFIC VALIDITY AND POLYGRAPH RESEARCH REVIEWS

Thus, recent polygraph policy actions have

renewed interest in and debate over the scientific

validity of the polygraph. Reviews of scientific

literature form the principal means to cumulate

research findings and are especially important in

order to assess the validity of polygraph testing.

Single research studies, no matter how well conducted, cannot answer global questions about validity and must be considered in relation to other

evidence. Both because research evidence about

polygraph testing has rapidly increased, especially

within the last 10 years, and because there have

been disagreements about the nature of evidence

about polygraph testing, there have been a number of such reviews. These reviews are important,

because they are frequently cited in both legal and

legislative considerations and because they serve

to shape future research,

Underlying each of the reviews is the application of a set of criteria, only sometimes made explicit, regarding the validity of individual studies

and their implications for overall assessments of

polygraph testing accuracy. As introduction to

the scientific reviews, the nature of these criteria

is described. The reviews, themselves, are then

summarized and a preliminary analysis of discrepancies among reviews is presented. More detailed

analysis of individual validity studies is provided

in chapters 4 and .5,

Definitions of Scientific Validity

Validity

The validity of polygraph testing means, in

nontechnical terms, accuracy of the test in detecting deception and truthfulness. The problem of

assessing polygraph validity is especially difficult,

not only because polygraph tests take a number

of forms, but also because validity has different

dimensions and can be measured in a number of

ways. There are, as a result, a number of different

forms of validity associated with polygraph examinations depending on the type of polygraph

test as well as on its use (e. g., employee screening v. investigation of a criminal suspect). These

difficulties underlie, in part, the failure to have

developed assessments of polygraph validity that

are accepted by the scientific community.

In order to make explicit the criteria for validity

used in this assessment, below are described several dimensions of validity and how they are assessed. This description is based both on standards

for psychological/psychometric tests (cf. 3,5) and

criteria to evaluate research designs (cf. 41,147).

Although criteria for validity can be described objectively, it should be noted that it is essentially

a qualitative judgment as to whether (or, to what

extent) a given criterion is met. In addition,

assessments of the “preponderance” of evidence

necessary in order to assess the overall validity

of polygraph testing are similarly subjective, In

chapters 4 and 5, a systematic analysis of available research is attempted, although it should be

recognized that there are a number of ways to

conduct such evaluations, each of which may

yield a somewhat different outcome.

Reliability

Assessment of any test’s validity is based on the

assumption that the test consistently measures the

same properties. This consistency, known as reliability, is usually the degree to which a test yields

repeatable results (i. e., the extent to which the

same individual retested is scored similarly).

Reliability also refers to consistency across examiners/scorers. A reliable polygraph test should

yield equivalent outcomes when subjects are retested and, as well, be scored similarly by individuals other than the initial examiner. For example, if a polygraph examiner reviewed a set of

charts and concluded that a subject was deceptive, any other polygraph examiner should be able

to review the same charts and conclude that deception was indicated. This illustrates interraterreliability. Such reliability might be affected by

the amount and type of training of examiners.

The present study focuses primarily on validity because if a testing procedure is not measuring what it purports to measure (validity), it matters little that it can measure the same thing again

and again. Examiners who consistently agree that

they are seeing “deception” may in fact be measur-
38

ing anxiety or some other form of arousal. Reliability is, however, a necessary condition for validity to be established. A test that is valid will,

necessarily, be reliable.

Construct Validity

Construct validity refers, in broad terms, to

whether a test adequately measures the underlying trait it is designed to assess. A polygraph test

is designed to detect deception. It is therefore important to clearly define the construct of deception, and distinguish it from other concepts such

as guilt.

To measure construct validity, it is necessary

to both describe the construct and show its relation to a conceptual framework. Construct validation, thus, requires that a test be based on some

theory or conceptual model. Since different types

of polygraph tests have different theoretical bases

(see ch. 2), there are multiple forms of construct

validity for the polygraph. Construct validity is

established by various means. Most importantly, based on theoretical predictions of how items

should interrelate or how other tests should intercorrelate, actual evidence (e. g., scores from similar tests) is examined. If no such predictions are

possible, it is impossible to establish construct

validity.

Criterion Validity

Although from a theoretical point of view construct validity is most important, from a practical

point-of-view, criterion validity is the central

component of a validity analysis. This aspect of

validity refers, in the case of polygraph examinations, to the relationship between test outcomes

and a criterion of ground truth. In this respect,

criterion validity is what is meant by test accuracy. In the absence of construct validity evidence,

however, it is difficult to determine to what extent criterion validity data can be generalized. In

some situations, it is not clear which aspects of

a test are responsible for accuracy, and what factors cause a test to be inaccurate.

Research Design

The above validity criteria are those which are

typically assessed in considering evidence about

the usefulness of a test. A related set of validity

crtieria are also used to evaluate the validity of

any single study design. These research design criteria include, most importantly, internal and external validity (cf. 41,147).

Internal validity refers to the degree to which

a study has controlled for extraneous variables

which may be related to the study outcome. External validity refers to the established generalizability of a study to particular subject populations and settings. Internal validity in the case of

a study of polygraph testing is usually enhanced

by the presence of control groups. Typically, such

conditions of an experiment permit analysis of

variables such as different question formats. In

most field studies, internal validity is difficult to

establish since the investigation cannot control or,

in many cases, have definitive knowledge about

whether a subject is guilty or innocent.

External validity is simply the nature of the subjects and settings tested. The broader the population examined and the type of setting investigated,

the wider that study’s results can be generalized.

In a parallel way, the more similar the research

situation to the “real life” situation, the greater

a study’s external validity. Evidence about external validity is developed both from investigations

that test a broad range of subjects and situations

and from investigations that identify subject and

setting interactions with polygraph test outcomes.

The broader the population examined and the

type of setting or the more similar it is to the situation for which one wants to use a test or a theoretical construct, the greater a study’s external

validity.

False Positives and Negatives

With any test, the possibility exists of false positives and negatives. False positives are decisions

that individuals are being deceptive when they are

providing truthful responses, Their charts are

scored as showing a “deceptive” reaction for some

other reason. False negatives are decisions that individuals are not being deceptive when in fact they

are being deceptive. There are a number of reasons why such false outcomes might be obtained

and, in part, they depend on the criteria (e. g.,

amount of physiological change) used to indicate

deception or truthfulness.
39 —

The rate of false positives or negatives is

sometimes difficult to establish because, in research studies, a number of criteria for deception/

nondeception may be applied. Thus, for example, in studies which employ numerical scoring

for polygraph charts, depending on the scoring

system (e. g., cutoff points), different diagnoses

will be made. The rate of false positives and

negatives may also depend on the examiner’s perception of the “base rate” of guilt/innocence.

In some cases, the examiner will deal mostly

with deceptive subjects (e. g., in certain criminal

investigation contexts) and, thus, may be predisposed to make false positive diagnoses, In other

settings (e. g., some personnel screenings), an examiner may test only a small number of deceptive subjects and, then, may be predisposed to

false negative decisions. Regardless of rates,

assessment of conditions that centribute to either

type of error is a focus of the research literature.

Reviews of Polygraph Validity

Since at least 1973, a number of polygraph researchers and psychologists interested in physiological detection of deception have reviewed available scientific literature to assess the validity and

reliability of polygraph testing. Most such reviews

focus on studies of criterion validity, although a

growing number of investigations deal with construct validity. The most important difference

among these criterion studies has to do with

whether they are conducted in actual field situations or in “analog” situations.

Field Studies

For purposes of this technical memorandum,

field studies are those studies or “naturally”

occurring polygraph test situations; i.e., studies

in which the researcher does not exercise experimental control over the situation in which the

crime or other event occurred. Not exercising experimental control means that the researcher does

not systematically assign people to conditions of,

for example, guilt or innocence. We refer hereto

“field” studies but others (e.g., 7) use the terminology “real” cases (v. “laboratory”). Abrams

(1) differentiates between the laboratory and “actual criminal cases. ”

In polygraph field studies, polygraph examiners’ decisions are compared against some post hoc

determination of whether suspects are guilty or

innocent; i.e., “ground truth. ” These post hoc

determinations may, in different studies, consist

of confessions by the presumably guilty party,

decisions by a panel of attorneys or judges assembled specifically for a particular study who base

their decisions on investigative files excluding

references to polygraph decisions, judicial outcomes (dismissals, acquittals, convictions), as well

as other criteria. The fact that determinations of

guilt or innocence are made post hoc makes drawing conclusions from field studies difficult (126).

In real life situations, truth is seldom available

(62).

Attempts to use confessions, panel judgments,

judicial outcomes, and other criteria as indicators

of truth have their own problems. Individuals

may confess to crimes which they did not commit (108). In addition, individuals are sometimes

falsely convicted (34). Panel decisions may be generalizable only to cases in which sufficient investigative information is available to make a decision without the addition of polygraph testing.

One can never be certain that the panel decision

is indeed correct, and the panel and the polygraph

examiner may have been exposed to the same

prior information (62). Thus, while field studies

provide the most direct evidence about polygraph

test validity, they have been criticized because

they do not adequately meet the standards of

“ground truth” to establish criterion validity.

Comparison of Reviews

A number of independent reviews (listed in

table 2) of the field evidence on polygraph testing

were assessed in order to determine reasons for

differences among reviews. The reviews differ in

a number of respects. In part, reviewers’ conclusions differ because they include different kinds

of studies and even different studies (despite, in

several cases, having had the same studies available to them). In addition, some reviews differentiate between accuracy in detecting deceptive v.

nondeceptive subjects, emphasizing the problems

of false positives and false negatives; others aggregated the overall accuracy rates across both

groups of subjects. Finally, there are differences
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in the way accuracy rates were calculated, in particular, how inconclusive are handled. Each of

these differences has important implications for

the conclusions developed by the reviews,

Several reviews (1,81) conducted 5 to 10 years

ago reported relatively positive conclusions based

on an evaluation of the scientific literature.

Abrams (1) in 1973 reviewed reports of the

polygraph’s accuracy dating from 1917, including

anecdotal as well as experimental data. He calculated approximate estimates of overall accuracy

from this data, noting, however, that “it is almost

meaningless to total and average these findings

because of the great discrepancy in experimental

paradigms and the instruments employed. ” He reported that in studies with complete verification

of ground truth, diagnoses were 100 percent correct. In other field studies prior to 1963 Abrams

calculated an accuracy rate of 98 percent. in

laboratory experiments prior to 1963, Abrams

estimated the average accuracy rate of 81 percent.

Averaging the results of the reports between 1963

and 1973, Abrams estimate of laboratory and field

research accuracy was 83 and 98 percent, respectively. Horvath’s (6) review in 1976 used somewhat more stringent criteria in selecting data than

did Abrams. His review does not include an overall average accuracy rate calculated across studies.

The early positive views of the polygraph’s

worth have recently been challenged by Lykken

(108) and, to some extent, by Ben-Shakhar, et al.

(28). Lykken in 1981 challenged the theoretical

assumptions of the most prevalent question technique, the control question technique (CQT), and

asserted that an average 50-percent false positive

rate supported his theoretical challenge. Lykken,

however, continues to believe that particular polygraph techniques are useful (i.e., the detection

of guilt by measuring physiological arousal) and

offers the use of the guilty knowledge technique

as a way to increase overall validity. Adoption

of Lykken’s suggestion would preclude the use of

the polygraph for preemployment testing and periodic checking.

Ben-Shakhar, et al. ’s (28), analysis also limited

their assessment of the polygraph to CQT. Their

1982 assessment of existing polygraph field research indicated that polygraph testing was 83 to

84 percent accurate for guilty suspects and 76 to

81 percent accurate for innocent suspects. As a

result, Ben-Shakhar, et al., concluded that examiners tend to value detection of guilty suspects

highly, even at the risk of falsely classifying innocent suspects; their conclusion concurs with

Lykken’s. Ben-Shakhar, et al,, in conductng their

review, employ a utility theory approach based

on Bayes’ theorem. They predict dramatically different utility rates based on different base rate

assumptions.

Although these recent reviews, by authors who

are not professional polygraphers, cast doubt on

the validity of at least the most common polygraph technique, a more recent review by Ansley

(7) comes to the most positive conclusions since

those of Abrams. Ansley’s 1983 review is an important review because it represents the views of

NSA's, chief polygraph examiner. (NSA COndUCtS

the largest number of polygraph examinations of

any Federal agency, ) As shown in table 2, Ansley

concludes that field research shows a 97.2-percent

validity rate and laboratory research a 93.2-percent validity rate. Based on these validity calculations as well as separate calculations for reliability

and utility, Ansley concludes that the polygraph

is “clearly an excellent adjunct to the selection

process. ”

Unfortunately, for the most part, polygraph reviews contained in table 2 do not explicitly state

their study selection criteria (see 63). The result

is that a number of different studies have been

included in various reviews, each of which presents different problems for interpretations of

validity. The kinds of studies include reports of

single criminal investigations in which the actual

solution to the crime is the criterion for validity;

studies in which “blind” polygraph interpreters

compare their polygraph chart evaluations to

“ground truth” as established by confession; and

studies in which the judgment of legal professionals, actual judicial outcome, or in one case,

the judgment of a single psychologist, is used to

establish ground truth.

Some reviews do specify criteria for exclusion.

Lykken, for example, does not include studies of

single criminal investigations. Abrams, on the

other hand, includes in his review a number of

25-290 0 - 83 - 4 : QL 3
42

such studies (e. g.,30,103). Lykken’s reasoning

was that in single criminal investigations, the examiner has a large chance of being accurate (depending on the number of suspects) merely by

calling everyone innocent. The fact that other

reviewers do not include Bitterman and Marcuse,

and other such reports, implies that they accept

Lykken’s evaluation of the usefulness of such studies as indicators of validity. It is possible that

results of such reports could be useful in assessing polygraph screening of large numbers of individuals in specific incident cases, such as might

be the case in unauthorized disclosure investigations. However, additional factors limit the external validity of Bitterman and Marcuse and

other such studies. In Bitterman and Marcuse, for

example, the investigators were psychology professors apparently conducting their first polygraph

tests, and they did not use accepted polygraph

procedures or instruments. There are no recent

systematic studies of specific incident investigations involving a large number of suspects.

There is strong disagreement among reviewers

about whether another group of studies should

be included as indicators of validity, These studies

were conducted with records selected from the

files of the John E. Reid & Associates polygraph

firm. A group of cases was used which the authors

considered to be “verified” by confession of the

guilty suspect (in most cases they were also verified by some form of corroboration (37)). The

polygraph charts in these cases are then reinterpreted by a group of polygraphers who are “blind”

to (i. e., do not know) the suspect’s guilt or innocence. The degree of agreement of the “blind”

evaluators to verify guilt or innocence is the test

of validity. Two reviewers (Horvath, Lykken) explicitly excluded the group of studies conducted

based on Reid files. Horvath excluded them because they used confessions as a criterion (confessions not being independent of the polygraph

examinations), and Lykken because both examiners and “blind” evaluators were polygraphers from

the same firm. His claim was that the studies were,

thus, “merely demonstrations that Reid’s examiners score charts in a similar way” (108) and so

were estimates of reliability rather than validity.

However, reviews by Raskin and Podlesny (138)

and Ben-Shakhar, et al. (27), each use all four Reid

studies to assess validity.

Conclusions about the validity of the polygraph

may depend on whether the reviewer attends to

the average accuracy rate or to the accuracy for

guilty and innocent subjects separately. The conclusions of all decision statistics contributes to the

ability to make an accurate assessment of polygraph testing validity, particularly in view of the

concern over both high false positive and high

false negative decisions. If, for example, the innocent correct rate is 80 percent but the remaining 20 percent consists of inaccurately calling

innocent subjects guilty, a different policy conclusion may be drawn than if the remaining 20

percent consists of“inconclusive” or of false

negatives. In some cases (e. g., preemployment

screening), inaccurately designating nondeceptive

people as deceptive may have worse consequences

for the employee than inaccurately deciding that

deceptive individuals are nondeceptive. In some

cases (e. g., a heinous crime by a potential repeat

offender, infiltration by a foreign agent), a false

negative may have serious consequences.

In only two reviews (Ben-Shakhar, Lykken) are

summary percentages provided in terms of the

percent accurately detected for both guilty and

innocent; in other reviews, these figures are presented as the average percent of accurate detections. In some cases, the percent inaccurately

“detected” as nondeceptive (when they were really

deceptive) or deceptive (when they were really

nondeceptive) as well as percent inconclusive

were also reported by reviewers. But for purposes

of clarity these have been omitted from table 2.

Another reason reviews differ about the results

of the same studies is the fact that they make different decisions about the base rate of subjects or

cases that are included. If, for example, a panel

cannot make a decision about 30 percent of the

cases (e. g., 22), some reviewers will omit the

number of nonagreements from the number included in the accuracy rate and base accuracy

percentages on only the remaining cases. This accounts for the difference between Horvath and

Ben-Shakhar, et al., analyses of the Barland and

Raskin results. In other studies (and reviews of

those studies, e.g., Ansley, Abrams) inconclusive

polygraph results are excluded from the analysis.

This has the effect of inflating the accuracy rates.
43

—

Apart from the different base rates on which

most of the reviewers calculated accuracy rates

(see above), one source of different accuracy rates

applies uniquely to Ansley (7). In any case in

which there is not 100-percent accuracy, the

Ansley review computes validity by dividing the

difference between the accuracy rate and 100 percent (the so-called error rate) in half and adds half

of the difference to the accuracy rate. Ansley uses

this procedure on the grounds that on the basis

of chance, errors were probably half in favor of

the panel (or other criterion measure) and half in

CONCLUSIONS

Central to legal, legislative, and scientific assessment of polygraph tests are their validity. Yet,

despite many decades of judicial, legislative, and

scientific discussion, no consensus has emerged

about the accuracy of polygraph tests. One explanation is that scientific criteria for validity deal

with a number of dimensions and that the criteria

vary widely among specific research studies. In

order to assess overall polygraph examination

validity, it will be necessary to examine details

of each of the relevant studies, Such analysis is

presented in chapters 4 and 5.

favor of the examiners. For example, in the Bersh

study, half of the difference between the typically reported 92.4-percent rate and 100 percent is

7.6 which Ansley divides in half, leaving a validity

rate of 96.2 and an error rate of 3.8 percent. The

same method is used for the Peters, Elaad, and

Widacki studies, for which the preadjustment validity rates are 90.2, 96.6, and 91.6 percent,

respectively. Each of these studies, particularly

Elaad (see ch. 4), have other problems of interpretation as well,

Another explanation is that polygraph testing

has been viewed as a single technique. Thus,

despite testimony (e.g., 137) which urged differential consideration of polygraphs used in, for example, employment screening and criminal investigations, the scientific evidence for particular purposes has not been differentiated. As is demonstrated by the analysis of scientific literature (here

and in chs. 5 and 6), in assessing validity it is

necessary to separate clearly the purposes for

which polygraph examinations are conducted and

the types of techniques employed.
Chapter 4

Review and Analysis of

Polygraph Field Studies
Chapter 4

Review and Analysis of

Polygraph Field Studies

INTRODUCTION

As noted in the discussion of previous scientific reviews of polygraph validity, considerable disagreement exists among reviewers as to which

field studies and what kinds of evidence constitute

acceptable tests of validity. This chapter presents

the results of a systematic analysis of existing field

studies of polygraph testing in order to make an

independent assessment of validity. Field studies

investigate actual polygraph examinations and

constitute the most direct evidence for polygraph

test validity (27). Both quantitative and qualitative

techniques are utilized in order to make an overall

assessment of existing evidence (63,125,142).

The goal of this analysis is to synthesize available research. Almost all of the available field

evidence comes from cases involving specificSTUDY SELECTION

Studies were considered field studies of validity if their sample consisted of actual instances of

polygraph examinations conducted by professional polygraph examiners, used field-tested polygraph techniques, and used some independent

criterion to assess actual guilt or innocence.

Although ground truth can probably never be

known in an absolute sense, studies can be considered studies of validity only if they included

some adequately described and systematically determined criterion of “truth” (e. g., panel decision,

judicial outcome, confession). Studies in which

judgments of one set of polygraphers are correlated with anothers’ with no independent criterion

of guilt or innocence are, in effect, reliability

studies. Such studies have been excluded from the

primary analysis reported here. Reports of unsystematically collected cases from police agencies

and other organizations, in which the criteria for

incident criminal investigations using the control

question technique (CQT). This is an important

limitation. Because a systematic review helps to

identify this kind of problem, researchers and

policy makers have a better basis on which to

determine what, if any, additional studies are

necessary. Also, the analysis aids understanding

of which question techniques, test purposes, question designs, and scoring techniques have been

studied and which may require further research.

The analysis is designed to address many of the

problems associated with qualitative or “literary”

reviews of the research literature previously discussed. In particular, the analysis makes explicit

the criteria used for both study selection and data

analysis (63,125,142).

verification are unclear or unsystematic, have also

been excluded.

The population of field studies considered for

the present analysis was, in general, taken from

those studies referred to in existing reviews of the

scientific literature (see ch. 3). In addition, researchers active in the field of polygraph research

were contacted and asked to supply the names and

publication information of any additional recent

studies. A bibliography provided by the American

Polygraph Association (9) was also searched for

references to field studies of validity. The 10 studies finally included (and listed in table 3) in the

analysis are: Barland and Raskin (22), Bersh (29),

Davidson (47), Horvath (82), Horvath and Reid

(84), Hunter and Ash (85), Kleinmuntz and

Szucko (92), Raskin (133), Slowick and Buckley

(155), and Wicklander and Hunter (205). The fol47
48

Table 3.—Characteristics of Field Studies

Type of validity affected

Basis of

Examiner

Study Criterion Decision Types of casesa

—

Bersh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Panel of legal profes- Original examiners’ Criminal investigations/military

sionals’ assessment of investigative files

Barland and Raskin . . . . . . . . . Panel of legal professionals’ assessment of investigative files

Barland and Raskinc

. . . . . . . . . Panel

Barland and Raskin . . . . . . . . . Judicial outcome

Barland and Raskinc

. ., . . . . . . Judicial outcome

Raskin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Confession

Horvath and Reid . . . . . . . . . . . Confession

Hunter and Ash . . . . . . . . . . . . . Confession

Slowick and Buckley . . . . . . . . Confession

Wicklander and Hunter . . . Confession

Horvath . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Confession

Davidson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Confession

Kleinmuntz and Szucko . . . . . . Confession

decisions

Original examiners’

decisions

Blind evaluation

Original decision

Blind evaluation

Blind evaluation

Blind evaluation

Blind evaluation

Blind evaluation

Blind evaluation

Blind evaluation

Blind evaluation

Blind evaluation

personnel

Sex crimes, drug crimes, crimes of

violence, crimes of financial gain,

other crimes b

Sex crimes, drug crimes, crimes of

violence, crimes of financial gain,

other crimes

Sex crimes, drug crimes, crimes of

violence, crimes of financial gain,

other crimes

Sex crimes, drug crimes, crimes of

violence, crimes of financial gain,

other crimes

Sex crimes, drug crimes, crimes of

violence, crimes of financial gain,

other crimes

Theft, sexual misconduct, sabotage,

bribery, criminal damage to property

Theft, official misconduct, brutality, sexual assaults, homicide

Theft, industrial sabotage, drug abuse,

rape

Homicide, sexual assault, theft, official

misconduct

Crimes against persons, crimes against

property

Crimes against property/military

personnel

Theft

~All studies use some version of control question techntque

Only 77 of 92 cases were analyzed as to type of crime

~Not included In the analysis for reasons discussed In the text

W!cklander and Hunter also Included an evaluation In wh!ch evaluators were given additional case material

lowing sections briefly describe the studies excluded from the analysis and the kinds of studies

included in the analysis.

Studies Excluded

Not all studies referred to as field studies or actual criminal investigations by other reviewers are

included in the present analysis. A comparison

of studies shown in table 2 and the 10 studies included in the present analysis indicates that eight

studies included by one or another of the reviewers are not included. The excluded studies are Bitterman and Marcuse (30), Ben-Ishai (26), two

analyses reported in Raskin (133), Edwards (52),

Elaad and Schahar (54), Peters (124), and Widacki

(206). One study, Kleinmutz and Szucko (92), not

included by various reviewers (because of its recent publication) has been included here. In addition, a number of studies included by Abrams

(l), not shown in table 2, are also excluded from

the present analysis. Many of the studies Abrams

cited are excluded by later reviewers (e. g., Horvath (81)) because they are not actual validity

studies (and did not use external criteria of

“guilt/ innocence, ” e.g., MacNitt (113)), they did

not use appropriate polygraphic instrumentation

(e.g., Summers; see Abrams (1)), or did not use

testing procedures common today (e.g., Lyon

(111)). Other studies used by Abrams, but excluded from the present analysis, were unverified

self-reports published in popular magazines (e.g.,
——————— —-—

McEvoy (116)), or surveys of attitudes towards

validity of the polygraph (e.g., Cureton (44)).

The Bitterman and Marcuse (30) study was excluded because, as pointed out by Lykken (108)

and Horvath (81), among others, studies of single

crimes for which there is only one possible guilty

person raises the probability of accurate deception, regardless of method used, to a Ievel too high

for the study to provide valid information, To

give an extreme example, if there is one guilty suspect among 100 examined, making an a priori decision to calI them all innocent yields a 99-percent

accuracy rate. In addition, Bitterman and Marcuse did not meet present criteria for field studies

because the polygraphers were not professional

examiners (they were psychology professors who

had read books and articles about the polygraph

technique), and they did not use field-tested measures of physiological response.

Ben-Ishai’s (26) paper reports on two studies,

both of which were excluded. One consisted of

blind evaluations by Ben-Ishai of 10 polygraph

charts. It is more accurately described as a study

of reliability. The other used a single psychologist’s (Ben-Ishai’s) judgments of guilt or innocence

based on investigative files as the criterion by

which to judge polygraph accuracy. It is difficult

to justify use of the judgment of a single psychologist as an adequate criterion of ground truth.

Likewise, the information used to establish ground

truth for the Elaad, Peters, and Widacki reports

is not systematically collected and is inadequately described. These studies are more accurately

described as a set of anecdotal reports. They use

sampIes of cases collected from police files which

are described as having been verified, sometimes

by judicial outcome (Widacki), in others by confession (Elaad), and in the Edwards study, by

“independent means. ”

A final set of studies excluded are two of the

three studies by Raskin (133). One analysis was

directed primarily at an assessment of whether

polygraph examinations are more favorable to defendants when conducted by polygraph examiners

chosen by defense attorneys than when they are

conducted by examiners chosen by prosecutors

(the so-called “friendly polygrapher” hypothesis).

The purpose of the second analysis was to dis49

——— — .

cover the source of decision errors; these findings

are discussed in chapter 6. The Raskin study included in the present analysis (133) was conducted

with only the 16 cases from Barland

(22) sample able to be verified by

Studies Included

and Raskin’s

confession.

The field studies included are listed in table 3

in terms of the criterion used, the type of initial

examiner decision, and the types of cases selected.

These characteristics of studies relate to criterion,

construct, and external validity, respectively.

The criterion dimension refers to the operationalization of ground truth used in a study. In one

type of validity study, polygraphers’ original decisions are compared against a criterion of ground

truth established by a panel of experts (e.g., lawyers and judges). The panel makes their judgment

on the basis of information in an investigative file,

from which polygraph results are excluded. In

another type of field study, a second set of examiners evaluates charts taken from a file. In most

cases, the evaluation is “blind;” i.e., the examiner/evaluator does not know the original examiner’s decision, the disposition of the case, nor any

other information about the subject. In this situation, the original decisions have been verified by

confession of the guilty party. Verification by confession is used as the ground truth criterion. In

the third, and the least common type of field

study, original examiners’ decisions (the construct

validity component) are judged against guilt or

innocence established by judicial outcome, which

is the ground truth criterion.

Researchers disagree about whether blind evaluations of polygraph charts or the decisions of

the original examiners constitute true tests of polygraph validity. Whether one uses examiner decisions or physiological recordings depends on

whether one is testing examiner decisionmaking

or physiological arousal in response to certain

questions. Blind evaluations of charts are probably less useful as research evidence because, in

the typical examination situation, the decision as

to suspects’ deception is made by the original examiner and not by a blind evaluator. Even when

examinations are subject to review (e. g., quality
50

control procedures used by the Department of Defense (DOD)), final decisions are still based on

review of all information. Although a blind analysis is the first task of the quality control office,

such quality control reviews do not fully control

for the impact of a variety of factors, such as interpersonal expectancy effects which would still

be reflected in the original polygraph charts. Interpersonal expectancy effects (141) refer to the

possibility that an examiner’s preexamination decision concerning guilt or innocence affects construction of examination questions or the psychological state of the suspect. Either of these could

affect a suspect’s physiological responses. Therefore, in studies for which results of both original

examinations and blind evaluations were included, as in Barland and Raskin (22), the present analysis uses results of the original examinations instead of those for blind evaluations. It

should be noted, however, that in these cases it

is difficult to determine to what extent the decisions are based on the charts and to what extent

they are based on interaction with the suspect (see

27,92).

Operationalizations of ground truth (the criterion component of validity) are also problematic.

Studies using panel decisions have been referred

to as the only valid field research on the validity

of examiners’ decisions (81), yet there is no way

to know whether panel decisions based on investigative files are, in fact, correct. Raskin (136)

notes some of the problems with using judicial

outcomes and other criminal justice system resolutions (dismissals, guilty pleas) as criteria for validity. Cases may be dismissed for lack of sufficient

evidence rather than actual innocence. If a jury

acquits a defendant, it is not possible to determine

the extent to which the jury felt that the defendant was actually innocent or whether they felt that

there was not enough evidence to meet the standard of “guilty beyond a reasonable doubt .“ Many

guilty pleas are actually confessions of guilty to

(lesser) crimes; as Raskin notes, it is difficult to

interpret the meaning of such pleadings in regard

to guilt on the original charge. The result is that,

using criminal justice system outcomes, polygraph

examinations may appear to have a high number

of false positives (in the case of acquittals), or false

negatives (in the case of dismissals).

The use of confessions, the most frequently used

criterion of ground truth, is problematic in three

ways:

1. confessions, themselves, are not always

valid;

2. if the confession occurs prior to or during

a polygraph examination, it cannot be considered an independent measure of guilt; and

3. those who confess may be a select sample

of subjects, as discussed further below.

In addition to the above problems, studies differ in the adequacy of their research design. The

most serious problems concern sampling. In most

reported studies, neither cases, examiners nor

evaluators were selected randomly. In some studies (e. g., 22,84), the cases of only one examiner

are sampled. Nonrandom selection leaves open

the possibility that the studies are not investigating

“polygraph testing” in general, but instead only

a subgroup of practitioners or testing techniques.

When random sampling is used (as in Bersh (29)),

high rejection rates of cases selected for analysis

create other sample bias problems.

Some sample selectivity of unknown magnitude

and importance occurs when confessions are used

as a criterion. Studies using confessions may be

using only a select sample of examinations. The

magnitude of this problem is illustrated by the fact

that in the sample of 92 cases obtained by Barland

(22,133) only 16 were able to be verified by confession (132).

To summarize, because of problems in operationalizing important components of validity,

none of the field studies of validity can be taken

by itself as an indication of polygraph testing validity, In addition, because of the different operationalizations of construct and criterion validity

and variations in research design, the studies are

not strictly comparable with each other, These

studies, however, constitute the most direct evidence for validity currently available and are analyzed as a group in order to assess the current state

of knowledge about polygraph testing,
— — — .

51

CODING

In order to conduct the present analysis, each

field study was coded for a number of variables

which had either been referred to as important

factors in previous reviews of the literature, or

which were deemed relevant to the various components of validity described in chapter 3. If the

needed information was not available from the

studies as published, the study author(s) were contacted and asked to supply the information. Appendix C lists the coding categories including relevant validity components (panel decision or

judicial outcomes; confession), as well as design

information (sample selection, attrition rate, examiner/evaluators’ knowledge of base rate of

guilt). All codings were made by two reviewers

and each instance of disagreement over coding

was resolved before analysis.

Data were coded directly from information provided within the study report or from information directly provided by the authors, with the

exception of one variable. The exception was the

coding category “objectivity of ratings, ” which

required that the coder make a judgment from

high objectivity to low objectivity. Scoring was

judged high if some actual standardized measurement (e. g., using a ruler) was taken of the physiological recordings on the polygraph charts. A

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

Three questions are of particular importance

to an assessment of polygraph validity useful to

policymakers:

1.

2.

3.

Are polygraph examinations valid?

Given the wide range of outcomes reported

across studies, what accounts for their variability?

How generalizable are the results of studies

to the current and proposed uses for national

security purposes?

i o answer the first question, data from the

available field studies were analyzed to ascertain

whether polygraph examination accurately differentiate deceptive suspects from nondeceptive subjects. For this analysis, the outcome frequencies

rating of medium was given if numerical scores

were assigned to subjective assessments of suspects’ guilt or innocence (see, e.g., 22,92), low if

ratings of deceptive or nondeceptive were based

on global assessments of charts only, and very

low if decisions were based on charts plus other

available information (in particular, observation

and interaction with the subject). Objectivity

ratings were made both for the original examiners’

judgments and the blind evaluators or judges.

Finally, six categories of outcome data from

each

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

study were recorded:

guilty/deceptive subjects judged correctly;

guilty/deceptive subjects judged incorrectly (i.e., judged nondeceptive);

guilty/deceptive suspects judged inconclusive;

innocent/nondeceptive subjects judged correctly;

innocent/nondeceptive subjects judged incorrectly (i. e., deceptive); and

innocent/nondeceptive subjects judged inconclusive.

Categories 2 and 5 are the false negative and false

positive rates, respectively.

for each category were converted to percentages,

and average percentages within each category

were calculated. A measure of predictive association (lambda, see 64,73) was also calculated,

although the use of a single measure is very limited

due to the wide variability in study design.

The lambdab index shows the proportional reduction in the probability of error in predicting

one category (in this case, deception) when a second category (in this case, polygraph examination results) is known. If the information about

the second category does not reduce the probability of error in predicting the first category at

all, the index is zero, and one can say that there

is no predictive association. On the other hand,
52

if the index is 1.00, no error is made in predicting one category from another, and there is complete predictive association. Essentially, lambda

provides an index that translates to the percent

improvement over the base rate and indicates the

percent improvement in prediction when the polygraph examinations are considered versus no further information. There is almost no direct research on the percent improvement of the polygraph over other forms of investigation (cf. 207).

The results of this analysis of predictive association are shown in tables 4 and 5. The average

lambda~ across studies is 0.65, which means that,

on the average in these field studies, the polygraph

diagnosis reduced 65 percent of the error of chance

prediction. The lambdab for individual studies

ranged from 0.13 to 0.90.

To summarize, the analysis of the 10 field studies included in the analysis indicates that while

polygraph examinations using CQT in criminal

investigations detect deceptiveness and nondeceptiveness better than chance, there is also what in

some cases might be considered a high error rate,

particularly for nondeceptive subjects. The one

study which tested the validity of the relevant/

irrelevant question technique (the general question test (GQT) portion of the Bersh study) also

detected deceptiveness and nondeceptiveness better than chance.

Variation Among Studies

As implied in the introduction to this section,

the use of a single statistic or summary number

to describe the results of field tests of validity may

be misleading. As shown in table 3, although the

field studies of polygraph validity are similar in

Table 4.—Mean Detection Rates as a Percentage of

Total in Field Studies

“Ground truth”

Examiners or

evaluators’

diagnosis

Percent Percent

guilty innocent

Mean S. D. Mean S.D.

Deceptive . . . . . . . . . . 49.3 (12.7) 8.2 (7.2) 57.5

Nondeceptive. . . . . . . 5.8 (5.1) 32.7 (16.7) 38.5

Inconclusive . . . . . . . . 2.0 (3.0) 2.1 (2.5) 4.0

57.1 43.0 100 %

NOTE Iambd ab 0.6 5

S D = standard deviation

that almost all of them tested control question

techniques in criminal investigations, they differ

in operationalizations of ground truth and type

of examiner decision. The result is that there is

a great deal of variability in the results of studies.

Correct guilty detections range from 70.6 percent

in one condition of the Bersh study to 98.6 percent in a condition of the Wicklander and Hunter

study. Correct innocent detections are even more

variable, ranging from a low of 12.5 percent in

the Barland and Raskin judicial outcome study

to a high of 94.1 percent in one condition of the

Bersh study. Table 5 also indicates the range of

incorrect judgments and inconclusive among

studies. False negatives range from 29.4 percent

of the Bersh study to zero percent. False positives

range from 75 percent in Barland and Raskin (22)

to zero percent in two studies. Inconclusive range

from zero to 25 percent. This section compares

studies that used comparable operationalizations

of construct and criterion validity in an attempt

to discover reasons for the range of results. However, even using this method results in considerable variability. The main point, however, is that

no field studies exist to directly test the situations

for which DOD and the President propose to expand polygraph use.

Studies Using Panel Criterion

and Examiners’ Decisions

Both Bersh (29) and Barland and Raskin (22)

used a panel to establish the criterion for validity in their studies. The makeup of the panels and

the polygraph scoring systems were similar in each

study. In the Bersh study, which validated polygraph examinations conducted by military examiners, the panel consisted of four Judge Advocate

General (JAG) Attorneys; Barland and Raskin’s

panel consisted of two criminal defense attorneys,

two criminal prosecuting attorneys, and a judge.

The examiners in the Bersh study used either GQT

(a version of R/I) or the zone of comparison

(ZOC) technique; for all but one subject in Barland’s study, the Federal ZOC control question

technique was used and results evaluated using

the Army scoring procedure. Assuming the accuracy of the panel’s decisions, the two studies’

results are strikingly different. Barland and Raskin

attained accuracy rates of 91.5 percent for guilty
Table 5.—Outcomes of Field Studies of Validity

Guilty Innocent

Number Incorrect Number Incorrect Total number

of cases Correct (false neaative) Inconclusive - , of cases Correct (false Posifive) Inconclusive of cases Lambda

32 96.9% 3.1% O

a

36 88.9%

. -2 ,.,. Bersh (29) (panel of 4) GOT unanimous

ZOC unanimou s

Average unanimou s

Majority (ZOCand GQT) , ,

11.170

5.9

u“

o

w

89

157

59

216

40

20

38

70

34

20

10

15

10

28

10

12

47

33

50

89.5 10.5 0 51

87

25

9 4 1

91.5

80.0

8.5

20.0

14.3

9.5

14.1

0

0

0

0.84

0.82

93.2

70.6

6.8

29.4

0

0

81.9

85.0

87.1

84.0

98.6

90.0

94.4

77.1

90.0

91.7

83.3

91.5

90.9

75.0

18.1 0 85.6

905

86.4

90.7

86.6

86.6

86.6

51.1

91.0

75.0

25.0

29.4

12.5

63.0

Ob

o

Ob

1.4

0.76

0.74

15.0

11.4

20

10

Horvath and Reid (84) (1 examiner, IO examiner/evaluators)

Hunter and Ash(85)c–(1 examiner, 7 examiners/evaluators)

Slowick and Buckley, (155)d–(random selection;

7 examiner/evaluators )

Wicklander and Hunter (205)–(2 examiners/6 evaluators)

PG+ e . . . .

PG .“ ::

Averag e

Horvath (82)f (10 examiner/evaluators)

Verified case s

Davidson (47)h–(random selection 7 examiners/evaluators)

Raskin, d d

(1 examiner, 25’evaluators) Numerica l

Nonnumerica l

Barland,and Raskin(22)(l examiner, panel of5)

Panel J

Judicial outcome . . . . . . . . .

Kleinmuntz and Szucko (92)–(5examiners/evaluators) k

15.3 0.7 15 6.6 2.7 30 0.77

8.3

5.0

6.7

5.0

8.3

1.3 20

8.3

5.0

0

1.6

10

1.0 6.7 0.88

09

0

09

9.0

56

21

16

0.28

0.90

22.9

10.0

28

11

4

48.9

0

8.3

8.3

0

50.0

25.0

25.0

0 0.75

8.3

8.5

9.1

17

8

52.9

75.0

17.6

12.5

64

41

0.29

0.13

0

0

25.0 01 50 37.0 01 loob

0.38

~Datafor mconcluswes notreporfed; inconcluswes appear to total 27(2431niflal N–216declslons reported)

Exammer/evaluators were not allowed to judge charts as inconclusive as to overall deceptiveness In another type ofanalysls on aquestion by question basis, Judgments ofdoubfful or lnconcluswe were allowed

c Average of two blmdcharf analyses spaced at least 3 months apart, done by same examiners

dAverage frequencies divided bYnUmber OfeXamlnerS

~ PG+ indicates evaluators had access towntfen mtormaficn in addition to polygraph charts(eg . case detak, sublect behavlorduflng exammatmns, etc ) Both PG only and PG+ examinations were done by the same exammers 2 months apafl

Excludes Howath’s analysls of28unvenfIed cases, because there tsnocritenon, thlslsa rellabIIIty study

~Therewere apparently 15(1 spercent)lnconclusive judgrnentsoutofl,lp(l total ludgrnents (loexarn!ners x 112cases)whlch the author excluded from furfher analyses

Majorify decision only.

1 Seven examiners used numencal scoring, 18 used nonnumencal scoring procedures

I Excludes 28 cases for whtch the panel was unable tO come !0 a declslon i3S to gUilt Or Innocence

~ Dermons were based on one polygraph chatl standard practice generally employs at least three Also, the evaluations were made by students with htfle polygraph experience

Inconclusive were not allowed

NOTE: G(IT = general question test

Zoc = zone of comparison
54

and 29.4 percent for innocent subjects; comparable figures in Bersh’s study are 70.6-percent guilty correct and 80-percent innocent correct. It is

not clear why there should be this variation, although differences in the nature of the cases, the

completeness of the case files, and sample selection may account for some of the differences.

In the Bersh study, cases were initially drawn

at random from a pool of criminal investigations

conducted by the three military services over a

period of 3 years (1963-66); then, any cases which

had been judged “indeterminate” by the original

polygraph examiner were eliminated. In addition,

after polygraph charts were removed from the investigative files, a preliminary panel of judges

eliminated from the sample all files containing insufficient evidence to warrant a positive determination of guilt or innocence. Only those cases

which resulted in a unanimous decision by the initial JAG panel were retained in the validation sample. Altogether, one-quarter of the cases (80 cases

out of 323) were eliminated because of insufficient

evidence. This figure does not include the number

initially eliminated on the basis of inconclusive

polygraph examinations.

In Barland and Raskin’s (22) study, the initial

pool of subjects consisted of 102 (nonmilitary)

criminal suspects referred to Barland by police,

defense or prosecuting attorneys. These cases represented the entire population of Barland’s cases

at that time, Then, 92 of these 102 cases were retained for further analysis on the basis of independence (a case was considered independent

where two or more subjects had not been examined regarding the same crime). In one respect (the

fact that there was only one examiner), Barland

and Raskin’s sample was less variable than

Bersh’s. However, Barland and Raskin did not

eliminate from consideration indeterminate examinations. Neither, and perhaps more importantly, did Barland and Raskin eliminate cases in

which investigative files without the polygraph

were inadequate. As Barland (17) points out,

many of the investigative files that were given to

the panel were incomplete. The files had been

compiled by inexperienced student assistants who

often did not know where to obtain necessary information. The officials responsible for providing

the information were, more often than not,

unavailable or, when they were available, unable

to recall the details of a crime. In many cases, few

details were available. As a result, one-third of

the 92 cases were judged inconclusive by the panel

merely on the basis of the investigative files. The

figures reported in table 5 are for 64 of the original

92 cases.

It is not clear why there should be an inverse

relationship between accurate detection of guilty

and innocent suspects in the two studies. It may

be that both the panel and the examiner in the

Barland and Raskin study consistently tended to

presume guilt in the absence of any a priori base

rate (see 28,160). The cases in the Bersh study,

on the other hand, were initially selected to be

equally distributed among deceptive and nondeceptive cases. It is not reported whether the panel

was aware of the base rate in the Bersh study.

Studies Using Confession as a Criterion

and Blind Evaluations

The remainder of the field studies analyzed

tested the validity of polygraph testing by comparing the blind evaluations of polygraph examiners against a criterion of verification by confession. Two exceptions are Barland and Raskin’s judicial outcome analysis and one condition in the

Wicklander and Hunter study. The confession

studies vary somewhat as to source of verified

files. The Horvath and Reid, Hunter and Ash,

Slowick and Buckley, Wicklander and Hunter,

and Kleinmuntz and Szucko studies all used files

from polygraph testing firms. Horvath’s cases

came from police files, Davidson’s from military

cases, and Raskin’s from the Barland cases reported in Barland and Raskin (22; discussed

above). The first four studies used files from the

firm of John E, Reid & Associates and involved

various criminal offenses. The firm used by Kleinmuntz and Szucko is not identified; all of their

cases involved theft.

In the first four studies, blind examiner evaluators also came from John E. Reid & Associates.

The Reid studies did vary with respect to case

selection. Only one study (Slowick and Buckley)

reports random selection of cases; in other studies,

the cases of only one or two examiners were used.

Horvath’s (82) blind evaluators were field-trained
55

examiners with a median of 3 years experience,

all of whom specialized in conducting polygraph

examinations for police agencies. The 25 evaluators in the Raskin (133) study were volunteers who

had trained in a variety of places.

The results of the Reid studies do not vary substantially. The greatest deviation from the mean

occurred in one condition of the Wicklander and

Hunter study in which examiner/evaluators were

given additional information about the suspects

(verbal and nonverbal behavioral indicators, demographic information) and the cases. This difference, however, was not statistically significant.

Even so, it maybe reasonable to consider it separately from the other Reid studies, because of

the extra information available to evaluators. In

the Reid studies, guilty correct identification rates

ranged from 84 to 87.1 percent, with an average

of 86.5 percent (excluding the 98.6-percent Wicklander result; 88.9 percent including it). The innocent correct rates in the Reid studies range from

86.4 to 90.7 percent with an average of 89 percent. There is no difference when the Wicklander

and Hunter condition is included.

An additional difference of note among the Reid

studies concerns the false negative rate, which is

highest in the studies which either used random

selection of cases (Slowick and Buckley) or eliminated the most clear-cut charts from their original

selection (Horvath and Reid). There is no apparent explanation for the variation in false positive

rates in the Reid studies, which ranged from 5 to

14.1 percent.

The Davidson study results are basically similar

to those of the Reid studies, except for the absence

of false positives. However, the study should be

interpreted with caution as one-third of the

originally (randomly) selected sample was not able

to be used.

The Horvath (82) and Kleinmuntz and Szucko

(92) studies have the lowest accuracy rates. As

with the Barland and Raskin (22) study, the low

accuracy rate may be related to the fact that Horvath selected his sample from police files. Perhaps,

police records of verification are not reliable, or

have greater variability than those of polygraph

firms.

Barland (17) has suggested a number of reasons

why Horvath’s results are lower than the Reid

studies. One reason is that the blind reviewers did

not have access to “special charts” administered

in 32 percent of the cases, primarily to subjects

the original examiner considered deceptive; these

charts were removed from the files before being

reviewed by blind examiners. According to Barland, Horvath’s original examiners had been 100

percent correct in their judgments. A second reason is that, as noted above, police examiners were

used instead of private examiners; the difference

between the two kinds of examiners is not explained further. Yet a third reason, which Barland

(17) believes may be the most important in terms

of false positives, is that a number of victims and

witnesses were included in the sample (i. e., were

subjects). According to Barland (17), one theory

of detection of deception predicts that innocent

victims or witnesses may react emotionally during a polygraph examination because they experienced or witnessed the event regardless of

whether they are telling the truth about specific

details of the incident. An analysis of the Horvath data suggested by Barland, comparing results

for victims and witnesses with those for suspects,

would be of interest (see Giesen and Rollison (61)

for a comparison of innocent associations with

guilty knowledge).

Despite the generally anomalous results of Horvath’s (82) study, an interesting finding may help

to account for the results of the Kleinmuntz and

Szucko (92) study. Horvath found that suspects

in crimes against property were less detectable

than suspects in crimes against persons. This may

be because crimes against persons are likely to

have a greater amount of affect associated with

them, and are, thus, more physiologically detectable. Barland and Raskin (22), on the other hand,

found no differences by type of crime. As noted

previously (see table 3), Kleinmuntz and Szucko’s

(92) study selected only cases from the files of a

polygraph firm involving crimes of theft. However, although the crimes against property hypothesis is suggestive, it may not fully explain the

difference between Kleinmuntz and Szucko’s and

similar studies. The Davidson study, for example, only used theft cases, and it has a “O” false
56

positive rate (although it has a substantial inconclusive rate). Analyses of other studies by crime

type would be informative, although the number

of cases would probably be too small for a meaningful analysis.

Szucko (159) has suggested that one possible

reason his results are so different from other

polygraph firm studies’ results, is that the individual who selected the charts in the Kleinmuntz

and Szucko study could not read polygraph

charts. Therefore, case selection may have been

more variable than in some of the other studies.

Alternative explanations are that: 1) Kleinmuntz

and Szucko only evaluated one chart for each

subject (at least three is standard); and 2) their

evaluators were examiner-trainees at the end of

their internship period, not experienced examiners* (see 91).

Studies Using Judicial Outcomes

and Original Examiners’ Results

Barland and Raskin’s (22) analysis using judicial

outcomes as a criterion has the lowest accuracy

rate for innocent suspects—a 12.5-percent innocent correct and 75-percent false positive rate. The

problems with using judicial outcomes as a criterion have already been referred to, in particular,

the fact that the judicial outcome is not a highly

accurate measure of guilt because of such characteristics of the legal system as the necessity for

proof beyond a reasonable doubt, and the prevalence of plea bargaining. These problems are illustrated here by the fact that only 41 of Barland

and Raskin’s original 92 cases were resolved by

the criminal justice system. Again, there is clearly greater agreement on guilty subjects.

● Some maintain that the evaluators in Kleinmuntz and Szucko’s

study were even less experienced than that.

OTHER CONSIDERATIONS

Although the analysis above demonstrates that

polygraph testing is better than chance at differentiating deceptive from nondeceptive subjects in

criminal investigations, what might be considered

as substantial false positive and false negative rates

are obtained in several investigations. Although

it is not possible to determine a “scientifically” acceptable rate of correct or incorrect judgments,

clearly if error rates are between 10 and 25 percent, a large number of incorrect decisions would

be made if the polygraph were widely employed.

The base rate of guilt in actual situations may further complicate matters. It is not clear from the

field studies conducted so far how many suspects

were involved in the cases selected for polygraph

testing, but if there were a large number of suspects, more false positives could be expected (see

ch. 7).

Also problematic is the wide variability in accuracy rates across studies. Although some differences can be explained methodologically, other

differences cannot. Of perhaps even greater importance than the accuracy rate variability and

error rate problems is the observation that field

studies of polygraph testing have only been conducted in criminal investigations. As is discussed

more fully in chapter 6, criminal investigations

may generate different levels of affect. In addition, different kinds of subject groups maybe the

focus of expanded Government use of polygraph

testing. Only two field studies can be identified

that relate directly to polygraph testing in the national security area: one by the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI,165) and a second by Edel

and Jacoby (51). Neither of these is a validity

study but because they are the only field studies

with any relevance to national security, they will

be described below in some detail. An analog

study of counterintelligence screening (16) is discussed in chapter 5.

The DCI study consisted of a survey of 12 Government agencies (not including the National Security Agency (NSA)). The study was conducted

to evaluate the relative effectiveness of various

means of conducting background investigations

for purposes of applicant screening and security
57

clearances for current employees. Background investigations are conducted through the use of personnel interviews, interviews with present and

former neighbors, checks of educational and work

records, and checks with a consortium of other

national agencies (the so-called National Agency

Check). Of the agencies surveyed, only the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) used the polygraph

to conduct background investigations.

In the 4-month period covered by the study,

CIA conducted 507 background investigations. Of

these, adverse information arose concerning 47

percent of applicants or other individuals being

investigated for security clearances. Thirty-five

(83 percent) of the adverse cases were resolved

against the individual (i. e., the applicant was not

hired or clearance was not granted). In two-thirds

of the instances of adverse information resolved

against the individual with the use of the polygraph, subjects admitted to the adverse information. The kinds of issues admitted by subjects had

primarily to do with drug and alcohol use (e.g.,

marijuana use, alcohol abuse, abuse of other

drugs; approximately 55 percent of the cases) and

immoral conduct (e. g., sexual deviance; 24 percent of cases). Four cases involved irresponsibility, a subcategory of which is violation of security regulations, and none involved the loyalty

category. It is not clear whether any of the four

irresponsibility cases involved violations of security regulations. Three of the eighty-four resolved

against cases involved admissions of foreign connections, meaning in this case either that:

1. the subject was not a U.S. citizen;

2. the subject’s spouse was not a citizen;

3. relatives were potential “hostages;”

4. alien relatives, “hostage” unlikely; or

5. life abroad cannot be verified.

The seriousness of the wrongdoings was not clear.

The crux of the DCI analysis was the construction of a productivity index for investigative techniques from the CIA data and data from other

agencies. Based on the fact that a large number

of cases were resolved against individuals by admission, and the polygraph was the “unique

source” (165) in all the CIA cases resolved against

the subject, DCI tentatively concluded that the

polygraph was the most productive of all background investigation techniques. For admissions,

for example, the polygraph had an index of 6.59

compared to 0.79 for “administrative screening, ”

1.08 for “investigative interviews, ” and 0.28 for

“papers only. ”

Several aspects of the study should be noted.

One is that the criteria for case selection and

adverse information are not stated. Another issue,

noted by the DCI study authors, is that even

though the polygraph is reported as the sole

source in resolving adverse information, it was

only used after a thorough investigation using

other sources had taken place. For this reason,

it is difficult to assess its effectiveness separately

from the effect of a thorough investigation. Furthermore, as a result of being conducted at the

end of a background investigation, in this case

the polygraph examinations could be considered

a confrontation technique rather than an investigative tool, according to DCI. Agencies surveyed

by DCI were asked not to include confrontation

techniques in their responses. A third problem is

that there was no independent verification of the

cases that were resolved. Perhaps most important,

the effectiveness of polygraph examination cases

involving most, if not all (i. e., irresponsibility)

of the kinds of adverse information uncovered

among applicants in the sample probably cannot

be generalized to investigations of unauthorized

disclosures.

Edel and Jacoby (51), in a study reported in a

leading psychology journal, tested the reliability

of polygrapher judgments of physiological responsivity in applicants for positions with “a large

Government agency.” Forty cases were randomly selected from the agency’s applicants in 1966.

Ten practicing polygraph examiners acted as actual examiners in four cases each and raters in

eight additional cases. In each case, examiners

(raters) judged three physiological responses to

each interview question as either “no specific reaction” or “a specific physiological reaction. ” The

rate of agreement between examiners and raters

as to whether a physiological reaction took place

averaged 96 percent.

Of course, as the authors note,

consistency among examiners “is

demonstrating

not equivalent

25-290 0 - 83 - 5 : QL 3
58

to demonstrating consistency in interpretations ical reactions indicate deception among applicants

based on these physiological reactions” (51). For for positions in Government agencies has not been

example, responses were not differentiated for rel- tested. Because of the potential adverse conseevant v. irrelevant questions. Therefore, although quences for employment applicants (particularly

Edel and Jacob’s study indicates that the examiners in Government agencies where there is interagenin the Government agency can reliably detect cy checking (see, e.g., 165)), such tests have subphysiological reactions, whether these physiolog- stantial practical significance.

CONCLUSIONS

Although there is some evidence from available

field studies that polygraph testing is effective in

detecting deception by guilty criminal suspects,

there is also what in some cases might be regarded

as a substantial error rate. This is particularly so

for innocent subjects. There appears, as yet, to

be no scientific field evidence that polygraph examinations can be effectively used to investigate

unauthorized disclosures or that they represent

a valid test to prescreen or periodically screen

Government employees. Results of field studies

are subject to additional problems of interpretation because of inadequate measures of ground

truth.

The following chapter reports on the effectiveness of polygraph testing demonstrated by analog

studies. As will be shown, the construct and criterion components of validity are stronger in analog studies, but because of problems with external validity, they do not provide evidence about

actual polygraph testing that is as direct as that

from field studies. Nevertheless, reviewing such

evidence is necessary to assess both the present

and potential use of polygraph testing.
Chapter 5

Review and Analysis of

Polygraph Analog Studies
Chapter 5

Review and Analysis of

Polygraph Analog Studies

INTRODUCTION

Analog studies, for purposes of the present

analysis, are investigations in which field methods

of polygraph examinations are used in simulated

criminal or other situations. Such studies investigate either “mock” crimes set up by an experimenter (with the knowledge and collaboration of

subjects) or actual small crimes “induced” by the

experimenter. Such analog studies are not actual

criminal investigations and subjects are usually

aware that they are participants in polygraph research. Analog studies differ from other laboratory studies of polygraph testing in that they simulate actual field examinations. However, in analog studies, typical components of field examinations are replicated to the extent it is possible to

do so. Such studies test the validity of various

polygraph techniques under controlled conditions.

In chapter 4, the results of a systematic review

of field studies of validity were presented. In the

present chapter, a similar analysis of analog

studies is presented. As with the field studies, the

studies concern the use of polygraph examinations

for investigation of crimes. The two exceptions

(16,43) use analogs to the type of relevant/irrelevant (R/1) question technique typically used in the

personnel screening situation.

The present chapter is organized as follows:

first, the characteristics of analog studies and the

varieties of ways in which they differ from field

studies are discussed. Then, the criteria used for

including studies in the analysis are described. The

coding procedure, which is essentially the same

as that used to code the field studies, is described

briefly. Analog studies of the control question

technique (CQT), guilty knowledge technique

(GKT), and personnel screening examination are

then reviewed. The findings of a statistical analysis of the analog studies complete the chapter.

CHARACTERISTICS OF ANALOG STUDIES

The “crimes” utilized in analog studies in order

to establish ground truth have taken different

forms. For the most part, they are “mock crimes;”

i.e., crimes in which subjects know they are “role

playing” at being criminals for purposes of an experiment. Mock crime studies may be further differentiated by whether or not the experimenter

controls the guilt or innocence of research participants. In some studies, subjects know that the

crime is part of the experimental situation but they

are more or less free to go through with the crime

or not. Two analog studies have utilized actual

small crimes. In these studies, apparently real situations were embedded in an experimental situation in which subjects were given an opportunity to commit a crime or not.

The consequences of failing a polygraph examination (e. g., a possible prison sentence) cannot

be replicated in the laboratory. In analog studies,

punishment takes such forms as losing the chance

for a monetary reward. Some researchers have

experimented with other punishments such as electric shock (105) or the threat of shocks (35). The

analog studies that use real crimes provide another

alternative, in that subjects can be threatened with

real punishment (e. g., academic sanctions for

cheating on an examination). In still other cases,

subjects are led to believe that “stable” individuals

can avoid detection.

Analog studies represent, thus, a “tradeoff” to

the investigator interested in polygraph testing

61
62

validity. On the one hand, because the researcher

sets up the crime, ground truth is known; and because “ground truth” is established, analog studies

are superior to field studies in terms of criterion

validity. Furthermore, they provide the investigator with more control of the polygraph situation and conditions of testing. The experimenter

can select particular subject groups, can standardize testing procedures for all subjects, and can systematically vary guilt or innocence. With this control, the experimenter can also directly compare

the effects of variations in polygraph techniques,

physiological measures, information given to subjects, and scoring methods.

On the other hand, although analog studies

have greater criterion validity and offer greater

experimental control, their use as indicators of

polygraph testing validity is potentially problematic. The reasons have to do primarily with external validity (20,136; see, also, 1,7,108); i.e.,

the crime situation differs, the testing situations

in the field and the laboratory differ, the training of the examiners differs, the subject population differs, and, apparently most important, the

consequences for “suspects” differ dramatically between the field and the laboratory. In addition,

in analog studies, the questions and question techniques most often are not tailored to individual

subjects. In actual criminal field investigations,

case information about the crime and the subject

usually provides a basis for tailoring questions.

Numerous specific differences can be noted.

Perhaps most importantly, the laboratory crime

and the consequences of detection are much less

serious. In addition, in an analog study, demand

characteristics (which suggest to the subject desirable responses) may create a somewhat different

polygraph situation than found in typical field situations (20). In terms of factors that may increase

validity of analog studies, there is some evidence

that laboratory researchers are, in general, able

to use more sophisticated and stable equipment

than portable machines often used in the field

(136). On the other hand, examinations in analog

studies are often conducted by researchers who

are primarily psychophysiologists (e. g., 49) or

psychologists (43) with only limited training in

field techniques. Field examinations, in contrast,

are conducted by individuals whose primary

training is as polygraph examiners and who are

usually experienced. This would suggest that field

examinations may be more accurate.

The characteristics of subjects who participate

in analog studies also vary from subjects in field

studies. Several use college students, others recruit

community members through the newspaper, one

uses police candidates, and another prison inmates. In many studies, subjects are probably better educated and more highly socialized than the

average field examinee. In the case of student subjects, they are probably younger on the average

and from a higher social class as well. Raskin (132)

notes that analog studies using students yield a

lower accuracy rate than other studies. As will

be discussed below, this may be due to subject

differences between field and analog studies because a realistic fear of failure does not play a central role for subjects. The consequences of failure

for analog studies are usually minimal in contrast

to typical field investigations.

Study Selection

For present purposes, studies were only included as analog for the primary analyses if they

employed actual field polygraph techniques to detect deception or concealed information, and if

the studies pertained to some use of polygraph

testing in the real world. The studies selected are

listed in tables 6 and 7. Studies of components

of the polygraph examinations, such as studies

which used only card tests (97,101), number tests

(120), or tests concerning concealed personal information (e.g., parents’ first name; see, e.g., 106)

were not included.

In addition, studies were excluded because their

primary focus was on a theoretical factor thought

to affect validity, such as variability in physiological recordings (45), nonstandard means of interpreting such recordings (163), or the role of “lying” (96). Such studies will be referred to as laboratory investigations and are distinguished from

analog studies.

Analog studies of the guilty knowledge test

(GKT) have been included, although analyzed

separately, because this form of the polygraph examination represents an alternative proposed for
Table 6.–Outcomes of Control Question Analog Studies of Validity

Guilty

Numbe r Incorrec t

of subject s Correct (False negative) Inconclusiv e

Innocen t

—

Nu-mber

of subjects

Incorrec t

Correct (False negative) Inconclusiv e

41 .70/0 16.70/0 41 .7%

Total numbe r

of subject s Lambd ab

0 4 7

0 7’5

0.83

0.72

0.72

0.33

— k

0.3 3

0 2 2

0.00J

0.2 5

—

0.5 3

—

– k

.—

Barland and Raskln (21)

Podlesny and Raskln (127)

Raskln and Hare (137)

Rovner, et ala (143) . . . . . .

Klrcher (89a )

Dawson (49) . . . . . . . . . . .

Widackl and Homathb

’

l

(207) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Bradley and Janisse (35)

EDR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Heart rate. . . . . . . . . .

Szucko and Kleinmuntzc

(160) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Glnton, et al. (62) .

Honts and Hodes (75)e:

No countermeasures . . .

Countermeasures . . . . . .

36 63.90/. 8.30/.

20 69.0 16.0

2 4 8 7 5 0

3 6 77.8 8.3

5 0 60. 0 4,0

1 2 91.7 0

27.80/o

15.0

12.5

13.9

36.0

8.3

36

20

24

36

50

12

—

96—

—

15

13

12

— 9

1 2

1 9

— 9

1 9

5

5

5

3 0

7 2

.40

4 8

7 2

100

2 4

910 4.0 5.0

75.0 4.0 20.8

80.5 13.9 5 . 5

76.0 2.0 22. 0

5 8 3 25. 0 1 6 7

20

192

20 90.0 50

96 — —

60.4 13.5

35.4 20.8

5.0 —

26.0

438

— — —

— — —

58.3 9.4 32. 3

33. 3 19.8 46. 9

d 49.3 50.7 d

84.6 15.4 0

30

15

15 71.3 28.7

2 100.0 0 c

9 67.0 0.0

,gf

—— 58.0 5.5

28

33.0

36.6

33.0 17.0 500

— — —

40

Honts and Hodes (76):

No countermeasures

Countermeasures . . . .

31.6 15.8 52.6 — — —

19 84.2 0.0

19 36.8 26.3

38

15.8

36.8

57

Heckel, et al. (74)i:

Normals . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Nondelusional

psychiatric . . . . . . . . .

Delusional

psychiatri c

Hammond (74a) . . . . . . .

— h 100.0 0.0 0.0

— h 700 10.0 20.0

– h 45.0 35.0 20.0

40.0 20.0 40,0

15

32 71.9 3.0 62

-— 250

a

b

c

d

e

f

9

h

I

J

k

Summed across conditions

Examiner’s task was tO detect the one guilty person In each of 20 groups of four suspects.

Based on ratings of 5* on a 1 to 8 scale of certainty of nondeceptlonldecept lon

Examiners were not allowed to categorize an examination as !nconcluslve

Orlglnal subject assignments, 12 to each of 4 (includ!ng 2 countermeasure) conditions A total of five countermeasure sub)ects were el!mlnated from the analysis of results for guilty subjects for fatlure to follow

countermeasure In structlons Three no countermeasure subjects were el Im! nated for spontaneously us I ng countermeasures

Nine gu!lty subjects used pain countermeasures (tongue bltlng) and 10 used a muscle (toe pressing) countermeasure

Innocent subjects used no countermeasures

There was no guilty condltlon

Not Included In analysls reported In table 8

Lambda IS a poor statlstlc when the base rate IS skewed

Lamba was not calculated when only guilty Or Innocent subjects were used

u )

cd
Table 7.—Outcomes of Guilty Knowledge Analog Studies of Validity I

Guilty Innocent

Number Incorrect Number Incorrect Total number

of subjects Correct (false negative) Inconclusive of subjects Correct (false positive) Inconclusive of subjects Lambdab

Lykkena (105) . . . . . . . .~~. 50 88.00/0 12.00/0 — 48 1OO.OO/; 0“/0 — 98 —c

Davidson (46) . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 91.7 8.3 — 36 100.0 0 — 48 0.92

Podlesny and Raskin

(127) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 80.0 20.0 0 10 80.0 0 20.0 20 0.80

Balloun and Holmes (12) . . 18 — 34

Test 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61.1 38.9 — 87.5 12.5 0.44

Test 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

—

16.7 83.3 — 93.7 6.3

Giesen and Rollison (61) . . 20

—

95.0 5.0 — 20 100.0 0 — 40 0.95

Bradley and Janisse (35) . . 96 — 96 192

EDR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59.4 40.6 — 88.5 11.5 0.38

Heart rate. . . . . . . . . . . . .

—

44.8 55.2 — 82.3 17.7

Timm (163) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237

—

237

Liberal cutoff. . . . . . . . . . 80.8 19.2 — –b – – d

Conservative cutoff . . . .

—

70.4

—

29.6 — — — — — —

a

Freque c s n ie for detection of two mock crimes were combined,

bThere were no innocent subjects

~Lambda cannot be calculated because crimes were not reported separately

Lambda cannot be calculated with only one condition,
65

use in the field (92,107,108), even though it has

not been put into general practice.

Description of Studies

The following sections discuss each of the analog studies organized into three categories according to questioning technique. The discussion of

CQT analog studies is first. Studies of CQT represent available studies, much like the case for

field investigations (see ch. 4). Six studies of the

concealed information or GKT and two of R/I

follow. In only one study (16), involving the R/I

technique, were subjects Government employees.

The results of individual studies are summarized

in tables 6 (CQT) and 7 (GKT). The description

of the studies is followed by a systematic statistical analysis of the results of the CQT and GKT

studies. The R/I studies were not analyzed as a

group because of the paucity of studies.

Essentially, as shown in tables 6 to 9 the analysis of the analog studies yields conclusions similar to those of the field study analysis—i. e., although there is a greater-than-chance probability

of detecting deceptive and nondeceptive subjects,

there is what might be regarded as a significant

error rate, and a great deal of variation across

studies. However, as has been found in some reviews (1, 7), analog studies of CQT had lower accuracy rates than field studies of CQT.

In the studies detailed below, some experiments

also tested the effect of factors hypothesized to

CONTROL QUESTION TECHNIQUE

Fourteen analog studies of the control question

technique were located. The largest group of these

studies emanate from the research program of

Professor David C. Raskin at the University of

Utah. The remaining studies were conducted at

a number of settings in the United States and

elsewhere. Raskin and colleagues have conducted

a systematic analog research program, and these

studies are described as a group. Other researchers

have published individual studies testing specific

hypotheses relevant to the validity of the poly -

Table 8.—Mean Detection Rates as a Percentage of

Total in Analog Studies of Control Question Technique

Ground truth

Percent Percent

guilty innocent

Examiners’ diagnosis Mean Mean

Deceptive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 330 6.8

Nondeceptive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.4 27.9

Inconclusive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.4 13.5

51.8 48.2

NOTE: Iambda b = 0,43.

Table 9.—Mean Detection Rates as a Percentage of

Total in Analog Studies of Guilty Knowledge Test

Ground truth

Percent Percent

guilty innocent

Examiners’ diaanosis Mean Mean

Guilty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27.9 2.2

Not guilty. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17.3 52.6

Inconclusive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0 0

45.2 54.8

NOTE: Iambda b = O 70

have an effect on validity. For example, Barland

and Raskin (22) examined the effect on validity

of different types of feedback about the polygraph, and Dawson (49) investigated the effects

of countermeasures. These factors are examined

more systematically in chapter 6; the emphasis of

the present chapter is on the validity of different

forms of polygraph examinations.

graph. A description of these studies follows discussion of the University of Utah studies.

University of Utah Studies

Despite longstanding controversy about polygraph validity, the first research project conducting an analog study that simulated field polygraph

techniques was not conducted until the 1970’s

(136). It was then that an ongoing research program headed by Professor Raskin at the Univer-
66

sity of Utah began to study the validity of the

polygraph through analog experiments. In addition, these studies also examined the relationship

to validity of different polygraph techniques (e.g.,

the stimulation test), different physiological measures, different methods of assessing the results,

different types of information provided to subjects, and different subject and situation factors

that could potentially affect polygraph validity.

The experiments conducted by Raskinandcolleagues use similar procedures to setup the mock

crime and to conduct polygraph testing. In each

of their studies, subjects are randomly assigned

to an “innocent” condition or to a “guilty” condition. The mock crime is the theft of a small

amount of money or a valuable object from a desk

in a nearby room. To increase their motivation,

subjects are offered a financial bonus for convincing the examiner they are innocent. In the testing

the examiner employs the Federal zone of comparison (ZOC) control question technique, including a pretest interview. A numerical field scoring

method developed by the Utah group (21) is used

to make the diagnosis of truthfulness or deception.

Barland and Raskin

In the initial analog study using CQT (21), 72

student “guilty” and “innocent” volunteers were

randomly assigned to one of three “feedback” conditions. The positive feedback subjects were instructed that the polygraph was effective, the negative feedback students were told that the machine

was not working properly, and the other students

received no feedback. Subjects then underwent

a complete polygraph examination including a

pretest interview. The Federal version of the ZOC

technique was employed, with standard control

questions used for all subjects. On average, the

CQT identified 53 percent of all subjects correctly. Twelve percent were identified incorrectly and

35 percent of the examinations were inconclusive.

Of the errors, three (4 percent of the entire sample) were false negatives and six (8 percent) were

false positives.

Podlesny and Raskin

Podlesny and Raskin (127) conducted a more

extensive experiment to examine the accuracy of

CQT using three different types of control questions. They also tested the accuracy of behavioral

observations of the examinee (80,139) in detecting deception, since this type of information is

used in many field examinations and could possibly affect the validity of the technique (107,108).

They compared as well the capability of different

physiological measures in differentiating between

guilty and innocent subjects. A GKT was also

conducted with 20 subjects (see below).

In Podlesny and Raskin’s study, subjects were

community members who responded to newspaper advertisements. The experimenters drew

from the Reid method in their design of the pretest

interview (see ch. 2). One experimenter asked the

subjects three questions from Reid and Horvath’s

structured pretest interview designed to provoke

the subjects into displaying “behavioral symptoms” of deception (80,139).

During the polygraph examination they included two special types of control questions

among the set of questions asked of the subjects.

One was a “guilt complex question, ” which asked

the subject if he committed a fictitious crime of

the same nature as the real crime. In this study,

the guilt complex question was, “Did you take

that watch from room 702?” (127). There was,

of course, no watch stolen from room 702. The

experimenters also varied the wording on some

of the control questions, so that half the subjects

received “nonexclusive” and half “exclusive” control questions.

In the pretest interview, the examiners followed

the usual field procedure of reviewing the control questions with the subjects, and the questions

were adjusted until they elicited a “no” response.

The control question polygraph test then took

place, with three or more charts obtained from

each subject, although only the first three were

used in the objective scoring. Immediately after

testing, the first three charts obtained were scored

blind on electrodermal response (EDR), respiration, and cardio measures. Later, an independent rater scored the tests, using the numerical scoring system devised by Barland and Raskin (2 I).

The experimenters also used objective measurements of all physiological response measures with

the aid of computers and persons who had no

knowledge of the field evaluations or treatments

administered. The experimenters used the deci-
67

sions made by the independent blind evaluator

to assess the validity of the polygraph test. This

was, however, equivalent to using the polygraph

examiner’s decision, because the independent rater

and the examiner agreed on 100 percent of their

decisions.

The results for both types of control questions

combined (with an inconclusive zone used) were

80 percent correct, 10 percent incorrect, and 10

percent inconclusive. There were three false negatives (8 percent) and one false positive (2 percent). The accuracy of CQT differed depending

on whether exclusive or inclusive control questions were used. When the exclusive control questions were used, 85 percent of the subjects were

identified correctly, 5 percent incorrectly, and 10

percent inconclusively. Of the assessments of the

20 subjects in this condition, one (5 percent) was

a false negative and there were no false positives.

When nonexclusive control questions were used,

75 percent were correct, 15 percent incorrect, and

10 percent inconclusive. Of these 20, two (10 percent) were false negatives and one (5 percent) was

a false positive. The evaluative scores for each

physiological component were analyzed to determine if the scores differed between guilty and innocent subjects. Only the EDR and plethysmograph scores yielded significant differences.

Behavioral observations, by themselves,

yielded a significant number of correct decisions,

but this differed greatly between innocent and

guilty subjects. Of the guilty subjects, 86 percent

of the decisions made were correct (25 deceptive,

4 nondeceptive, and 1 inconclusive); however,

only 48 percent of the innocent subjects were correctly identified (12 deceptive, 11 nondeceptive,

7 inconclusive). An objective quantitative analysis

for each physiological measure was employed to

determine if each was effective in discriminating

between guilty and innocent. Most of the measures yielded significant discriminations, with the

exception of a few of the cardiovascular measures.

Raskin and Hare

A special population, prisoners, especially relevant to the field use of the polygraph, was the

focus of a study by Raskin and Hare (137). In their

sample of 48 inmates of a Canadian prison, half

were selected for high levels of psychopathy, and

half for low levels. One purpose of their study

was to investigate whether deceptive psychopaths

could more easily escape detection than normal

subjects (see ch. 6). Overall, assessments of deception from the field evaluations from all charts were

88 percent correct, 4 percent wrong, and 8 percent inconclusive. There were only two errors,

both false positives. No significant differences

were found between psychopaths and nonpsychopaths, suggesting that a CQT polygraph examination is equally valid for both. Also, a quantitative

analysis showed that all the physiological measures were significantly different between guilty

and innocent subjects. Psychopathy did not obscure these differences and in some cases enhanced

them.

Rovner, Raskin, and Kircher

Rovner, Raskin, and Kircher (143) studied the

effect of information and practice on the accuracy

of polygraph examinations. Seventy-two subjects

recruited from the community took part in this

mock crime experiment. One third of the subjects

(12 innocent and 12 guilty) were given in-depth

information about the polygraph and about countermeasures used to appear innocent (information

condition). Another third received this information and underwent two practice polygraph examinations about which they received “feedback”

(information and practice condition). The other

third had no such intervention (standard). A blind

field evaluation performed some time later produced the scores for decisions of guilt or innocence, and for analysis of the physiological responses. Accuracy for the standard group and the

information group was identical: 88 percent correct, 4 percent incorrect, and 8 percent inconclusive. But accuracy for the information and practice condition was lower: 62.5 percent correct, 25

percent incorrect, and 12.5 percent inconclusive.

There was one error in the standard group and

one in the information group—both false positives. The six errors in the information and practice conditions were three false positives and three

false negatives.

Kircher

Some of the latest work of the Utah laboratory

explores the use of computers in the analysis of
68

polygraph recordings. Kircher (91a) compared the

accuracy of a computer decisionmaking process

to the accuracy of assessments of a field examiner.

The computerized analysis cannot be included in

the statistical analysis of this technical memorandum, because it is not presently a field scoring

method, but the decisions of an independent

evaluator who was used can be. This mock crime

study followed the basic procedures of Podlesny

and Raskin (127) with 100 subjects from the community. The accuracy of the original examiner

was not reported though the results of an independent evaluator were. The independent evaluator, who numerically scored the charts blindly,

correctly diagnosed 87 percent of the subjects;

misdiagnosed 6 percent; and made a judgment of

inconclusive on 7 percent. The six errors were

evenly divided between three false negatives and

three false positives. In comparison, different

computer decision models, on the average, correctly identified 84.9 percent of subjects, misidentified 7.85 percent, and placed 7.2 percent in an

inconclusive category.

Other Studies

A range of other studies has been conducted

in recent years to evaluate aspects of polygraph

test validity. Such studies usually manipulate one

or two variables that are hypothesized to be important determinants of polygraph validity. For

the most part, these experiments use procedures

that are similar to Raskin’s mock crime paradigm.

Some of the discussion of the procedures in each

study is omitted, because they closely follow this

paradigm.

Dawson

Dawson (49), for example, focused on the effect of “cognitive countermeasures” on validity.

His study was unique in that the subjects were

actors trained in the Stanislavsky method of acting, which teaches actors to use their own experience to create emotional states appropriate for

a role. Studying the attempts of “method” actors

to foil the polygraph may help determine whether

guilty subjects can be trained to use cognitive

countermeasures to appear innocent (see ch. 6).

Dawson was also interested in analyzing separately responses during two distinct phases of the

questioning: while subjects listened to questions

and while they responded.

Dawson’s sample consisted of 24 student actors,

half of whom were randomly assigned to the “guilty” group and half to the “innocent” group. They

were instructed to use the Stanislavsky method

to appear innocent on the polygraph examination.

After the mock crime, four charts were obtained

from ZOC control question test about the crime.

On two of the charts, the subjects were instructed

not to respond until they received a signal 8 seconds after a question. This served to separate responding associated with the questions from responding associated with answering. Numerical

scoring based on Barland and Raskin’s (21) system

was done separately on three different types of

physiological responses:

1. responses when the answers were immediate;

2. responses during the questions when the

answers were delayed; and

3. responses during the answers when the

answers were delayed.

Dawson found that the subjects’ immediate

physiological responses to the questions, whether

they were answering immediately or not, led to

decisions which were 88 percent correct, 8 percent incorrect, and 4 percent inconclusive (frequencies across two conditions were summed).

The delayed answer response yielded a rate of 29

percent correct, 8 percent incorrect, and 62 percent inconclusive. The incorrect decisions made

were entirely false positives. A quantitative analysis revealed that the EDR and cardiovascular

measures differentiated significantly between innocent and guilty, but respiration did not. The

major outcomes of this study suggested that the

polygraph was not susceptible to cognitive countermeasures of the sort used by the actors and that

scorable responses generally occur immediately

after questions.

This experiment does not, however, test cognitive countermeasures in a situation in which the

subjects know the essentials of CQT and apply

cognitive countermeasures differentially to relevant and control questions. The average criminal

subject is likely to attempt cognitive measures

naively, but a sophisticated subject—perhaps the

type more likely to appear in a national security

investigation—may learn cognitive countermeas-
69

ures along with the knowledge of the control question or other technique.

Widacki and Horvath

Widacki and Horvath (207) designed an experiment to examine the polygraph’s efficacy in comparison to other techniques in the mock investigation of a mock crime. They recruited 80 Polish

student volunteers and had all of them provide

writing specimens, photographs of themselves,

and fingerprints. Subjects were then assigned to

20 groups of four subjects each. Within each

group, one subject was randomly assigned to be

the perpetrator, and the other three were innocent

suspects. Each group was thus an “investigative

case. ” Because of this feature of the design, the

decisions of guilty and innocent were not independent. Therefore, Widacki and Horvath’s findings could not be included in the statistical analysis of the control question analogs and must be

considered separately. A similar situation holds

for Kubis’ (93) mock crime experiment (see below).

The mock crime proceeded as follows: the guilty subject picked up a parcel from one of two persons acting as a “doorkeeper” of a building in the

area. The perpetrator gave some experimentrelated papers to the doorkeeper and then signed

for the parcel. Thus, an eyewitness account (by

the doorkeeper), fingerprints, and handwriting

specimens were all available. Blind polygraph examinations then were conducted using the Reid

control question method (including the examiners’

behavioral observations of the subject). Analysis

of the three other sources of evidence was carried out.

Widacki and Horwath found that the polygraph

produced the most correct decisions (n =18), the

fewest (along with handwriting) incorrect decisions (n= 1), and the fewest inconclusive decisions

(n=l). Widacki and Horvath note, however, that

a direct comparison of these four investigative

methods may be invalid because the experimental procedures could not ensure a comparable level

of quality of evidence for each method (e.g., fingerprints were not detectable in the majority of

cases).

Because of its experimental design that had the

examiner make decisions on four suspects as a

group, the study produces data about the accuracy of the polygraph that is difficult to interpret.

But it does shed light on the efficacy of the polygraph relative to other investigatory techniques

that might be the alternative. Certainly, it is

crucial in policymaking to judge the validity of

the polygraph relative to other techniques that

would be used in its stead. More research is

needed in which the polygraph is compared to

other investigatory techniques, and the quality of

information across techniques is held constant.

Such a comparative analog study would be especially valuable if it included different techniques

used in investigations of Federal personnel, such

as those reported in the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) survey mentioned in chapter 4

(“administrative screening,” “investigative interviews, ” etc. ).

Bradley and Janisse

Bradley and Janisse (35) studied the effects of

two other variables hypothesized to influence the

validity of the polygraph: the degree of threat involved in the punishment for being judged guilty, and successful demonstration to the subjects

of the technique’s accuracy. A mock crime was

carried out using procedures similar to those used

by Barland and Raskin (21). Subjects were also

given a series of stimulation tests. Results of these

tests were manipulated such that they made the

polygraph test appear perfectly effective, partially

effective, and ineffective. In addition, half the subjects were told they would receive a painful electric shock if found guilty, though no shock was

ever given.

The degree of manipulated effectiveness had no

direct effect on scores, but did tend to increase

the accuracy of detection. Threat of punishment

did not affect accuracy of detection, although it

did have an overall effect on heart rate. EDR and

heart rate change were significantly accurate in

differentiating guilty and innocent, although

another measure, pupil size change, was not.

Honts and Hodes

Two recent analog studies of the Backster ZOC

method of testing (76,77) were conducted primari-
70

ly for the purpose of testing whether polygraph

examiners could detect the use of physical countermeasures by subjects. In the first study, subjects were college students who received extra

credit toward their final grades for their participation. “Guilty” suspects participated in a mock

crime (theft of an examination); innocent suspects

were only told of the theft. All subjects were motivated to produce truthful outcomes on the polygraph test by an offer of twice the number of credits if the examiner reported them as truthful.

In addition to participation in the mock crime,

24 of the guilty subjects participated in 15-minute

training sessions in which they were told about

the theory of CQT and shown how to use either

tongue biting (12 subjects) or toe pressing (12 subjects) as countermeasures during presentation of

the control questions. They were also instructed

to try to relax as much as possible during presentation of the relevant questions.

The actual polygraph examinations took place

a week after the theft and training sessions. All

guilty subjects were instructed to have the “stolen”

examinations with them, presumably to enhance

subject involvement. Four charts were obtained

from each subject using a standard Backster examination administered by an experienced polygraph examiner. The examiner was aware of the

details of the experiment, including a knowledge

of the base rates of guilt and the countermeasures

that would be attempted, but was blind to the

group assignment of individual subjects. At the

end of each examination, the examiner made a

yes/no decision regarding the subject’s use of

countermeasures. After all subjects had been

tested, the original examiner made a decision as

to deception by blindly evaluating the charts using

the Backster numerical scoring technique, and

made another decision about the use of countermeasures based on inspection of the charts. Charts

were also examined and scored by a second examiner who was blind to all aspects of the

experiment.

As shown in table 6, while there was a low rate

of false negatives (5.5 percent), examiners were

not able to make a decision on one-third of coun -

termeasure and no countermeasure guilty subjects,

and half of the innocent subjects. There was a 7

percent false positive rate. Examiners were not

able to detect the use of countermeasures.

In their second experiment on countermeasures,

Honts and Hodes used approximately the same

procedures and subject pool, with the exception

that subjects were asked to employ both countermeasures simultaneously, were given 30 minutes of training, including a practice session, and

were asked to practice at home. A cardio cuff was

added to the polygraph instrument, and a card

test was conducted prior to the administration of

the first test.

Overall, results of the second study replicated

the first. The categorizations of the original examiner were 51 percent correct, 14 percent incorrect, and 35 percent inconclusive. Twenty-six percent of the countermeasure subjects compared to

none of the guilty/no countermeasure subjects

were incorrectly classified as truthful. Examiners

were not able to detect successful countermeasure

users.

Ginton, et al.

Only two CQT analog studies have used real,

albeit small, crimes. Another study using a real

crime tested the GKT technique and is discussed

in the section on that technique. An experiment

by Ginton, et al. (62), aimed to create even more

verisimilitude than usual in the analog study. An

auxiliary purpose was to test the relative effectiveness of behavioral observations, global evaluations, including behavioral observations, and numerical scoring based on the charts alone.

Subjects in Ginton, et al. ’s, investigation were

21 Israeli policemen. They were given paper and

pencil tests that were presented as required aptitude tests. Subjects were asked to score their own

tests, which provided an opportunity to cheat,

i.e., to revise their initial answers. The test answer

sheets, however, were chemically treated so that

cheating could be detected. Seven of the twentyone subjects actually changed their initial answers.

Later, subjects were told they were suspected of

cheating, were offered an opportunity to take a

polygraph examination, and were told their careers might depend on the outcome. Fifteen sub-
—

71

jects actually underwent the polygraph testing,

only two of whom had actually cheated.

A CQT was administered, and each subject was

evaluated by three polygraph experts who had

conducted or witnessed the particular examination being evaluated. One examiner (an observer)

relied on behavioral observation, another (a rater)

used only the charts, and a third (the actual examiner) used both sources of information. The

evaluations were made globally. Five other polygraph examiners evaluated the charts later using

both the Utah group’s scoring system (21) and

global evaluations. The original three performed

a second analysis in this way, too. Conclusions

about this study are limited because of a large noshow rate among the guilty subjects. Both guilty

subjects who took the test were correctly detected.

However 15 percent of the noncheaters were incorrectly identified as deceptive.

Heckel, et al.

Another analog study (74) used a staged crime

to investigate the differential accuracy of CQT

with psychotic, neurotic, and normal subjects. Fifteen subjects (five from each of the above three

groups) were given the opportunity to steal money

from the wallet of an experimenter who was staging a session of psychological testing. The experimenter later alleged that $20 had been stolen, and

arranged for polygraph examinations of the 15

subjects by a field examiner. No money had actually been stolen, so the subjects were actually

innocent. Four polygraph experts later rated the

charts. Averaging the results for these independent evaluators, 11 of the subjects were correctly

labeled innocent, 1 was called guilty, and 3 were

placed in an inconclusive category. The one error

and one inconclusive were with psychotic subjects, and the other two inconclusive were with

neurotic subjects. Because only innocent subjects

were included, a lambda was not calculated for

this study.

Hammond

Hammond (64a) conducted a mock crime study

to test the hypotheses that: 1) alcoholics would

be less detectable than normal subjects, 2) psychopaths would be as detectable as normal subjects, and 3) student examiners would not be as

accurate as an expert examiner. He was also interested in the overall value of polygraph examinations for forensic psychology. The subjects

in Hammond’s study were volunteers solicited

through sign-up sheets in a college fraternity (normals), alcoholism treatment centers (alcoholics),

and ex-offender programs (psychopaths) as well

as through newspaper advertisements and other

means. Psychological tests (e. g., subscales of the

MMPI) as well as polygraph examinations were

given to the subjects. The polygraph examinations

were conducted by students near the end of their

training at the Backster School of Lie Detection.

Examiners used a version of Backster’s control

question technique, and Backster’s numerical scoring system. Charts were scored using several levels

of inconclusive zone by both the student examiners and an expert examiner who scored the

charts blindly. Two polygraph charts, rather than

the standared three, were conducted for each subject.

Table 6 shows the results of Hammond’s study

using the standard *8 inconclusive zone. As

shown, approximately 72 percent of the guilty

subjects and 40 percent of the innocent subjects

were scored correctly. Neither alcoholics, normals, nor psychopaths showed differences in detectability. In addition, there were no differences

between the numerical scores of the student examiners and the blind expert examiner. However,

using the *8 cutoff, expert evaluators had more

inconclusive (and fewer innocent “hits”) than the

student examiners. While Hammond concluded

that his study supported the validity of polygraph

testing, he believed that certain factors in his study

could account for the failure to show differences

by subject category. In particular, all subject

groups actually turned out to be relatively heavy

drinkers. Hammond also contended that overall

accuracy rates would have been higher with more

experienced polygraph examiners. He observed

that the examiners in his study were unskilled at

detecting countermeasures and at calibrating the

polygraph instrument.

Szucko and Kleinmuntz

A somewhat different approach to assessing the

validity of the polygraph was taken by Szucko
72

and Kleinmuntz (160). They directly compared

the ability of polygraph examiners to assess deception against the ability of computers to do the

same using a digitalized form of the same data.

They had a sample of 30 psychology undergraduate volunteers and randomly assigned them to

the guilty or innocent conditions. The mock crime

involved the “theft” of a $5 bill. Polygraph tests

were administered by four examiner-trainees from

a polygraph firm near Szucko and Kleinmuntz’s

university. The recordings of the physiological

measures were transformed into digital form for

computer analysis.

Six experienced polygraph examiners independently evaluated the charts. No inconclusive category was allowed in the study. Digital polygraph

data was evaluated by computer. A lens model

equation drawn from studies of human judgment

was used. The results of this analysis indicated

that five of the six polygraph raters were able to

detect deception significantly better than chance,

but four of them also had fairly high rates of false

positives. Szucko and Kleinmuntz estimate that

the judges detected on the average 71 percent of

CONCEALED INFORMATION TESTS

Although the largest number of analog studies

investigate CQT, several analog studies have examined the validity of the guilty knowledge test,

one type of concealed information test. A search

of the literature revealed no analog studies of the

peak of tension test as a distinct technique.

Lykken

In one early investigation of GKT, Lykken (105)

attempted to demonstrate that the detection of incriminating knowledge about a crime can be done

more accurately than the detection of a lie about

the crime. In Lykken’s study, 49 male college students were randomly assigned to four categories

of guilt in conducting two mock crimes. Subjects

either committed a staged “theft,” a staged

“murder,” both, or neither. An experimenter then

conducted two GKT polygraph examinations with

each subject, one for each crime.

guilty subjects, but also called half of the innocent subjects deceptive (false positive). Szucko and

Kleinmuntz state that 80 percent of the protocols

could be classified correctly using a purely statistical analysis, but they do not state the detection

rate, false positive rate, and false negative rate

of their statistical analysis.

Kircher and Raskin (91) contend on the other

hand that evaluators using numerical evaluations

can be “at least as accurate as those produced by

any known statistical decision model and that the

accuracies of both clinical and statistical methods

exceed 90 percent .“ Kircher and Raskin reanalyzed

charts from the Rovner, et al. (143), study described above and used a lens model, similar to

that employed by Szucko and Kleinmuntz. The

studies, however, differed in a number of ways,

which could account for the variation in their

results. Probably the most important difference

is that Kircher and Raskin’s interpreters were

trained in numerical scoring procedures (136),

whereas interpreters in the Szucko and Kleinmuntz study used global evaluation procedures

(139).

Each test in Lykken’s study (105) included six

questions about details related to the “murder”

situation and “theft” situation (e.g., asking the

subject to identify an object present in the “murder” room), To make subjects anxious about the

accuracy of their responses during the examination, they were told they would be given an electric shock if the examiner felt their responses indicated guilt; in fact, subjects received an electric

shock after every question. The relevant alternative in each question was randomly varied among

an average of five possibilities. If the question

about the relevant detail produced the EDR with

the greatest amplitude, it received a score of ‘2. ”

If it was the second largest in amplitude, it received a “1. ” A perfect guilty score on each test

was “12,” and a perfect innocent score was “O. ”

A score of seven or greater was categorized as

guilty for the purpose of analysis, and a score of

six or less was categorized as innocent. The guil-
73

ty knowledge test was accurate to a significant

degree in identifying subjects who committed

both, either, or neither of the crimes. On the basis

of this experiment, Lykken argued that GKT, with

some refinements, could be applicable in criminal

investigations.

Davidson

Other researchers have used Lykken’s GKT paradigm to explore further its validity as a polygraph examination technique. Davidson (46) examined the GKT’s validity under conditions that

varied motivation level and that he claimed were,

in general, more “ego-involving” for subjects. In

Dawson’s study, 48 college students were recruited

and assigned randomly to 12 groups of 4. Three

of the four were instructed to attempt to commit

specific mock murders, and the fourth served as

a control. The mock crimes were arranged such

that one subject would “commit” the crime, one

would try to fail, one was motivated but never

had the opportunity, and one (the control) had

no knowledge of the crime. Half of the subjects

who “committed” the murders received a large

amount of money ($25 to $50) and half received

a small sum ($10 to $1). The different amounts

were presumed to create a different level of

motivation in the subjects. The subjects then were

examined with the use of GKT. Six multiplechoice questions with five alternatives were

presented to the subjects, and the EDR was recorded. The scoring method followed Lykken’s

(105) exactly (see above). Using a weighted average, 98 percent of the classifications were correct

against a chance level of 25 percent. The only error was one false negative.

Podlesny and Raskin

Podlesny and Raskin (127) included GKT in

their study of a variety of polygraph techniques

and physiological measures. Their experiment was

unique in that it employed GKT in the same context as CQT (see above). Thus, they were able

to compare the accuracy rates of the two techniques, although they claimed that a different

statistical comparison was impossible because the

two techniques use very different methods to

assess guilt. Podlesny and Raskin also were the

first to test GKT with physiological measures

other than EDR. To make assessments of guilt,

they used the traditional polygraph respiration

and cardio measures, and another vascular measure that was a composite of finger blood volume

and finger blood amplitude. This latter measure

was recorded by the photoplethysmograph mentioned above. In addition, Podlesny and Raskin

performed a quantitative analysis of differences

between guilty and innocent subjects on several

other physiological measures.

GKT was conducted after the same mock theft

Podlesny and Raskin (127) used to study CQT.

Twenty subjects (10 guilty and 10 innocent) were

examined with GKT, which included five questions with six alternatives each. The relevant alternatives were placed among the other alternatives

in a “pseudo-random” order (127). The GKT

charts were scored by the same method used by

Lykken (105) and Davidson (46). Podlesny and

Raskin also scored the charts in another way, with

the addition of an inconclusive zone of scores five

or six. This scoring system for assessing guilt was

used with the photoplethysmograph, respiration,

and cardio measure as well as EDR. Their findings

were that GKT with EDR was correct for 90 percent of the subjects and incorrect for 10 percent,

all false negatives. Using an inconclusive zone did

not add significantly to the accuracy of the technique, however: 80 percent of assessments were

correct, 10 percent incorrect (all false negatives),

and 10 percent inconclusive.

Giesen and Rollison

Giesen and Rollison (61) studied the effects on

GKT of the subjects’ trait anxiety levels and of

the possibility that crime-related details could be

relevant to innocent subjects because of associations unrelated to the crime. Trait anxiety is

anxiety that is characteristic of one’s personality

and would be relatively stable over time. Both

trait anxiety and “innocent associations” could

conceivably confound the detection of guilt with

GKT.

Giesen and Rollison selected 40 female undergraduates who responded positively to a questionnaire item on “palmar sweating. ” EDR is related

25-290 0 - 83 - 6 : QL 3
74

to sweating. Thus, this sample may have tended

to produce higher EDRs than the norm. This

group was divided into two groups of 20: those

who scored high on a questionnaire measure of

anxiety (Lykken’s activity preference questionnaire) and those who scored low. Ten subjects in

each group were then assigned to the guilty knowledge condition, and to the “innocent associations”

condition. The guilty subjects were told to pretend to be secret agents who had committed a

murder. They read a narrative about the crime,

and role-played the act of burning an incriminating picture. Innocent subjects also played secret

agents, but read a narrative containing several details (e.g., how much money was involved), which

in the guilty condition were related to the crime.

They had, therefore, as much exposure to this information as the guilty subjects, but in an innocent context. Using GKT with EDR, experimenters

asked subjects eight crime-related questions, each

with five alternatives. Those details common to

both conditions were used as the crime-relevant

items in GKT questions. Scoring followed Lykken’s (105) method.

Giesen and Rollison found that GKT was highly

accurate, correctly classifying all of the innocent

subjects and detecting all but one of the guilty subjects (an average of 97.5 percent correct). In addition, they found that the EDR measure was significantly different between guilty and innocent

subjects. Trait anxiety level had no effect on EDR

by itself, but the more anxious subjects in the guilty condition had significantly greater EDR than

the less anxious, especially in response to the relevant items. These findings would suggest that anxiety alone does not confound GKT results, but

anxiety in guilty subjects might indeed augment

the accuracy of the technique. The study also suggests that GKT may be accurate even when innocent subjects have greater associations with

crime-relevant items than with neutral items. This

finding, however, must be tempered by the fact

that the entire sample was selected for their tendency for palmar sweating under stress and, thus,

may be unrepresentative of polygraph subjects in

general.

Balloun and Holmes

Balloun and Holmes (12) used GKT to detect

guilt in a “real” crime arranged by the experimenters. They were also interested in the effect

of psychopathy and of repeated examinations on

the accuracy of GKT. They selected 18 male college students with high scores on the psychopathic

deviate (Pal) scale of the Minnesota Multiphasic

Personality Inventory (MMPI) and 16 with low

scores. The Pd scale was originally designed to

make the diagnosis of psychopathic personality

and was used as a scale to measure relative

“amounts” of psychopathy. The experimenters

acknowledge, however, that the Pd scale may be

an inadequate measure of this diagnosis. These

subjects took a fake intelligence test with two

other students (actually confederates of the examiner). The confederates urged subjects to cheat

and supplied test answers to those who were willing. Eighteen of the thirty four students cheated.

Later, the subjects underwent a polygraph examination using GKT. They were reminded that

cheating on exams could lead to academic dismissal, and that the experimenters knew that some

had cheated on the “intelligence test. ” Information from the intelligence tests that only the

cheaters would know served as the incriminating

details on GKT. Another GKT with the same content, but a different order of questions was then

administered to see if the subjects would adapt

to GKT and, thus, reduce its accuracy.

Balloun and Holmes scored GKT using Lykken’s (105) method with three physiological measures (EDR, heart rate, and finger pulse volume),

but only EDR produced significant results. On the

first test, guilty subjects scored significantly higher

and were detected with significant accuracy. However, on the second test, though the guilty subjects had significantly greater scores, they were

not great enough for significantly accurate detection of guilt at the criterion level (5.5 out of 10)

used. There was no difference between the high

and low Pd subjects on either administration of

GKT.
75

Bradley and Janisse

In their study of the influence of threat and

demonstrations of accuracy on the polygraph examination (see above), Bradley and Janisse (35)

also tested the 192 subjects with the GKT after

the CQT had been conducted. The questions concerned four relevant details. They were scored

using the Lykken (105) method. With EDR data,

the GKT classified an average of 74 percent of subjects correctly, and 26 percent incorrectly with 11

false positives and 39 false negatives. With the

measure of heart rate change, the GKT categorized 63.5 percent of subjects correctly and 36.5

incorrectly, with 17 false positives and 53 false

negatives, Neither the degree of threat nor the

demonstrated effectiveness of the polygraph test

had a significant effect on the discrimination between deceptive and truthful subjects.

Timm

Timm (163) examined the effect of the administration of a placebo on the validity of GKT. Also

included in the experiment was an investigation

of the effect on GKT accuracy of differential feedback from the stimulation test. In the experiment

PREEMPLOYMENT SCREENING

Despite its widespread use in the field, there are

few analog studies of the preemployment screening polygraph examination. The two that are

known to employ post-1960 polygraph screening

techniques are reviewed. Correa and Adams (43)

conducted an analog investigation of this type of

examination with 40 undergraduate subjects. Barland (16) conducted an analog study with Federal

Government personnel.

Correa and Adams

Like the usual preemployment screening test,

the examination in Correa and Adams’ study included a number of relevant questions. Subjects

were interviewed prior to the polygraph examination and completed a questionnaire about their

all 270 college student subjects committed a mock

crime. There were no “innocent” subjects. Before

the mock crime, subjects were either: 1) given a

placebo and told it would help them “beat” the

test; 2) given a placebo and told it would make

it more difficult to deceive the examiner; or 3) not

given a placebo. The stimulation or number test

was arranged to produce three different feedback

conditions. One-third of the subjects’ numbers

were detected, one-third were not, and one-third

did not receive the results of the stimulation test.

After the GKT was conducted on each subject,

charts were scored according to the Lykken (105)

method. Adequate charts were obtained for 237

subjects. Of these subjects, 70.4 to 80.8 percent

of them produced scores indicative of guilt, depending on how conservative a cutoff point for

the score was used. Neither the placebo condition

nor the feedback condition produced a significant

effect on detection ability. Because of the absence

of “innocent” subjects in this study (i. e., a base

rate of guilty of 100 percent), the study tells us

nothing about the accuracy of GKT with the innocent subjects. And even the results with guilty

subjects are difficult to interpret when there is no

comparison to results with innocent subjects.

Also, without innocent subjects, a lambda is impossible to calculate.

background. Half the group was instructed to lie

to nine relevant questions and half to tell the truth.

The polygraph test was conducted, and three

charts of 32 questions each were recorded. Most

of the relevant questions concerned information

from the questionnaire, but also included were

three questions about events staged by the researcher in the initial interview (e.g., giving the

subject a glass of water). These latter questions

served as a check on the honesty of subjects in

completing the questionnaire, and were considered relevant questions in the evaluation of deception or nondeception. The examiner subjectively

made assessments of veracity based on the polygraph recordings. When questions about the

staged events and the application were diagnosed

by the examiner, all 40 of the subjects were correctly identified as being deceptive or truthful.
76

Correa and Adams conducted a question-byquestion analysis of the charts of deceptive subjects. A mean of 75 percent of the relevant items

from the screening application were correctly classified, and a mean of 25 percent were incorrectly

classified. When change scores were calculated for

each physiological response, all physiological

measures (EDR, respiration, cardiovascular) significantly discriminated truthful from deceptive

subjects. Correa and Adams suggest that these

findings provide evidence for the validity of

prescreening polygraph examinations. There are,

however, a number of problems with the Correa

and Adams’ study that may compromise its validity. Several features of the experiment are probably highly unrepresentative of or unrelated to

field preemployment polygraph examinations: the

length of the interview (96 questions); the number

of deceptive responses subjects made (9); and the

inclusion of questions about the experiment itself.

Furthermore, the experimenters fail to discuss the

criteria by which the assessments of veracity were

made, so it is difficult to ascertain whether these

assessments correspond to field assessments.

Barland

The Barland (16) study is important for several

reasons. One, subjects were actual military personnel who in Barland’s opinion might be the

types screened for counterintelligence purposes.

All subjects were assigned to intelligence duties.

It is, thus, unique in being the only validity study

of preemployment screening in an intelligence

context. However, because it did not ask any

questions related to security interests, it cannot

be considered a full analog to field situations.

Second, it tested the validity of a type of CQT,

the directed lie control question (DLCQ) technique, in a screening situation. DLCQ is part of

a counterintelligence screening test developed by

Army Intelligence examiners in 1971. During the

pretest phase of this technique, subjects typically answer “yes” to certain questions. When they

answer yes, the examiner instructs them that when

they are asked such questions during the actual

polygraph examination, they should respond with

a “no” rather than a “yes. ” Thus, they are directed

to lie, and their lies to these questions constitute

the control questions against which responses to

relevant questions are compared. DLCQ differs

from the control question discussed previously

(see ch. 2). With the DLCQ technique, the control questions are not designed to provoke the subject to lie or be concerned about the telling the

truth. The “lies” do not constitute deception since

the examiner instructs the subject to tell lies that

they both know are false. However, the directed

lies are believed to generate concern in innocent

subjects because the subjects are told that to appear nondeceptive on the rest of the examination,

they must appear deceptive on the directed questions.

The question of whether CQT can be used outside of specific issue investigations (e. g., in preemployment or periodic screening) is controversial. It is difficult to construct standard control

questions when much of a person’s past is irrelevant to the purpose of the examination, since past

misdeeds (i. e., other than the specific issue being

investigated) typically comprise the subject area

of control questions.

In this 1981 study, Barland solicited volunteers

from the military intelligence community. Subjects were told the purpose of the study and that

testing would be limited to the subject’s date of

birth, place of birth, education, employment, and

residences (these were the relevant items), and that

some subjects would be instructed to furnish the

examiner with false information. Approximately half the subjects were instructed to lie to one

of the relevant items; these subjects were offered

a $20 reward if they could appear truthful on the

polygraph examination. Unlike the data in the

Correa and Adams’ study, the experimenter was

able to check the information given by the subjects against data obtained from background investigations. The three polygraph examiners in

the study had 3, 6, and 9 years of polygraph experience and had been trained at the U.S. Army

Military Police School (USAMPS) polygraph

course,

Examiners used three methods of chart interpretation: zone of comparison, greatest control

method, and relevant-irrelevant method. As explained in chapter 2, in the zone method, relevant

questions are evaluated against the larger of either
control question response in a zone. In Barland’s

(16) zone method, each physiological measure for

each relevant /irrelevant control question pair was

rated on a point scale using interpretive criteria

taught at USAMPS. In the relevant-irrelevant

method of interpretation, each relevant question

was evaluated without making specific reference

to the control question nearest it; emphasis “was

placed on the size and consistency of reactions at

the relevant questions” and scored globally rather

than numerically. The “greatest control” method

consisted of evaluating all five relevant questions

against the single control question on that chart

which had the largest overall reaction. In addition to the comparisons of the three chart interpretation methods, charts were analyzed globally and on a question-by-question basis.

In the global method of analysis, subjects were

categorized as either deception indicated, no deception indicated, or inconclusive on the basis of

appearing deceptive to any of the relevant questions, That is, if a subject was in fact deceptive

to any relevant question, and he reacted deceptively to any of the questions, it was considered

a hit even though the examiner may have misidentified which relevant question the subject was deceptive to. Using this method of assessing deceptiveness, the three methods of chart interpretation achieved the following results:

Zone:

● 62 percent correct identification of truthful subjects;

● 19 percent incorrect;

 19 percent inconclusive;

● 70 percent correct identification of deceptive subjects;

 17 percent incorrect;

● 13 percent inconclusive.

Greatest control:

 77 percent correct identification of truthful subjects;

● 15 percent incorrect;

 8 percent inconclusive.

● 50 percent correct identification of deceptive subjects;

● 23 percent incorrect;

● 27 percent inconclusive.

Relevant-irrelevant:

● 73 percent correct identification of truthful subjects;

77

.

● 23 percent incorrect;

● 4 percent inconclusive.

● 80 percent correct identification of deceptive subjects;

● 13 percent incorrect;

● 7 percent inconclusive.

Presumably, the correct identification rates

would be lower if only those cases in which the

truly deceptive relevant response was counted as

a “hit. ” To test this hypothesis, the authors conducted a question-by-question analysis. In this

method, identification of truthful responses increased but identification of deceptive responses

declined quite a bit, Using the zone technique, 77

percent of the truthful questions and only 57 percent of the deceptive questions were correctly

identified. With the greatest control scoring method, 85 percent of truthful responses and less than

half (43 percent) of deceptive questions were correctly identified, The R/I scoring technique

showed the best results. With this method, 88 percent of the truthful subjects and 67 percent of

deceptive questions were correctly identified

(although global results were better with the R/I

technique). This interpretation should be modified

by the fact that each examiner used all three scoring techniques and the R/I technique was the last

one used. Thus, the interpreter had the benefit of

his previous judgments. The results of a blind

analysis using other interpreters were not ready

to be reported by Barland at the time his 1981 report was submitted.

The results of the Barland study raise serious

questions about the usefulness of directed lie control questions in screening procedures as well as,

in general, the validity of polygraph testing for

preemployment and counterintelligence purposes,

especially if used alone. Of course, the limitations

of analog studies should be taken into consideration. Because of these limitations, Barland considers his results a “worst case” scenario. Finally, interpretations must depend on the false positive and false negative rates which are deemed

acceptable for particular purposes.
78

●

FINDINGS

Separate statistical analyses were performed for

the guilty knowledge and control question analog

studies. The following data for the analog studies

discussed above were reviewed:

●

●

●

●

●

●

percentage of guilty subjects judged deceptive;

percentage of guilty subjects judged nondeceptive (false negatives);

percentage of guilty subjects judged inconclusive;

percentage of innocent subjects judged deceptive (false positives);

percentage of innocent subjects judged truthful; and

percentage of innocent subjects judged inconclusive.

Also, as with the field studies, an index of

predictive association (lambda) was calculated.

The results (see tables 8 and 9) indicate that the

control question test provides a 43-percent improvement in prediction over the base rate for

these analog studies, and the guilty knowledge test

a 70-percent improvement in prediction over the

base rates. Because the studies differed so much,

lambdas were calculated separately for each

study. As shown in tables 6 and 7, individual

lambdas ranged from zero to 83 percent for the

CQT studies and 38 to 95 percent for the GKT

studies (see ch. 4). These figures should be interpreted with caution as in real life the base rate

of guilt will vary considerably from approximately 50/50 distributions in laboratory experiments.

Thus, it is difficult to draw unqualified conclusions from the analog studies given the wide variety of designs used.

The false negative rate for the analog studies

of CQT technique ranged from O to 29 percent.

Inconclusive ranged from O to 44 percent for guilty subjects and from O to 53 percent for innocent

subjects. There is a wide range of false positives

(4 to 51 percent). Global evaluations by the examiners, field scoring techniques, and purely statistical analyses of the data all seem to produce

high detection rates in most studies. One exception is Kleinmuntz and Szucko’s (92) study, which

found the validity coefficients of polygraph examiners’ judgments markedly inferior to a purely statistical analysis of the charts. However, it

is unclear how comparable their method of measuring validity is to the usual method of using an

accuracy rate, and it is also not clear how applicable the lens model they use is to the question

of the validity of the polygraph.

Another exception is Ginton, et al.’s, study (62),

in which field numerical scoring was found to be

inferior to the global evaluation method in detecting deception. However, the examiners in that

study were Israeli polygraph professionals who

may characteristically use a global method of

assessment, and who may have been unfamiliar

with the Utah numerical scoring system.

Accuracy of detection differed sizably between

control question analog studies using students as

subjects (Barland and Raskin, Bradley and Janisse,

Szucko and Kleinmuntz; Widacki and Horvath

is excluded as discussed above) and other control

question analog studies (Podlesny and Raskin,

Raskin and Hare, Rovner, et al., Dawson, Ginton, et al.). Experiments using students had lower

percentages of correct decisions for both guilty

and innocent, and more false negatives and false

positives. Given the small number of studies in

each category when the studies are divided in this

way, it is unclear whether this difference is attributable to the nature of the subjects (student

v. nonstudent) or other characteristics of these

experiments.

As shown in tables 8 and 9, GKT analog studies detected a slightly lower average percentage

of the guilty subjects than the CQT analog studies.

They also had a relatively higher proportion of

false negatives but a lower rate of false positives.

It should be noted, however, that GKT was not

assessed under conditions that deviated as much

from the ideal as the control question test deviated. Nor were there as many studies testing GKT

as CQT. This suggests that the confidence one can

have in the GKT findings is, in general, less than

the confidence one can have in the CQT findings.

In summary, there exists a number of studies

of CQT; a smaller number of the concealed information test, all using GKT; and only two studies
79 — —

of the preemployment screening interview, one

of them with Government personnel. The analog

studies systematically explored many of the technical variables associated with the polygraph (cf.

the Utah group’s studies of CQT), and also studied

the effect of several situational variables on the

validity of the polygraph. The control question

test was found to detect guilty subjects with a

relatively high degree of accuracy, but also to be

subject to false positive errors. There was a large

amount of variability among the control question

analogs, especially the more they diverged in technique-from the field method. The guilty knowledge test had a slightly lower rate of detection

of guilt, more false negatives, but fewer false

positives,
Chapter 6

Factors Affecting

Polygraph Examination Validity
.

Chapter 6

Factors Affecting

Polygraph Examination Validity

INTRODUCTION

The analyses of both field and analog studies

reported in chapters 4 and 5 indicate that there

is considerable variability in accuracy rates of

polygraph examinations. To interpret these variations, numerous factors, such as the restricted

range of techniques and applications tested in

these studies, need to be considered. In addition,

researchers have attempted to explain the variability in accuracy scores by proposing a number

of factors that theoretically may affect polygraph

test validity. These include characteristics of examiners, settings, and subjects. In addition, subjects have been known to use, or might be trained

to use, a number of countermeasures to “beat”

the polygraph. For many of these factors the research evidence is contradictory. For others, there

has been little or no empirical testing. This chapter

describes evidence from field and analog studies,

as well as from laboratory investigations, on factors that may affect the accuracy of polygraph

tests. The chapter also discusses possible priorities

for additional research on factors affecting polygraph validity.

POLYGRAPH EXAMINER, SUBJECT, AND SETTING

The previously described analyses of field and

analog studies (see chs. 4 and 5) emphasize the

characteristics of polygraph tests and their relation to accurate or inaccurate outcomes. In the

present section, the focus shifts away from the

tests themselves, to additional factors that may

affect validity. These factors are sometimes referred to as dimensions of external validity and

aid in the assessment of the generalizability of

research findings. Considerations of these factors

will enable evacuation of the conditions under

which various levels of validity may be expected

from polygraph examinations. Differential validity in polygraph tests may be obtained with different examiners, subject populations, and with

examinations conducted in different settings.

Examiner

It has long been recognized (cf. 108,122,135,

154) that the examiner’s skill has an important effect on the validity of polygraph tests. Examiner

experience is an essential element reported by investigators and has often been used to explain differences in accuracy rates (137,138). There are

some data to indicate that experienced examiners

have better accuracy rates. In recognition of this

outcome, training has been accorded a high priority both within and outside Government agencies

which conduct polygraph examinations and by

polygraph examiner groups (cf. 3). An extensive

array of training facilities now exists, offering a

somewhat diverse set of orientations to polygraph

testing.

Experience

A number of studies have tested how examiner

experience relates to validity of polygraph examinations. Horvath and Reid (84), for example,

had charts utilized in their validity study reexamined by a group of 10 polygraph examiners.

Seven of the examiners were experienced and three

of them were examiner-interns (each with less than

6 months’ experience). According to Horvath and

Reid, experienced examiners made an average of

91.4 percent correct judgments, while the average

for inexperienced examiners was 77.5 percent.

83
84

Training

Experience in conducting polygraph examinations suggests that there are a number of clinical

components to detection of deception. To some

extent, training programs capture these clinical

elements by extensive training in “proper” examiner attitude and relationship with subjects. Increasingly, however, training programs emphasize

standardized techniques for constructing questions

and scoring examinations. In this respect, the U.S.

Army Military Police School (USAMPS) is perhaps the best example. The school serves as the

central training site for almost all Government

agencies which maintain polygraph examiner

staffs. USAMPS teaches several versions of the

control question technique (CQT) (including what

they call the modified general question technique

(MGQT) and the original Backster’s zone of comparison (ZOC) method) and several specific protocols for selecting question sets and scoring

polygraph charts. Trainees receive both didactic

classroom training and supervised experience conducting polygraph examinations. The current curriculum for USAMPS uses Reid and Inbau’s (139)

text on polygraph testing, supplemented by materials prepared especially for its trainees (179).

USAMPS is one of a number of training programs

certified by the American Polygraph Association

(cf. 3).

On the basis of presently available data, it is

not possible to determine whether types of training have an effect on outcomes. A study by Raskin (133) indicates that examiners trained in

schools that emphasize numerical scoring were

significantly more accurate than examiners who

attended other schools (97.1 v. 86.9 percent). It

is difficult to determine, however, if training in

numerical scoring is more efficient or if better examiners/schools select such techniques. The fact

that examiners who were trained in numerical

techniques, but who did not use them, did more

poorly than examiners trained in numerical techniques who used them (88.5 v. 98.9 percent) suggests that numerical evaluation rather than examiner selection (or some other aspect of the training) provides an advantage.

Subjects

Much effort in recent years has been devoted

to development of systematic training. Less attention appears to have been paid to the characteristics of subjects of polygraph testing. Frequently, research reports of polygraph examination do

not report even the most easily available data on

subject characteristics (e.g., proportion of males

and females). There have, however, been a number of studies of specific population groups (e.g.,

psychopaths) hypothesized to be less detectable.

In addition to subjects’ psychopathy, other diagnostic categories and subject variables such as

gender, intelligence, motivation, and responsivity to arousal may also affect validity.

Subject factors are often described in the literature as personality or individual difference factors (136,194). They refer to traits associated with

individuals that may make them differentially detectable in a polygraph examination. Understanding these effects should enable determination of

the conditions under which polygraph testing will

yield particular levels of validity. The mechanism

by which subject variables affect polygraph examination validity has to do with differential

autonomic arousal. Validity is affected when an

interaction results between arousal and polygraph

testing.

Psychopathy and Level of Socialization

One aspect of potential subject effects that has

received considerable attention is the effect of level

of socialization and psychopathy on detectability. In a series of studies by Waid and his colleagues (193,198,199) significant relationships

were found in the laboratory between socialization and autonomic responsiveness. An initial

finding (193) was that college students who scored

low on socialization (on a standard psychological

inventory), gave smaller electrodermal responses

(EDRs) to stimuli than did high scoring subjects.

In a more directly relevant investigation (198), a

group of college students was asked to deceive or

not to deceive a professional polygraph examiner.

Results indicated that subjects who were not
85

detectable were significantly less socialized than

those who were detectable. Susceptibility to detection seemed to be mediated by socialization;

results indicated that low socialization subjects

showed reduced EDRs. Highly socialized subjects

were more responsive electrodermally, and as a

result, several of them were misclassified as

deceptive.

Raskin (136) has criticized Waid, et al.’s (198),

research as not having practical significance for

evaluations of polygraph validity. According to

Raskin, simply demonstrating that there is a difference in responsivity on the first set of questions

does not mean that subjects would not be correctly detected in an actual polygraph examination

(which may involve three to four charts). Some

of Raskin’s own studies (e.g., 21,137) suggest that

psychopathic individuals are not less detectable

than nonpsychopathic individuals. In Raskin and

Hare’s study, convicted felons, half of whom were

diagnosed as psychopathic, performed a mock

crime. These subjects were then administered a

polygraph examination and offered a substantial

monetary bonus if they could produce a truthful

outcome. In contrast to Waid, et al. ’s, findings,

Raskin and Hare found that individuals diagnosed

as psychopathic and/or low in socialization were

more reactive and easily detectable than those not

psychopathic and high in socialization. Earlier

research by Raskin (21) supports this finding.

Barland and Raskin’s (22) field study, on the other

hand, found that subjects who scored high on the

psychopathic deviate (Pal) scale of the Minnesota

Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) (a

measure of psychopathy) had smaller cardio (but

not respiration or skin conductance) scores than

low Pd subjects.

In a previously described study, Balloun and

Holmes (12) conducted an analog study of college students using a “cheating” situation. Their

results indicated that subjects who scored high on

the Pd scale of the MMPI were just as easy to

detect as were those individuals who scored low

on the scale. It is important to note, however, that

the polygraph test was a concealed information

type of test, not a CQT or relevant/irrelevant

(R/1) test. A doctoral dissertation by Hammond

(64a) also found no differences between normal

and psychopaths.

Other Psychopathology

Guilty psychopaths may escape detection because they are not concerned enough about a misdeed to create interpretable physiological responses. Individuals with other forms of psychopathology may escape detection or be classified

as false positives for other reasons (e.g., emotional

instability, delusional thinking). The one study

that has investigated this possibility (74) found,

in fact, that innocent neurotics and particularly

psychotics were likely to be identified as deceptive. There were no guilty subjects in this “real

crime” analog study.

Gender

One of the most obvious subject differences is

gender. Males and females may have different patterns of autonomic arousal, and such differences

may affect polygraph testing validity (136,194).

Unfortunately, few data exist to examine this

hypothesis; most research only studies male subjects. The one study by Cutrow, et. al. (45), that

specifically tested for sex differences did not find

any. In another study (61), all female subjects

were tested in a mock-crime situation using the

guilty knowledge test (GKT). GKT was found to

be highly accurate, but because males were not

also tested, it is impossible to determine if males

would have been less detectable. The two Honts

and Hodes (76,77) analog studies described in

chapter 5 included both females and males; the

researchers do not report any gender differences

in detectability.

Intelligence

Intelligence is an additional variable which potentially might affect detectability. The ability of

intelligent subjects to anticipate questions may affect polygraph accuracy. One possibility is that

intelligent subjects are less detectable because, if

trained, they are able to anticipate questions and

employ countermeasures. Another possibility is

that because intelligent subjects better understand

the implications of a polygraph examination, they

will respond to relevant questions with heightened

arousal when they are attempting to deceive (2o).

There has been relatively little research on intelligence and polygraph testing. In one of the few
86

experiments which look at intelligence and detectability, Kugelmass (95) found no correlation between intelligence and responsivity on a peak of

tension (POT) card test. On the other hand, research by Gustafson and Orne (65) found that motivation to deceive increased the probability of

detection. Barland and Raskin (20) feel this is

evidence of the potential role of intelligence.

Barland and Raskin’s study (22) which compared

detection rates among subjects of different education levels, found no difference. However, a separate analysis of the sources of false positive errors by Raskin (133) found that the majority of

false positives occurred among subjects who had

college degrees. Level of education, of course, is

not a perfect indicator of intelligence, and there

is a need to better understand these relationships.

Ethnic and Group Differences

Another category of subject differences that

may affect polygraph validity has to do with

ethnic and group differences in physiological response. Research conducted cross culturally (e.g.,

97,104,158), indicates that there are ethnic differences in response to stress. Such differences

may, in turn, affect detection of deception. As

noted earlier, these effects may interact with the

ethnic identification of the examiner. However,

effects of ethnic differences have not been directly tested with respect to polygraph examinations.

Autonomic Lability

A final individual difference is what Waid and

Orne (194) have referred to as autonomic lability. Regardless of other differences among subjects,

there may be consistent individual differences connected with their level of autonomic arousal.

Although there is considerable variance for an

individual in autonomic responses to most physiological measures of autonomic nervous system

(ANS) arousal, electrodermal lability maybe different. Given the importance of the EDR for polygraph examinations, it maybe essential to understand more about this factor. Unfortunately, most

of this research (e. g., 200) has been conducted

with concealed information tests and not with

CQT or R/I tests.

Setting

One theory underlying lie detection using the

polygraph is that the threat of punishment leads

an individual to manifest a physiological reaction

(48). This suggests, then, that settings in which

an individual is more certain of being detected and

in which the consequences are greatest, will permit higher levels of detection. Furthermore, in

order to be certain of being detected, a subject

must believe in the efficacy of the polygraph procedures in order for it to function. According to

some (e.g., 194), the polygraph is often used

somewhat like a “stage prop, ” and its presence

is meant to “enhance the subject’s concern. ”

Stimulation tests, used in almost all field

polygraph examinations, serve the same function,

albeit more directly. There is considerable discussion (e. g., 202) in the literature about how frequently within a polygraph examination such

stimulation tests should be utilized in order to increase the validity of the examination.

Instrument

Some research, reported by Orne and his colleagues, addresses the question of the situational

features necessary for a polygraph examination.

In one component of a study reported by Orne,

et al. (123), subjects were led to believe that the

polygraph recording equipment was not operative. There was some indication that the pretest

condition in which subjects were led to believe

that the polygraph instrument was inoperative

produced a lower detectability; however, results

were not statistically significant. In an earlier

study (161), detectability was not affected by subjects’ belief in whether the machine was recording.

Both of these studies involved use of concealed

information tests.

A more recent study by Orne’s group (198)

tested a similar hypothesis using a different procedure. In this study, subjects saw the polygraph

machine turned off, although the experimenters

actually ran the leads to a second polygraph device and were able to record responses during a

pretest review of questions. The results indicated

that subjects who were aware of being recorded

had significantly higher responses to relevant

questions and not significantly different responses

to control questions.
87

—

Bogus Pipeline

An interesting and potentially important aspect

of how the polygraph achieves valid results is

based on what social psychologists such as Jones

and Sigall call the “bogus pipeline” (87). The

bogus pipeline is a procedure used to elicit truthful

attitudes in situations where social desirability effects (i.e., subjects’ desire to express socially acceptable opinions) may mask actual attitudes. The

procedure involves attaching subjects (via skin

electrodes) to an ostensible physiological recording device called the “electromyograph” (EMG)

and providing subjects with a “steering wheel”

device to record their attitudes. In a typical study

(87), subjects were told that the EMG measured

implicit muscle potentials and that it was an improved polygraph or “lie detector. ” l-he recording

device is actually “electrical junk” (87), and the

purpose of the procedure is simply to convince

subjects that their actual attitudes are detectable.

Results from a number of investigations which

have used the bogus pipeline procedure (e.g.,

131,150) support Jones and Sigall’s premise. Several studies indicate that when subjects believe

that their attitudes are detectable by a physiological recording device, they more readily express

their actual attitudes. Although it is difficult to

know what “actual” attitudes are, higher truthfulness is assumed with the bogus pipeline because

the procedure yields more socially undesirable responses than when it is not used. For example,

in Sigall and Page’s (150) initial experiment, they

found that subjects in the bogus pipeline condition would admit to negative attitudes about

“Negroes.” Similar subjects in nonbogus pipeline

conditions using paper-and-pencil tests would not

reveal such attitudes. Later research has shown

that this findings holds for attitudes toward handicapped individuals and for “confessing” to having prior knowledge about a psychological experiment.

Although the bogus pipeline research suggests

that the conditions of testing (in particular, the

perceived complexity and accuracy of equipment)

may have important effects on polygraph subjects, it is not clear how or to what extent these

effects influence the validity of the test itself. In

a substantial number of criminal investigations

subjects voluntarily confess after having the polygraph procedure explained or being shown the results of the examination. In personnel screening,

subjects often admit to errors in their job application~ or past indiscretions (24,165). Most available field and analog research does not permit determination of the extent to which the polygraph

is used in this way.

Specific Settings

Polygraph examinations take place in a number

of settings, ranging from facilities specifically designed for this purpose to motel rooms. Specifically designed facilities usually include one-way mirrors for observation and audio recording capabilities, and are located so as to prevent interruptions during the examination. It is reasonable to

assume that the setting may interact both with

subject and examiner characteristic-s to affect the

validity of polygraph tests. No research, however,

directly tests the impact of different settings on

polygraph testing validity.

COUNTERMEASURES

Countermeasures are deliberate techniques used tion. The research on polygraph countermeasures

by deceptive subjects to avoid detection during is summarized below by type of countermeasure.

a polygraph examination (23,108,139,194,195).

Countermeasures can range from simple physical Physical techniques, to so-called mental countermeasures,

to the use of drugs and biofeedback techniques. Physical measures taken by a subject during a

There is a potentially large list of such counter- polygraph examination are, perhaps, the most fremeasures, and there are a number of plausible, quently discussed countermeasures used by subbut not yet validated, techniques to avoid decep- jects (20,108). Any physical activity which could
88

affect physiological response is a potential problem for interpretation of a polygraph test record.

There is no question that physical measures, from

tensing muscles to biting the tongue, to squeezing toes, to shifting one’s position can affect

physiological response.

There are frequent references to the use of such

measures (see e.g., 40,108). But little systematic

research has been conducted to establish the impact of the use of such measures on polygraph

decisions. Kubis (93) found that when subjects

press their toes towards the floor they were able

to reduce the probability of detection from 75 to

10 percent. A replication of this experiment, however, by More (119) found that there was no decrease in detectability caused by toe movements.

In two more recent studies discussed in chapter

5, by Honts and Hodes (76,77), the efficacy of

two physical countermeasures was tested in analog situations. Both studies found that countermeasures allowed subjects to “beat” the polygraph. Furthermore, there were a large percentage of inconclusive. In addition, both studies

found that experienced examiners were not able

to detect use of the countermeasures. A recent

study by Honts, Raskin, and Kircher (78) also

found that the use of physical countermeasures

decreased detectability; the false negative rate for

countermeasure subjects was 78 percent. However, examiners using a separate EMG analysis

were abic to detect the use of countermeasures 80

percent of the time.

Thus, the evidence, while limited, is that deceptive subjects who use physical countermeasures

and who can distinguish nonrelevant from relevant questions (in a CQT or R/I test) can increase

their chances of avoiding detection.

Drugs

In contrast to physical measures, which potentially may be detected by an observant polygraph

examiner by running multiple charts or by careful

comparison of particular physiological measures,

the use of various pharmacological agents is probably more difficult to detect. Not only may drugs

be difficult to detect by observation, but they may

also not be detected by multiple polygraph tests.

Some theorists have suggested that such pharmacological agents have the potential to produce incorrect or uninterpretable polygraph records.

Research on drugs’ factors is only beginning to

be conducted. Recent research by Waid (197) indicates that the tranquilizer, meprobamate (Miltown”), permits subjects who are being deceptive

to increase their ability to avoid detection in a

polygraph examination. One feature of tranquilizers such as meprobamate is that they suppress

autonomic activity which may not be accompanied by any observable psychomotor differences.

In Waid, et al.’s, study a GKT was used in a polygraph test. Subjects were all male and divided into

three groups: 1) a tranquilizer group; 2) a placebo

group; and 3) a control group. Only 3 of 11 guilty subjects who had taken meprobamate were

scored as deceptive.

It should be noted that because Waid, et al. ’s,

investigation involved GKT, the ability to

generalize from the results is limited. According

to Raskin (136), a different problem would be encountered by attempts to utilize tranquilizers to

defeat an examination employing CQT. The use

of such drugs in a CQT polygraph examination

would be more likely to yield inconclusive findings, rather than errors, because the drugs would

likely result in no difference between the responses

to control and relevant questions. This interpretation is supported by the recent analog study of

Gatchel, et al. (59), which found that the use of

propranolol, a beta-blocking drug, resulted in a

32.2-percent inconclusive rate, although the overall error rate was low. An additional finding was

that examiners could not tell which subjects had

used the drug. Conclusions drawn from this study

must be limited by the fact that subjects were students. Other studies using college students (e.g.,

76,77) have also resulted in large numbers of inconclusive.

A recent study by Iacono, et al. (86), found that

ingestion of neither 10 milligrams of diazepam

(Valium”) nor 20 milligrams of methylophenidate

(Ritalin@) affected the accuracy of detection.

Results in both active drug conditions were more

accurate than when subjects ingested a placebo

(a capsule containing lactose).

Research on other psychoactive drugs has not

been reported in the literature, although such
89

research is now being planned under the auspices

of the National Security Agency and the Army

Intelligence and Security Command. There are

also no data as to the use of common drugs by

actual polygraph examination subjects. Although

examiners normally ask subjects to report use of

medications or other drugs, blood samples or

other detection means are typically not employed.

It is thus difficult to assess the magnitude of drug

use by subjects in previous research on the validity

of polygraph testing.

In addition to drugs, there have also been reports of the use of various chemicals to confuse

physiological recording (see 20). Placing antiperspirant powder, clear nail polish, or other agents

on the balls of one’s finger’s may make EDRs less

reliable. Such measures, however, should be detectable by a trained examiner.

Hypnosis/Biofeedback

There is a substantial literature in psychology

about the use of hypnosis and biofeedback to alter

and condition physiological responses. There is

some evidence (see 146) that hypnosis, for example, induces declines in skin conductance levels.

A number of investigations have attempted to

show that hypnotically suggested amnesia is an

effective countermeasure. Such research seems to

indicate that hypnosis is not effective (see 20).

Recent research by Corcoran, Lewis, and Garver (42) has examined the effects of biofeedback

training on suppressing EDR. They found that

both hypnosis and biofeedback groups were able

to reduce detectability after training as compared

to a control group. In another study, Rovner,

Raskin, and Kircher (143) reported that subjects

who received extensive information about the nature of lie detection and practiced using countermeasures were detected significantly less than subjects without such training. It seems clear that if

hypnosis or biofeedback operate as countermeasures, especially with commonly used tests such

as CQT, that extensive training would have to

accompany their use.

Menta l

Another category of countermeasures involves

those that get the subject to think differently about

the test. As noted earlier, most polygraph examinations rely on the subject’s motivation to avoid

detection rather than on any response directly

connected with “telling a lie. ” Simple cognitive

countermeasures include patterns of thinking that

suppress responses to control or irrelevant questions. More complex cognitive countermeasures

are based on knowledge of the results of the ex- —

amination and lack of belief in one’ ‘

bility.

Controlling Thoughts

Any individual who understands

structure of a particular polygraph examination

should be able to differentiate irrelevant and control from relevant questions (when an R/I or CQT

examination is conducted). Given that when a

CQT is employed, the questions are reviewed

prior to their presentation, a subject intent on deception could try to alter cognitively responses

to various questions (although, since the order of

presentation is varied, this is made difficult during an actual test), The procedure would be to

try to dissociate oneself from the relevant questions and heighten response to control questions.

Various means of such mental dissociation have

been described (cf. 20,108). They range from concentrating on an irrelevant object or by convincing oneself that the question means something different than intended.

s aetectathe basic

There is little research evidence available to ascertain the potential of these techniques. Only one

study on the use of such cognitive countermeasures appears to have been conducted, and it does

not provide much information. In this study,

Dawson (49) used as subjects actors trained in the

“method” school of acting. Subjects were instructed to try to defeat the polygraph in a CQT

examination. The results indicated that without

exception the actors were detected and were not

able to control their affective responses. It should

be noted, however, that the actors in Dawson’s

study were merely told to “appear innocent” and

were not told what would make them appear nondeceptive on a polygraph test.

Knowledge of Results

Another set of countermeasures is based on subjects having knowledge of the results of their poly-
90

graph examination. In criminal situations, particularly when an inconclusive outcome is obtained

or when the subject disagrees with the outcome

of an initial polygraph test, subjects are retested.

In noncriminal situations, individuals are often

tested at the beginning of their employment and

at a number of subsequent points. In addition,

subjects who know that they will receive a polygraph examination may seek training in methods

to avoid detection. For all of these reasons, it is

important to understand how feedback about

polygraph examinations affects validity and

whether prior experiences represent a potential

countermeasure.

In an early laboratory study (67), subjects were

given a stimulation test and feedback concerning

its outcome. Feedback was manipulated so that

some subjects thought they had successfully

avoided detection and others thought that they

had not. Subjects were motivated on a subsequent

trial to avoid detection (they were told, “only

mature and stable individuals are able to fool the

lie detector”). The results indicated that subjects

who believed that they had avoided detection

were much less detectable on the second trial (13

out of 16 were not detected, while only 1 of 16

in a control group were able to avoid detection).

It should be noted that a stimulation test is a form

of a concealed information test and the result may

be due to lowered overall arousal. “Beating” a

CQT represents a somewhat different problem.

A recent study, by Rovner, et al. (143), tested

a similar hypothesis in a CQT examination. Several groups of subjects were placed in a mock

crime situation. One group was given information about the nature of a CQT examination and

information on what physiological reactions they

should try to simulate. Another group was given

information plus two practice tests involving actual physiological recordings after which they

were told whether or not they had beat the polygraph. A third group served as a control and was

given a typical polygraph examination. The results indicated that the information only and control group were not able to avoid detection; however, 25 percent of the guilty subjects in the information plus practice group were able to avoid

detection. Raskin (136) maintains that this 25-percent error rate should be considered the “upper

limit” because, in actual field situations, motivation would be much higher. Although Raskin is,

perhaps, correct, it is also possible that in actual

situations (where motivation is high), subjects

might engage in more practice.

Belief in “Machine”

A final countermeasure is based on research

about the bogus pipeline (87) and the role of the

setting in inducing valid outcomes. If the validity of polygraph testing is dependent on the belief

by subjects in the efficacy of the procedure, then

a possible countermeasure would involve training subjects to believe that the polygraph does not

work. This might be done, for example, by providing subjects with false feedback on a polygraph

examination. Unfortunately there is little research

in this area, and the two studies that have been

conducted come to different conclusions about the

effect of belief in the techniques’ effectiveness. In

one study, Bradley and Janisse (35) tested the

hypothesis by rigging a stimulation test at various

levels of effective detection. Depending on the

condition, subjects were “detected” on one, two,

or three trials to create the impression that the

detection measures were ineffective, sometimes effective, or perfectly effective. For the EDR measure, the more effective the apparatus appeared to

be, the more the innocent subjects scored as nondeceptive and the more the guilty subjects scored

as deceptive. In an earlier study, however, Timm

(162) found that feedback about the techniques’

effectiveness had no effect on whether subjects

deceptiveness or nondeceptiveness could be detected. The theoretical support provided by research on the bogus pipeline indicates that subjects’ belief in the technique may be important,

and that additional research is needed to assess

the effects of belief in the machine on actual polygraph tests.
91

RESEARCH IMPLICATIONS OF FACTORS AFFECTING VALIDITY

If further research on polygraph testing is carried out, a number of research priorities can be

identified on the basis of the present analysis.

These priorities include research on the theory of

polygraph testing, polygraph techniques, countermeasures, comparison with other techniques,

and field-based studies.

Theory

Polygraph testing is premised on the belief that

lying produces reliable physiological reactions.

Testing the efficacy of this assumption is an important research need, Basic research could examine the physiological reactions to different

types of lies and under different conditions of

arousal.

Scoring

Research is currently being conducted by the

U.S. Army on development of computer scoring

systems and more reliable measures of physiological arousal. There is some evidence (e. g., 92) that

the validity of polygraph examination decisions

is improved if the clinical judgment of examiners

is removed (see also, 27) and related evidence that

numerical scoring is more accurate (91,133) than

nonnumerical scoring, Research should proceed

on developing analogs to digital scoring systems.

Such research, however, would not address the

impact of examiner-examinee interaction, and this

area also needs further study.

Question Techniques

Another research priority is to develop additional protocols for question development.

Perhaps the most important research need in this

regard is to develop and field-test the concealed

information test. Basic research and theory (see,

e.g., 27,108, 136) suggests that such examinations

have the highest likelihood of detecting deception,

although no field research has yet been conducted

to examine their use. Such research should both

establish means of constructing GKTs and their

validity in actual use.

An additional priority is to develop and test

question techniques that may be employed in

screening situations. Some examiners for example claim to use a version of CQT for screening

examinations (see ch. 2). This application of CQT

has not been subjected to scientific tests of validity. In addition, efforts should be devoted to testing the use of CQT with different subject groups

and in national security investigations.

Countermeasures

If polygraph testing is to be more widely employed in national security investigations, there

is an urgent need for research on countermeasures.

Particular priorities would be research on drugs,

biofeedback training, and subject gullibility, and

motivation. Such research needs to be carried out

both in field situations and in the laboratory.

There are a number of drugs that are suspected

of lowering ANS arousal and that theoretically

may be able to invalidate the results of a polygraph examination or compel an “inconclusive”

finding. A first priority is to extend Waid, et al. ’s

(197), research on meprobamate (which reduced

detectability) to other psychoactive drugs.

Biofeedback training, as well as other forms of

training have not been investigated, yet their effects on polygraph examinations may be substantial. Subjects’ beliefs about the accuracy of the

polygraph may also be critical. As suggested by

the research on the “bogus pipeline, ” individuals

who believe their underlying thoughts are detectable are more likely to provide truthful responses.

The reverse phenomenon seems feasible and it

would seem possible to train individuals to believe

that the polygraph is ineffective. Such training

might be accomplished by providing individuals

with false feedback on the polygraph as well as

by specific instructions during simulated polygraph examinations. Similarly, subjects who can

be easily trained to beat the polygraph may be

more desirable as intelligence agents.
92

Comparison With Other Techniques

Only one study in the available literature (207)

systematically compares the polygraph with other

investigatory tools. There is a need to examine

whether the polygraph provides independent or

corroborative evidence and whether the judgments made by polygraph examiners are merely

a function of their clinical judgment as investigators, or whether it is a function of the polygraph

examination itself.

A complication with this research is that the

polygraph functions, in many situations, as a

threat. Individuals’ fear of taking the examination,

in many instances, may lead them to confess or

provide incriminating evidence. The threat potential, however, is in part a function of theirs and

others’ knowledge of research results. If, for example, it became widely known that the polygraph was “beatable, “ it is likely that this threat

would be reduced and, hence, the validity (and

utility) of the polygraph would be reduced.

Field Studies

As described in chapters 3, 4, and 5, there are

numerous problems with the available field and

analog evidence. Field studies are problematic beCONCLUSIONS

The description in this chapter of factors affecting validity and potential countermeasures suggests that there is a great deal more to understand

about polygraph tests before one can be assured

of their validity. Despite our lack of full understanding, however, several factors that affect

validity are known. In part, the history of polygraph development over the past 15 to 20 years

has been to systematize and improve polygraph

testing procedures based on these factors. One

cause they can only only be conducted where an

independent criterion of guilt or innocence is

available. As such, these studies may represent

a select sample of cases (e. g., where guilt is overwhelming) and a select set of examiners. Analog

studies have a different set of problems and have

not adequately motivated subjects or may not

have the appropriate number of cases. What is

needed is research which deals with the problems

of the available field and analog studies.

One “theoretical” solution to the problem of

conducting systematic field studies is to conduct

“ABSCAM’ ’-like investigations using bogus unauthorized disclosures (instead of bribes) that

would enable investigators to set up situations

where they have knowledge of who is guilty or

innocent. The polygraph could be used to select

guilty from innocent with a known base rate and

ground truth. Such methods, of course, raise a

number of ethical, legal, and pragmatic questions,

and it is not clear whether they could provide definitive answers. They could not be used frequently nor with a wide range of techniques/situations.

Conducting polygraph research presents serious

conceptual and methodological problems; in the

absence of such research, however, it will not be

possible to develop fully an assessment of the validity of polygraph examinations.

central problem, not adequately addressed by

either the literature on improvements in validity

or countermeasures, is the extent to which these

factors affect false negative and positive error rates

or affect numbers of inconclusive. For policy purposes, clearly such distinctions and a sense of the

magnitude of false decisions is needed. Substantial research, beyond what is currently available,

would have to be conducted in order to answer

such questions.
Chapter 7

Conclusions
Chapter 7

Conclusions

INTRODUCTION

The primary purpose of this technical memorandum is to evaluate the scientific evidence on

the validity of polygraph tests. The memorandum

responds to concerns of the Committee on Government Operations, U.S. House of Representatives, about significant changes in Federal Government policy concerning polygraph testing. As

discussed in chapters 1 and 3, National Security

Decision Directive 84 (NSDD-84), issued by the

President on March 11, 1983, authorized executive

agencies and departments to require employees

to take a polygraph examination in the course of

investigations of unauthorized disclosures of classified information. On October 19, 1983, the Department of Justice announced that administration policy would also permit Government-wide

polygraph use in preemployment, preclearance,

periodic, and aperiodic personnel security screening of employees with access to highly classified

information. Draft proposed revisions to Department of Defense (DOD) polygraph regulations

(DOD 5210.48) would also authorize the ex

-

panded use of polygraph testing as part of personnel security screening of employees with highly

sensitive access.

The combined effect of these changes is to authorize substantially expanded use of polygraph

OVERALL SCIENTIFIC CONCLUSIONS

examinations by the Federal Government for investigations of specific incidents (i. e., unauthorized disclosures), and, most significantly, for

personnel security screening. In addition, NSDD84, administration policy, and the DOD proposals

authorize adverse consequences for refusal to take

a polygraph examination.

By letter of February 3, 1983, the Committee

on Government Operations asked OTA to assess

the scientific evidence on the validity of polygraph

testing, based primarily on a critical review and

evaluation of existing research. In order to conduct this assessment, OTA studied the actual polygraph examination process, reviewed the results

of prior research reviews, analyzed a wide range

of relevant field and analog studies, and surveyed

Federal agencies as to their polygraph use and any

past, present, or planned polygraph research. This

chapter highlights the overall scientific conclusions

of the OTA evaluation and then discusses in some

detail specific scientific conclusions and the implications for recent and proposed changes in Federal policy on polygraph testing.

OTA concluded that, as shown in chapter 2,

polygraph testing is, in reality, a very complex

process that varies widely in application. Although the polygraph instrument itself is essentially the same for all applications, the purpose

of the examination, type of individual tested, examiner training, setting of the examination, and

type of questions asked, among other factors, can

differ substantially. The instrument cannot itself

detect deception. Therefore, polygraph tests require the examiner to develop questions to be

asked in each case, compare the physiological

response (as measured by the instrument) to the

different questions, and infer deception or truthfulness based on these comparisons.

One general type of polygraph question technique (called the control question technique) is

commonly used for investigations of specific criminal incidents and has received most of the research attention. Another technique (known as

relevant/irrelevant) typically used for preemploy -

ment screening and periodic screening purposes

has been only minimally researched. Based on a

95
detailed review of these and other question techniques in chapter 2, OTA concluded that there

are significant differences, and that the results of

research on one technique cannot be generalized

to other techniques. Also, differences between

techniques are so significant that the results of

research on one technique in one application cannot necessarily be extrapolated to other applications. Chapter 2 also reviewed the Federal Government’s use of polygraph testing and found that,

with the exception of the National Security Agency (NSA) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA),

most current use, even in DOD, is for investigation of specific crimes using the control question

technique.

In chapter 3, OTA reviewed the legal, governmental, and scientific controversies over polygraph testing. OTA found that previous debates

at the Federal level have focused heavily on

whether polygraph testing is scientifically valid.

The conclusion of previous congressional inquiries

has been that there is little or no scientific basis

for the use of polygraph testing. Prior scientific

reviews, on the other hand, have contradicted

each other, some concluding that polygraph testing is almost 100 percent accurate, others that it

is little better than chance. OTA determined that

part of the problem in reaching conclusions about

polygraph testing validity is that several scientific

criteria must be taken into account when assessing validity. Also, previous scientific reviews have

not been conducted systematically. In addition,

previous reviews, whether legal, governmental,

or scientific, have not differentiated polygraph use

by type of question technique or application.

OTA conducted its own systematic review of

prior research studies on the validity of polygraph

testing (see ch. 4 for discussion of field studies of

actual polygraph examinations and ch. 5 for

discussion of analog or simulation studies). OTA

found that there are almost no studies relevant

to proposed Federal Government expansion of

polygraph testing for preemployment, periodic,

or aperiodic screening. This finding has major policy implications discussed later. OTA also found

that, even among the rather extensive studies of

the control question technique in criminal investigations, there is a wide range of accuracy (and

thus, inconclusive and error) rates. OTA concluded that this accuracy range could be partially explained by variations in research design but

perhaps to a greater extent, as is discussed in

chapter 6, by differences in examiners, examinees,

question techniques, and conditions of testing.

OTA concluded, therefore, that no overall

measure or single statistic of polygraph validity

can be established based on available scientific

evidence. The amount and quality of the evidence

depends on the design and conduct of specific

studies and the particular application researched.

Some applications (e.g., the use of the polygraph

in criminal investigations) have been fairly heavily

researched, while others (e. g., po!ygraph use in

preemployment screening) have had very little

research attention.

Further, regardless of whether polygraph testing

is used in specific-incident investigations or personnel screening, OTA concluded that polygraph

accuracy may also be affected by a number of factors: examiner training, orientation, and experience; examinee characteristics such as emotional

stability and intelligence; and, in particular, the

use of countermeasures and the willingness of the

examinee to be tested. In addition, the basic

theory (or theories) of how the polygraph test

actually works has been only minimally developed and researched.

In sum, OTA concluded that there is at present only limited scientific evidence for establishing

the validity of polygraph testing. Even where the

evidence seems to indicate that polygraph testing

detects deceptive subjects better than chance

(when using the control question technique in specific-incident criminal investigations), significant

error rates are possible, and examiner and examinee differences and the use of countermeasures

may further affect validity.

More specific scientific conclusions and the implications for recent and proposed changes in Federal policy on polygraph testing are presented

below. The discussion is organized in terms of

conclusions and implications, first, for specificincident investigations and personnel security

screening use of the polygraph; second, for polygraph countermeasures and for the voluntary nature of testing; and finally, for further research.
97

SPECIFIC SCIENTIFIC CONCLUSIONS IN POLICY CONTEXT

Specific-Incident Criminal Investigations

A principal use of the polygraph test is as part

of an investigation (usually conducted by law enforcement or private security officers) of a specific

situation in which a criminal act has been alleged to have, or in fact has, taken place. This type

of case is characterized by a prior investigation

that both narrows the suspect list down to a very

small number, and that develops significant information about the crime itself. When the

polygraph is used in this context, the application

is known as a specific-issue or specific-incident

criminal investigation.

Results of OTA Review

The application of the polygraph to specificincident criminal investigations is the only one to

be extensively researched. OTA identified 6 prior

reviews of such research (summarized in ch. 3),

as well as 10 field and 14 analog studies that met

minimum scientific standards and were conducted

using the control question technique (the most

common technique used in criminal investigations; see chs. 2, 3, and 4). Still, even though

meeting minimal scientific standards, many of

these research studies had various methodological

problems that reduce the extent to which results

can be generalized. The cases and examiners were

often sampled selectively rather than randomly.

For field studies, the criteria for actual guilt or

innocence varied and in some studies were inadequate. In addition, only some versions of the control question technique have been researched, and

the effect of different types of examiners, subjects,

settings, and countermeasures has not been systematically explored.

Nonetheless, this research is the best available

source of evidence on which to evaluate the scientific validity of the polygraph for specific-incident

criminal investigations. The results (for research

on the control question technique in specificincident criminal investigations) are summarized

below:

● Six prior reviews of field studies:

—average accuracy ranged from 64 to 98

percent.

● Ten individual field studies:

—correct guilty detections ranged from 70.6

to 98.6 percent and averaged 86.3 percent;

—correct innocent detections ranged from

12.5 to 94.1 percent and averaged 76

percent;

—false positive rate (innocent persons found

deceptive) ranged from O to 75 percent and

averaged 19.1 percent; and

—false negative rate (guilty persons found

nondeceptive) ranged from O to 29.4 percent and averaged 10.2 percent.

. Fourteen individual analog studies:

—correct guilty detections ranged from 35.4

to 100 percent and averaged 63.7 percent;

—correct innocent detections ranged from 32

to 91 percent and averaged 57.9 percent;

—false positives ranged from 2 to 50.7 percent and averaged 14.1 percent; and

—false negatives ranged from O to 28.7 percent and averaged 10.4 percent.

The wide variability of results from both prior

research reviews and OTA’S own review of individual studies makes it impossible to determine

a specific overall quantitative measure of polygraph validity. The preponderance of research

evidence does indicate that, when the control

question technique is used in specific-incident

criminal investigations, the polygraph detects

deception at a rate better than chance, but with

error rates that could be considered significant.

The figures presented above are strictly ranges

or averages for groups of research studies.

Another selection of studies would yield different

results, although OTA’S selection represents the

set of studies that met minimum scientific criteria.

Also, some researchers exclude inconclusive results in calculating accuracy rates. OTA elected

to include the inconclusive on the grounds that

an inconclusive is an error in the sense that a guilty

or innocent person has not been correctly identified. Exclusion of inconclusive would raise the

overall accuracy rates calculated. In practice, inconclusive results may be followed by a re-test

or other investigations.
98

Relevance to NSDD-84 and Administration Policy

While the results of the OTA review indicate

that the control question technique has some validity in criminal investigations, there is only a

limited scientific basis for generalizing the results

of the OTA review to the context of NSDD-84

and the October 19, 1983, administration policy

on polygraph use. NSDD-84 and administration

policy authorize the use of the polygraph in administrative as well as criminal investigations of

unauthorized disclosures of classified information.

First, there is no validity research directly on

the use of the polygraph in unauthorized disclosure investigations. The subject matter and perhaps subjects of these investigations will vary

from the typical criminal investigation as might

the conditions and techniques of testing and use

of countermeasures.

Second, the investigative conditions authorized

by NSDD-84 and administration policy may be

quite different from conditions under which prior

research was conducted. NSDD-84 does not specify what type of investigative procedures will be

followed, how subjects will be selected or identified, who will conduct the examinations, or what

question techniques will be used. Administration

policy provides some specific guidelines such as

requiring that polygraph testing be used only

when “other information or means of investigation have produced a substantial objective basis

for seeking to examine the employee” and there

is “no other reasonable means of resolving the

matter” (185a). However, in general, the extent

to which employees will be requested or required

to take polygraph examinations in unauthorized

disclosure investigations is largely left to the

discretion of agency heads.

Third, even the Federal Bureau of Investigation

(FBI) has concluded that, “to date, no methodologically adequate study of control question techniques has been reported. . . . Inferences regarding the validity of control question examinations

. . . rest upon the results of laboratory studies

conducted under highly dissimilar conditions. ”

The FBI is planning its own validity research.

On the other hand, to the extent polygraph use

in unauthorized disclosure investigations is similar

to the way the polygraph is used in criminal investigations, there is at least some although far from

conclusive scientific basis for polygraph validity,

Large-Scale Screening

The polygraph test is used by some private

firms and on rare occasions by some Federal agencies to screen a large number of people in connection with the investigation of a crime. Unlike

the typical specific-incident criminal investigation,

in a large-scale screening investigation, typically

the suspect list has not been narrowed down to

one or a few persons and only limited information about the crime is available.

NSDD-84 appears to permit such use of the

polygraph in unauthorized disclosure investigations, although the actual extent of NSDD-84 is

unclear. Administration policy appears to be ambivalent. While on the one hand providing guidelines for “carefully limited use of the polygraph,”

the policy implies that DOD polygraph regulations are acceptable. DOD regulations have been

used, albeit infrequently, to authorize polygraph

screening of large numbers of individuals (ranging from about 2 dozen up to 80) in investigation

of specific incidents.

There is no scientific basis for generalizing the

results of the OTA review to establish polygraph

validity in this large-scale screening application.

First, no scientifically acceptable research has been

conducted on large-scale specific-incident screening use of the polygraph. Second, the screening

conditions here are likely to vary even more from

the conditions of the research studies reviewed by

OTA. For one thing, much less information is likely to be known about circumstances surrounding

an unauthorized disclosure and possible suspects.

This could translate into differences in the questions used, the behavior of the polygraph examiner, the motivation and response of the subject,

and the effectiveness of countermeasures.

Third, the large-scale screening use of polygraph testing theoretically can be expected to

result in significantly higher error rates than when

the list of suspects is narrowed down to a very

small number, as in a typical criminal investigation. The screening use of polygraph tests is most

dependent on the so-called base rate of guilt, i.e.,
99

the percentage of the group of persons being

screened that has engaged in the criminal (or

otherwise proscribed) activity. If the percentage

of guilty is small, say 5 percent (1 guilty person

out of every 20 persons screened, or 50 out of

1,000), then even assuming a very high (95 percent) polygraph validity rate, the predictive value

of the screening use of the polygraph would only

be 50 percent, That is, for each 1,000 individuals

screened, about 47 out of the 50 guilty persons

would be correctly identified as deceptive, but 47

out of the 950 innocent persons would be incorrectly identified as deceptive (false positives). Thus

of the 94 persons identified as deceptive, one-half

would be innocent persons. For every person correctly identified as deceptive, another person

would be incorrectly identified.

As another example, if a lower polygraph validity rate is assumed (say 90 percent), then the predictive value would be expected to drop to about

33 percent. That is, for every person correctly

identified as deceptive, two persons would be incorrectly identified (false positives).

These are, of course, hypothetical examples,

and have not been systematically investigated in

either field or analog research, although some

reviewers (e. g., Ben-Shakhar (28)) have carefully worked through a number of possibilities. Also,

operating procedures of Federal agencies (e.g,

quality control review, consideration of other investigatory information) might catch, correct, or

minimize erroneous polygraph decisions.

Nonetheless, the FBI, which outside of DOD

and CIA, is the principal Federal agency that conducts polygraph examinations, believes that largescale screening is not an appropriate use of polygraph testing. FBI regulations prohibit the “use

of the polygraph for dragnet-type screening of

large numbers of suspects or as a substitute for

logical investigation by conventional means” [FBI

Polygraph Regulation 13-22.2 (2), 1980],

Personnel Security Screening

Draft revisions to the DOD polygraph regulations would authorize the use of polygraph tests

to determine initial and continuing eligibility of

DOD civilian, military, and contractor personnel for access to highly classified information (Sensitive Compartmented Information and/or special

access). The use of polygraph tests to determine

continuing eligibility would be on an aperiodic

(i.e., irregular) basis (181). These are all known

as personnel security applications of the polygraph. In addition, administration policy announced on October 19, 1983, would permit Government-wide use of polygraph tests in personnel security screening of employees (and applicants for positions) with access to highly classified

information. The new policy provides agency

heads with the authority to give polygraph examinations on a periodic or aperiodic basis to

employees with highly sensitive access.

Results of OTA Review

Personnel security screening involves a different

type of polygraph test than specific-incident investigations, and very little screening research has

been conducted. Three studies were cited by the

intelligence agencies (NSA and CIA) as providing

support for personnel security use of polygraph

tests.

A 1975 field study (6) of polygraph screening

of government job applicants (from an unidentified Federal agency) showed high consistency in

readings of physiological arousal by different examiners. But this study concluded nothing about

validity.

In a 1981 analog study (43) of preemployment

screening use, 75 percent of the responses of

deceptive individuals were detected accurately.

Twenty-five percent were detected incorrectly.

Any conclusions based on this study must be limited by the fact that the subjects were students,

the questions and context had nothing to do with

national security, and the test format was atypical

of personnel screening examinations.

A 1980 survey conducted by the Director of the

Central Intelligence Security Committee concluded that the polygraph was the most productive of all background investigation techniques.

However, this was a utility study not a validity

study, and had many limitations and qualifications. For example, the criteria for case selection

were not stated and there was no independent

verification of the cases that were resolved. Also,
100

the polygraph was used only after a thorough investigation based on other sources had taken place

(see ch. 4 for further discussion).

OTA inquiries to all DOD components using

the polygraph identified only one DOD research

study on personnel screening use of the polygraph

(16). The results of this study raise more questions than they answer, and certainly do not provide support for high polygraph validity in a

screening situation. The limitations of the study

reduce its applicability, but it is the only DOD

polygraph screening research known to OTA.

OTA inquiries to other executive agencies and

departments using the polygraph identified no

research on personnel security screening use of the

polygraph.

OTA recognizes that the administration as well

as NSA, CIA, and DOD believe that the polygraph is a useful screening tool. However, OTA

concluded that the available research evidence

does not establish the scientific validity of the

polygraph for this purpose.

In comments to OTA, CIA agreed that the cumulative unclassified research evidence reviewed

by OTA is not directly relevant to national security applications. However, CIA does claim to have

classified research to support their use of polygraph tests. OTA did not review this research.

No other Federal agency, including NSA, has

claimed to have relevant research results that were

not available for OTA review on an unclassified

basis.

False Positives

One area of special concern in personnel security screening is the incorrect identification of innocent persons as deceptive. All other factors being equal, the low base rates of guilt in screening

situations would lead to high false positive rates,

even assuming very high polygraph validity. For

example, a typical polygraph screening situation

might involve a base rate of one guilty person

(e.g., one person engaging in unauthorized disclosure) out of 1,000 employees. Assuming that

the polygraph is 95 percent valid, then, the one

guilty person would be identified as deceptive but

so would 50 innocent persons. The predictive validity would be about 2 percent. Even if 99 percent polygraph validity is assumed, there would

still be 10 false positives for every correct detection of a guilty person.

Again, these are hypothetical examples that

have not been systematically studied in field or

analog research. NSA claims that they in fact have

experienced a very low false positive rate and that,

in any event, polygraph test results are only one

factor in making decisions and are subject to quality control checks and other reviews. It appears

that NSA (and possibly CIA) use the polygraph

not to determine deception or truthfulness per se,

but as a technique of interrogation to encourage

admissions. NSA has stated that the agency “does

not use the ‘truth v. deceptive’ concept of polygraph examinations commonly used in criminal

cases. Rather, the polygraph examination results

that are most important to NSA security adjudicators are the data provided by the individual during the pretest or posttest phase of the examination” (187).

The validity of the polygraph as used by NSA

has not been researched. And, in general, this kind

of application is potentially different in so many

ways from the polygraph use in specific-incident

criminal investigations (e. g., with respect to type

of questions asked and question techniques employed) that results of the OTA research re=~iew

previously discussed cannot be generalized to the

NSA situation.

False Negatives/Countermeasures

The primary purpose of polygraph testing

under NSDD-84, the DOD revised regulations,

and administration policy is to detect persons who

have or intend to participate in proscribed activities (e.g., unauthorized contact with a foreign

agent, disclosure of classified information). A concern with false negatives (guilty persons incorrectly identified as nondeceptive) is that, apart from

any errors inherent in the polygraph test itself,

the guilty person may be able to escape detection

through the use of countermeasures.

Theoretically, polygraph testing—whether for

personnel security screening or specific-incident

investigations—is open to a large number of countermeasures, including physical movement or

pressure, drugs, hypnosis, biofeedback, and prior
101

experience in passing an exam. The research on

polygraph countermeasures has been limited and

the results—while conflicting-suggest that validity may be affected. Further, some research (e.g.,

75) suggests that polygraph examiners may not

be able to easily detect certain physical countermeasures, The research results for drug and psychological countermeasures are mixed. The possible effects of countermeasures are particularly

significant to the extent that the polygraph is used

and relied on for national security purposes, since

even a small false negative rate could have serious

consequences. In addition, those individuals who

the Federal Government would most want to detect (e.g., for national security violations) may

well be the most motivated and perhaps the best

trained to avoid detection.

Voluntary v. Involuntary

As currently used in the Federal Government,

with few exceptions, polygraph examinations are

voluntary. That is, a person cannot be forced to

take a polygraph test against his or her will. A

refusal to take a polygraph test does not, or at

least is not supposed to, result in adverse consequences. The only exceptions are NSA (and by

extension, CIA) and, under certain conditions, the

FBI. NSA notes that “the polygraph examination

is part of the Agency’s security processing. Failure

to complete processing may result in failure to be

accepted for employment” (187). FBI regulations

require that “polygraph examinations will be administered only to individuals who agree or

volunteer to take an examination” [FBI Regulation 13-22.2(3) ]. The only exception is for certain

FBI employees and applicants under specified circumstances where “a refusal to be examined by

polygraph may lead to an adverse inference being drawn. ”

The DOD proposal would provide that refusal

to take a polygraph examination, when established as a requirement for selection or assignment

or as a condition of access, may result in adverse

consequences for the individual. These include

nonelection for assignment or employment, denial or revocation of clearance, or reassignment

to a nonsensitive position. NSDD-84 also provides

that refusal to take a polygraph test may result

in adverse consequences such as administrative

sanctions and denial of security clearance. And

administration policy authorizes denial of clearance, transfer or reassignment, and, under some

circumstances, termination of employment for refusal to take a polygraph test.

Under these conditions, polygraph examinations would not be voluntary in the strict sense,

since a refusal could result in penalties. Apart

from the ethical and perhaps legal implications,

which OTA did not address, conducting polygraph tests on this basis could affect test validity. It is generally recognized that, for the polygraph test to be accurate, the voluntary cooperation of the individual is important. For example,

NSA has stated that, in conducting screening examinations, “[t]he full cooperation of the individual taking the test is essential or the results will

be inconclusive. ” The polygraph only detects

physiological arousal, and under involuntary conditions, the arousal response of the examinee may

be very difficult or impossible to interpret. However, no direct research on this topic was identified, Overall, OTA concluded that imposing

penalties for not taking a test may create a de facto

involuntary condition that increases the chances

of invalid or inconclusive test results.

Further Research

OTA concluded that, to the extent that polygraph testing is going to continue to be used by

the Federal Government, further research is

needed. Possible research priorities include the

following.

Polygraph Theory

The basic theory of polygraph testing is only

partialIy developed and researched. The most

commonly accepted theory at present is that,

when the person being examined fears detection,

that fear produces a measurable physiological

reaction when the person responds deceptively.

Thus, in this theory, the polygraph instrument is

measuring the fear of detection rather than deception per se. And the examiner infers deception

when the physiological response to questions

about the crime or unauthorized activity is greater

than the response to other questions. However,

this theory has been challenged by some psycholo-
102

gists and others who believe that various factors

—e.g., the examinee’s intelligence level, psychological health, emotional stability, and belief in

the “machine’ ’-may, at least theoretically, affect

the physiological response.

OTA concluded that a stronger theoretical base

is needed for the entire range of polygraph applications, including current and proposed Federal

Government applications. Basic polygraph research should consider the latest research from the

fields of psychology, physiology, psychiatry,

neuroscience, and medicine; comparison among

question techniques; and measures of physiological response.

Criminal Investigation Validity

There are still many unanswered questions

about the validity of use of the polygraph in specific-incident criminal investigations. A planned

FBI-Secret Service validity study is intended to

meet this need. However, OTA did not review

the research plan, which would benefit from an

independent review by the scientific community

and others before the research approach is finalized. Such a review would help ensure that the

CONCLUDING COMMENT

A major reason why scientific debate over polygraph validity yields conflicting conclusions is that

the validity of such a complex procedure is very

difficult to assess and may vary widely from one

application to another. The accuracy obtained in

one situation or research study may not generalize

to different situations or to different types of persons being tested. Scientifically acceptable research on polygraph testing is hard to design and

conduct.

Advocates of polygraph testing argue that thousands of polygraphs have been conducted which

substantiate its usefulness in criminal or screening situations. Claims of usefulness, however, are

often dependent on information (e.g., confessions

and admissions) obtained before or after the actual test, and on its perceived value as a deterrent.

research design is as scientifically sound as possible, Also, the U.S. Army’s current l0-year research program to develop a new state-of-the-art

polygraph instrument should be reevaluated to

determine if research priorities and direction need

adjustment. As it stands now, validity issues will

not be addressed by the Army research until the

late 1980’s.

Personnel Security Screening Validity

Given the almost total lack of research on this

application, further research is clearly necessary

if there is to be any possibility of establishing a

scientific basis for the personnel security screening use of polygraph testing.

Research on Polygraph Countermeasures

Since NSA and CIA are already heavily dependent on the polygraph, their use alone justifies

an intensified research effort on countermeasures.

NSA and the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command are planning such research, but the

level of effort appears low (e.g., $65,000 pilot

study in NSA) considering the consequences of

false negatives.

The focus of the OTA technical memorandum

is not whether the polygraph test has been useful,

but whether there is a scientific basis for its use.

OTA concluded that, while there is some evidence

for the validity of polygraph testing as an adjunct

to typical criminal investigations of specific incidents, and more limited evidence when such investigations extend to incidents of unauthorized

disclosure. However, there is very little research

or scientific evidence to establish polygraph test

validity in large-scale screening as part of unauthorized disclosure investigations, or in personnel security screening situations, whether they be

preemployment, preclearance, periodic or aperiodic, random, or “dragnet. ” Substantial research

beyond what is currently available or planned

would have to be conducted in order to fully

assess the scientific validity of the NSDD-84,

DOD, and administration polygraph proposals.
Appendixes
— —

Appendix A

Informed Consent Forms

POLYGRAPH EXAMINATION WAIVER

Place: —

Date & Time: —— .

I , -—–-– ---- .- –- ----- ——- have been requested by Special ,

Agent —----- . -—-- — —— – — – — . - ——, of th e

to submit to a polygraph examination relative to my (knowledge

.

With the respect

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

(e)

(f)

to that request, I have been advised:

Naval Investigative Service

of) (participation [n)

.

that I have the right to consult with a lawyer prior to making any decision

concerning the examination;

that the polygraph examination wilI be conducted only with my prior written

consent; – -—– -–––

that no adverse action wiII be taken against me solely on the grounds that

I refuse to consent to this examination; —- –-—––

that the area in which the examination is to be conducted (does) (does not)

contain a two-way mirror or similar device; ——

that the area in which the examination is to be conducteci (does) (does not)

contain a camera; — —

that the area in which the examination is to be conducted (does) (does not)

contain an electronic audio recording device and the polygrapll examination

(will not) be monitored,

(wi II )

With an understanding of the above conditions, I have decided that I do not dlesire to

consuIt with a lawyer at this time. I freely consent to be examined by polygraph and

I agree to cooperate fully with the examiner during that examination, I make these

decisions freely and voluntarily and they are made with no threats having been made or

promises extended to me.

L—_— —

(Signature)

Time: --- -

Witnessed:

— -.—

NISFORM O1O-FIO4-8O G P3 BB S-4 , ‘

105
106

POLYGRAPH EXAMINATION For use of this form see AR 195-6; the proponent agency

STATEMENT OF CONSENT is U.S. Army criminal investigation command

PLACE DAT E TIM E

I

STAT EM EN T of CONSENT O F (Name, Grad., and SSN) PLACE OF BIRT H

I

DATE OF BIRT H

( Strike out inapplicable portions indicated in parentheses. )

In the presence of the witness whose signature(s) appear(s) below, Article 31 of the Uniform

Code of Military Justice and The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States have

been explained to me by

who informed me that he is a polygraph examiner of the United States Army. He has informed me

that this statement is being completed in connection with

He explained to me the nature of the polygraph examination and told me that I cannot be required to

take such examination without my consent. He explained to me that I have the right to consult with

counsel prior to this examination and to have counsel present to observe the examination. He explained

that this counsel may be civilian counsel retained at my expense, or counsel appointed for me at no ex –

pense to me (,or if a member of the United States Armed Forces, that 1 may select military counsel of

my choice if such counsel is reasonably available) 1 (do) (do not) want to consult with counsel prior

to this examination. 1 (do) (do not) want to have counsel present to observe the examination 1 was

further advised that the examination room (does) (does not) contain a two-way mirror or observation

device and that the examination (will) (will not) be monitored or recorded. He explained to me that I do

not have to make any statement whatsoever but that any statement 1 do make may be used as evidence

against me in a trial by court—martial (if subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice) or in an v

other military or judicial proceedings. Understanding my unqualified right to refuse, 1,

Understand that I wi11 be questioned prior to, during and after the

instrument port ion (s ) of the polygraph examination and

do hereby, this date, voluntarily and without duress, coercion, unlawful inducement, or promise of

reward, consent to a polygraph examination.

YPED NAME ORGANIZATION AN D/OR ADDRESS ORGANIZATION AND/OR ADDRES S

;

I

SIGNATURE

SIGNATURE OF EXAMINE R

I

TYPED NAME O R G A N I ZATION AND/OR ADORES S

1 I

I

I

TYPED NAME AND ORGANIZATIO N i

I

— DA REPLACES EDITION OF 1 JAN $$, WHICH IS OBSOLETE .

*U.S. Gomrnr-. nl ?rIntln$ Of flc. 1 9S -j10.SS I ~OSZ
.. 

Appendix B

Results of the OTA Survey of

Federal Government Polygraph Testing

Introduction

In May 1983, OTA surveyed selected Federal Government agencies including the Departments of State,

Defense (DOD), Treasury, and Justice, Central 1ntelIigence Agency (CIA), Office of Personnel Management, and U.S. Postal Service (USPS), with respect

to their use of polygraph testing. The survey requested

detailed information about agencies’ current and past

use of polygraph testing and research conducted or

planned by the agency. The request for information

was sent to all Federal agencies believed to conduct

polygraph examinations. A follow-up survey was sent,

in July 1983, with respect to use of polygraph testing

in unauthorized disclosure investigations.

Results of the survey are described below. All agencies responded to OTA’S inquiry; however, the CIA

considers all such operational and research information to be classified. In addition, the results do not include information from the Customs Service (a Department of the Treasury component), Department of

Health and Human Services, and Tennessee Valley

Authority, which conduct a limited but unknown

number of polygraph examinations. OTA supplemented the survey results with site visits to polygraph

facilities at the U.S. Army, National Security Agency

(NSA), and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and

discussions with officials from several Federal agency

polygraph programs.

Number of Polygraph Examinations

For 1982, the agencies reported conducting a total

of 22,597 individual polygraph examinations. Of this

total, 18,301 examinations were conducted by DOD

component agencies, including the Army, Navy, Air

Force, Marines, and NSA. Individual agency totals are

shown in table B-1. NSA conducts the largest number

of examinations, 43 percent of the total. Next, in terms

of number of tests, is the Army Criminal Investigation Command, followed by the Air Force Office of

Special Investigations, Naval Investigative Service,

and FBI. The NSA and the Air Force have steadily increased the number of examinations conducted each

year during the 1980-82 period, while the number of

polygraph examinations appears to be relatively stable

over this period in other agencies.

However, long-term trends in the number of polygraph examinations show a substantial increase since

1973. In fact, the total number of examinations in 1982

was more than triple the 1973 total (22,597 examinations in 1982 compared to 6,946 in 1973) and actually

surpassed the previous known high (19,796 in 1963,

excluding NSA). As illustrated below, the FBI, Air

Force, and NSA experienced the largest absolute increases in polygraph examinations over the 1973-82

period.

Number of examinations conducted

Agency Fiscal year 1p63 Fiscal year 1973 Fiscal year 1982

Army CIC 4,400

}

2,028 3,731

Army ISC 8,094 27?

Navy 1,200 665 1,337

Air Force 1,912 482 3019

Marines 812 62 263

NSA Not available 3,081 9,672

Other D O D 140 6 0

DOD subtotals 16558 6,325 18301

FBI 2314 79 2463

DEA 211

SS 65 50 714

BATF 256

USPS 338 485 652

Other 521 7 0

Totals 19,796 6,946 22597

SOURCE Data from the Office of Technology Assessment 1982 1973 and 1963 data

from U.S Congress, House of Representatives Committee on Governmernt

Operations, reports, The Use of Polygraphs and Similarr Devices by Federal

Agencies, 1976 and Use of Polygraphs as lie Detectors by the Federal Government, 1965

Number of Polygraph Examiners

For 1982, agencies reported employing a total of 209

polygraph examiners. Of these examiners, the majority

(130) were employed by DOD component agencies.

Individual agency totals are shown in table B-1. The

U.S. Army has the largest number of examiners, followed closely by the FBI, and then by the U.S. Air

Force and NSA. The reason that the number of examiners is not directly related to the number of examinations is that examinations are conducted by agencies

for different purposes and under different conditions.

For example, NSA examinations are conducted for

screening purposes in a central location; in contrast,

Army examinations are conducted primarily as part

of criminal investigations, and examiners frequently

travel to sites within a geographic region.

107
108

Table B-l .—Number of Polygraph Exams and Examiners

Number of polygraph exams Number of examiners

Fiscal year Fiscal year

Agency 1980 1981 1982 1980 1981 1982

Department of Defense:

Army Criminal Investigation Command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Army Intelligence and Security Command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Naval Investigative Service. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Air Force Office of Special Investigations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Marines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

National Security Agency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Subtotals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Department of State . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Department of Justice:

Federal Bureau of Investigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Drug Enforcement Administration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Department of Treasury:b

Secret Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

U.S. Postal Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

3,977 3,832 3,731 39

230 260 279 9

l,317a l,185al,337a l l

a

l,474a l,485a3,019a26a

376a

245a263a8

a

5,676a

7,418a

9,672a13a

13,050 14,425 18,301 106

Does not conduct polygraph exams

2,121 2,162 2,463 NA

230 200 211 NA

NA 466 714 NA

176 254 256 4

714 725 652 NA

42

9

12a

29a

6

a

3oa

44

12

14a

28a

6

a

26a

128

NA

NA

NA

4

NA

130

40

14

16

4

5

Central Intelligence Agency. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Does conduct polygraph exams but specific operational information-is classifie d

Officeof Personnel Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Does not conductor use polygraph exams

Totals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . — — —

16,291 18,232 22,597 209

~Calendar year

Excludes Customs Service.

NA = Not avatiable

Other Federal Agency Polygraph Users

The Federal agencies listed in table B-1 are theprimary users of the results of polygraph tests conducted

by their personnel. However, these agencies reported

that during 1980-82, polygraph examinations were also

conducted by their staff for other Federal agencies,

both those with polygraph capability and those without. A listing of thenumber of examinations conducted

for agencies that do not employ their own polygraph

staffs follows:

NumberOf

.Examsconducted bv Exams conducted for exams 1980-82

Army, CIC Department of State 26

Internal Revenue Service 1

Defense Invest] gat[ve Service 1

Department of Defense (other) 14

Army, ISC Defense Intelligence Agency 7

Navy Coast Guard 1

General Services Admimstration 1

Department of State 2

Aw Force Defense Investigate Serwce 16

Defense Intelligence Agency 21

Coast Guard 1

Department 0[ State 1

Marines None

YSA DOD components Data not avatlable

FBI Bureau of Prtsons 39 (1982)

Other Agencies 10 per year

DEA Immlgratlon and Naturallzat]on Service 2 (1981-1982)

U S Marshall’s Off Ice 3 (1981-1982)

Department of State 2 (1981-1982)

Internal Revenue Service 1 (1981-1982)

Secret Serwce Internal Revenue Service

I

Spec]fic data not

U S Attorney’s Of f}ce available, but

Department of Treasury total is less than 8

Department of Agriculture percent of all

Federal Reserve Bank Secret Serv]ce

exams

BATF Other Agencies (very Ilmlted ) Data not ava]lable

USPS Internal Revenue Service 4

U S Marshall’s Offlcc 1

U.S Congress 1

The polygraph use by these other agencies represents

a very small percentage of total Federal agency use.

Purpose of Polygraph Examinations

As shown in table B-2, with the exception of NSA,

over two-thirds of Federal agency use of the polygraph

is for criminal investigative purposes. In the major Federal polygraph user agencies, such as the Army, Navy,

Air Force, and FBI, over 90 percent of polygraph use

is for criminal investigations, for example in the verification of information provided by suspects, victims,

and witnesses. The one exception, for which data are

available, is NSA. About two-thirds of NSA poly-
109 —. . . . .— ——

Table B-2 .—Purpose of Polygraph Exam

Criminal Counter

investigation intelligence Intelligence Other

Department of Defense: ‘ -

Army Criminal Investigation

Command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1980 3,968 — — 9 polygraph examiner applicants

1981 3,820 — — 12 polygraph examiner applicants

1982 3,713 — — 19 polygraph examiner applicants

Personnel Limited Polygraph

security access applicants

Army Intelligence and

Security Command . . . . . . . . . . . .

Navy ... ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Air Force . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Marines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

National Security Agency . . . . . . . . . .

Department of Justice:

Federal Bureau of Investigation . .

Drug Enforcement Administration . .

1980

1981

1982

1980a

1981a

1982a

1980a

1981 a

1982a

NA

NA

NA

1,209

1,049

1,210

1,296

1,298

1,750

NA

NA

44

33

78

30

50

45

NA

NA

NA—

NA

1980-82 6,038

1980-82 449

474

—

NA

NA

NA

78

86

82

NA

NA

NA

—

NA

—

—

o 58 5

9 34 1

58 62 2

Polygraph examiner applicants

Applicant screening

234 personnel security

192 internal investigations

Department of the Treasury:

Secret Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1982 562 — 65 59 other agency

16 bond

12 inspection

Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco

and Firearms. . . . . . . . . . . . . 1980-82 686 — —

U.S. Postal Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1980-82 2,091 — —

aCalenda r Year

NA Not available

graph examinations are for applicant screening; i.e.,

for use in personnel security evaluations of applicants

for employment. In 1982, OTA estimates that NSA

conducted about 6,700 applicant screening polygraph

exams. No other Federal agency, except CIA, conducts

routine applicant screening polygraph exams. CIA, as

noted above, did not provide information on the purpose of their exams. However, public information

available from a report of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, U.S. House of Representatives

(173), indicates that the CIA utilizes polygraph tests

as part of its applicant screening.

The following agencies also conduct a small number

of polygraph exams for counterintelligence and/or intelligence purposes (see table B-2 for estimates): Army

Security and Intelligence Command, Navy, Air Force,

NSA, FBI, and Secret Service. Other miscellaneous

purposes for polygraph exams are listed in table B-2.

Use of Polygraph in Unauthorized

Disclosure Cases

Polygraph exams are used by several Federal agencies in connection with the investigation of the unauthorized disclosure of sensitive or classified information; however, such use at present is limited.

Federal agencies responding reported the following

polygraph use in unauthorized disclosure cases over

the 1980-82 period:

,4gencv ,Nrumber (If p{)/\gr<lph t,xJm)rI.Jt/(!ns ( 1Q8(1 82 ~

Arm; CIC \’er} tem

.Army ISC 1 Navy 78

,Alr FOr( e 112

Marine< o

ISS’4 I)dtd not a~ .\ Ilc

Iblt

State Department @

FBI .?b I >In[ (, 1 Q78

DEA 33

Secret $ervlcr 11

BATF o

[1$[’$ o
170

For agencies providing detailed statistics, the results

of the exams were as follows:

Not N o Deceptive

Deceptive deceptive Inconclwve op]mon confirmed

Army, ISC o 1 0 0 0

Navy 26 51 1 0 18

Air Force 26 85 1 0 21

FBI 16 10 0 0 14

DEA 2 31 0 0 Data not ava]lable

Secret Serwce o 11 0 0 0

Confirmation of deceptive exam results was primarily though a pre- or post-test confession or admission.

Very few of the not deceptive test results were confirmed. Except for the FBI, information was not available on what action, if any (e.g., administrative sanction, removal of security clearance, criminal prosecution), was taken based on the deceptive exam results.

The FBI reports that in 12 closed cases, deceptive examination results contributed (at least in part) to 3 convictions, 1 dismissal, 1 disciplinary action, 3 resignations, 3 censures, and 1 voluntary retirement,

Polygraph Examiner Training

and Techniques

Federal agencies reported a high degree of consistency in the training of and techniques used by Federal

polygraph examiners. All agencies, except NSA, reported that examiners are required to be graduates of

the 12-week U.S. Army Polygraph Training Course

at Ft. McClellan, Ala. (a component of the U.S. Army

Military Police School). NSA requires examiners to be

graduates of either the U.S. Army School or the Maryland Institute of Criminal Justice. All examiners are

required to have at least 2 years investigative experience. USPS requires 3 years investigative experience,

the Secret Service requires 4 years investigative experience, and the Navy, FBI, and BATF require 5 years.

In addition, all examiners are required to have an

undergraduate degree from an accredited college. The

Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), Secret Service, and

BATF require examiners to participate in an advanced

or refresher course every year; DOD components and

the FBI require such participation every 2 years; and

USPS requires such participation every 3 years. All

examiners are required to complete an internship or

probationary period after graduation from polygraph

school.

With respect to examiner technique, examiners at

all agencies reporting except NSA make primary use

of one or more control question techniques. The modified general question and zone of comparison are the

most frequently used control question techniques. Examiners at most agencies also use the peak of tension

technique (a concealed information technique). At

NSA, the relevant/irrelevant technique is the most frequently used. The Army Intelligence Command, FBI,

DEA, Secret Service, and BATF also use the relevant/irrelevant technique to a limited extent. All agencies reported that examiners use a standardized numerical scoring system for interpreting results of exams

conducted with a control question technique. For

exams conducted with the relevant/irrelevant technique, the examiner looks for significant, consistent

reactions. See chapter 2 for further discussion of question techniques.

Methods of Quality Control

All Federal agencies reported that essentially the

same polygraph instruments and physiological measures are employed in conducting polygraph examinations. All Federal agencies use primarily Stoelting and

Lafayette polygraph instruments (purchased from private manufacturers). The physiological measures include respiration (breathing), perspiration (galvanic

skin response), and cardiovascular (blood pressure and

pulse rate),

Agencies also indicated that all polygrams (charts)

are reviewed independently by a supervisor and/or a

polygraph coordinator at a headquarters location, This

quality control review includes checking the original

examiner’s chart interpretation as well as reviewing

question construction and other aspects of the exam.

Agencies vary in the specifics of their quality control

process, but any disagreement between the chart interpretations of the original examiner and quality control examiner usually requires a reexamination.

Length of Polygraph Examinations

Agencies reported that the length of polygraph examinations ranges from about 1.5 to 4 hours, as indicated in table B-3.

Results of Examinations and

Subsequent Confirmation

The results of polygraph examinations vary widely

among Federal agencies. The number of deceptive examination results ranges from about 10 percent of total

exams (for USPS in 1981) to about 69 percent (Army

Criminal Investigation Command, 1980), with most

agencies in the 40 to 60 percent deceptive range. See

table B-3 for agency specific statistics.

Confirmation of results also varies widely, as shown

in table B-4. Independent confirmation rates for deceptive exam results range from about 25 percent for the

Marines to 70 to 80 percent for the Army Criminal In-
111

Table B-3.—Length and Results of Exams

Average length of exam Results of exams

Fiscal Fiscal Fiscal Fiscal year 1980 percent Fiscal year 1981 percent Fiscal year 1982 percent

year year year

1980 1981 1982 D ND I NO D ND I NO D ND I NO

Department of Defense:

Army Criminal

Investigation

Command ., . . . . . . 2:53 2:54 3:03 68.7 21.4 0.6 9.2 66.3 24.1 0.9 8.7 64.0 28.3

Army Intelligence and

Security Command 4 hours average 34 59 4 3 33 62 2 3 34 59

Air Force . . . . . . . . . . . 50 50 — — 50 50 – – 50 50

Marines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . At least 1,5 hours 51 NA NA NA 51 NA NA NA 52 NA

National Security

Agency. . . . . . . . . . . . 1.5 to 2 hours average NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA

0.6 7.1

3 4

. —

NA NA

NA NA

Department of Justice:

Federal Bureau of

Investigation . . . . . . . . NA 3,527 deceptive out of 6,646 total exams for FY 80-82

Drug Enforcement

Administration . . . . . .2 to 3 hours average 171 deceptive out of 641 total exams for FY 80-82

464 ND

41

Department of the Treasury

Secret Service. . . . . . . . . NA 46.8 46.9 4.5 6.8 3 year average

Bureau of Alcohol,

Tobacco and

Firearms . . . . ... . . 3:49 3:47 3:37 51.1 37.5 7,4 4,0 40.2 47.2 5.5 7,1 28.5 57.4 6.3 7.8

U.S. Postal Service . . . . . . . 1.86 hours average 11 83 4 1.0 10 83 4 2 17.3 73.1 6.8 1.2

NOTES” D = Decept!ve

ND . Nondeceptive

I = Inconclusive

N O = No Opinion

NA = Not available

Table B-4.—Long-term Confirmation of Exam Results (percent confirmed)

Fiscal year 1980 Fiscal year 1981 Fiscal year 1982 (incomplete)

D ND D ND D ND

Department of Defense:

Army Criminal Investigation

Command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75.4 20.9 68.8 20.9 72.8 49.3

D confirmation via confession, court conviction, legal determination

ND confirmation via legal determination or location of other suspect

Army Intelligence arid

Security Command . . . . . . 70 82 83

Confirmation primarily via examinee admission

Navy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 45 46

Air Force. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 10 3 year average

Confirmation by other evidence

Marines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 25

National Security Agency . . Data not available

Department of Justice:

Federal Bureau of

Investigation . . . . . . . . . . .1,966 of 3,527 deceptive confirmed by confession

Drug Enforcement

Administration . . . . . . . . . . 65°/0 of deceptive confess during post-test interrogation

85°\Oof ND confirmed by subsequent investigations

Department of the Treasury:

Secret Service . . . . . . . . . . , . Over 90°/0 of opinions are confirmed

70°/0 of D confirmed by admissions or confessions

Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco

and Firearms . . . . . . . . . . . Data not available

U.S. Postal Service . . . . . . . . . . 430/0 of D 360/o of D 390/0 of D

confessed confessed confessed

D = Deceptiv e

ND = Nondeceptive
112

vestigation Command, Army Intelligence Command,

and Secret Service. Confirmation of deceptive exam

results is primarily by examinee admissions or confessions. Confirmation of nondeceptive exam results is

generally more difficult, with nondeceptive confirmation rates of less than 50 percent indicated by all agencies reporting except DEA.

Use of Polygraph Examination Results

In general, with the exception of NSA, polygraph

test results are used as an investigatory tool in specific

criminal, counterintelligence, intelligence, or personnel security cases. Polygraph examinations are voluntary in the sense that agencies in general are proscribed

from forcing individuals to take an examination, or

from penalizing or taking adverse action against individuals who refuse to take an examination. However,

at NSA, where a polygraph examination is part of the

preemployment security screening process for all job

applicants, refusal to take polygraph examination may

result in failure to be accepted for employment. Also,

the FBI noted that in cases where an FBI employee is

asked to take a polygraph examination but refuses, the

refusal may lead to an adverse inference being drawn.

Overall, agencies were not able to provide specific

information on how the results of polygraph exams

were actually used, since the agency office conducting

the examination is usually different from the office

conducting the investigation and taking action. Statistics on use of examination results apparently are not

maintained, at least not on a centralized basis. Also,

the results of a polygraph examination are usually only

one of several sources of information relevant to a specific investigation. In fact, agency regulations generally

require that polygraph results “be used selectively as

an investigative aid” and not “to the exclusion of other

evidence or knowledge obtained during the course of

a complete investigation” (FBI regulation 13-22.2(2),

1981).

Federal Agency Polygraph Research

Based on information provided by Federal agencies,

the major past, present, and future Federal polygraph

research is summarized in table B-5. Research on the

polygraph instrument itself includes a 1966-67 calibration study (U.S. Army), a 1966-67 technical evaluation study (Navy under contract to National Bureau

of Standards), 1969-70 and 1975-77 cardioactivity

monitor studies (Air Force), a current cardioactivity

monitor study (FBI), and the current lo-year instrumentation research sponsored by the Army Criminal

Investigation Command and Army Security and Intelligence Command and intended to develop a new polygraph instrument utilizing state-of-the-art technology.

Research on polygraph validity and reliability, broadly

defined, includes a 1962 validity study (Air Force), a

1965-67 reliability study (Army Criminal Investigation), 1979-81 counterintelligence screening test validity study (Army Intelligence), and the planned 1984-

85 validity and reliability study cosponsored by the

FBI and Secret Service. Also, in 1976-78, the Department of Justice sponsored validity and reliability

studies by university researchers David Raskin and

David Lykken. Finally, both Army Intelligence and

NSA are planning research on polygraph countermeasures.
— -.

113

Table B.5.—Selected Federal Agency Polygraph Research

Past polygraph research Present/future research

Department of Defense:

Army Criminal Investigation

Command ... , . . . . . . . . . . . . 1965-67 Validation study of polygraph examiner judgments (reliability

study known as “Bersh” study

1Calibration studt of polygrap polygrap hn

instrument

Comparison of voice analysis

and polygraph (U.S. Army Land

Warfare Laboratory)

Validation and reliability study of

counterintelligence screening

test

Navy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1966-67 Technical evaluation study of

polygraph instrument (under contract to National Bureau of

Standards)

Air Force . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1962 Polygraph validity study

1965 Analysis of polygraphic data

1969-70 Development and validation

studies of cardioactivity monitor

1975-78 Reliability and validity studies of

cardioactivity monitor

Marines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . None

National Security Agency. . . . . 1983 Review of scientific literature on

polygraph validity, reliability and

utility

1981-90

1981-90

None

None

None

1983-84

Instrument research and

development project (to develop

a state-of-the art polygraph

instrument)

Instrument research and

development project

Planning research on polygraph

countermeasure and

anti countermeasures

$65,000 pilot study of effect of

drugs/hypnosis/nonverbal techniques on polygraph validity

Department of Justice:

Federal Bureau of

Investigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . None 1984-85 Polygraph validity and reliability

research (criminal investigatory

context)

1984 Instrumentation research (on

monitoring blood pressure)

Law Enforcement Assistance

Administration . . . . . . . . . . . . 1976-78 Raskin and Lykken studies of

polygraph validity and reliability

Department of the Treasury:

Secret Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Participated in Raskin study Cooperation with planned FBI

study on polygraph validity and

reliability

Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco

and Firearms . . . . . . . . . . . . . None None

U.S. Postal Service . . . . . . . . . . . . None None

Department of State . . . . . . . . . . . None None

Office of Personnel

Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . None None

Central Intelligence Agency. . . . . “ Classified research Data not available
Appendix C

Coding Form

DRAFT CODING FORM 7/18/83

Code r

AUTHOR

YEAR

STUDY ID

OUTCOME NCI.

TOTAL NUMBER OF OUTCOMES IN THIS ANALYSIS

TYPSTUD1, Type of study: analog or field (1) analog, (2) fiel d

TYPESTU2, Type of study: (1) detection, (2) blind

evaluation of charts, (3)

judgment of accuracy based on

other criteria, (4) “utility

study,” (5) judgment of

accuracy based in pg and

other criteria

SUBJECT’S

NSUBJS, Number of subjects or cases

TYPSUBJS, Type of subj pop (1) college students, (2)

general pop, (3) non-crim.

military personnel, (4)

non-military criminals or

suspects, (5) military

criminals or suspects, (6)

police informants, (7) prison

inmates, (8) police

applicants, (9) private

*CASESRC , Source of cases for judgment

PCTMALE,

PURPOSE

employment applicants, (10)

gov’ t employees or

applicants, (11) victims,

(12) witnesses

(1) polygraph school files,

(2) police files, (3)

military files

(1) pre-employment, (2) crim

investigation

114
115

Polygraph Coding Form

Page 2

POLYGRAPH CHARACTERISTICS

BASERATE, Base rate of guilt

GROUNDME, Method of establishing ground truth (1) Majority judgment, (2)

Unanimous judgment, (3)

Confession, (4) Court

decision, (5) Mock crime or

contrived story, (6) real

crime ‘set up” by

experimenter, (7) not

verified, (8) not specified

ACCUR, Experimenter’s judgment of accuracy of

basis for ground truth (see Barland,

1982) (1) low, (2) high

QUESDES, Method for designing control questions

or pretest intervieW (1) Standard for all Ss;

(2) CUStOl?liZed

STIM, Stim test included?

MACHINE, Vachine tYPe

PASTE, Type of contact paste

TECHNIQU, Type of question technique (l)ZOC, (2) MGQT, (3) POT,

(4) ZOC & MGQT, (5) ZOC &

pOT, (6) MGQT & POT, (7) GQT,

(s) ‘ZOC & GQT, (9) MGQT &

GQT, (10) POT & GQT, (11) GK,

(12) R I , (13) RCQ T

(1) Yes, (2) No

(1) Lafayette 4 channel Nodel

76058, (2) Narco Bio-system

polygraph, (3) 3 channel

Stoelting , (4) 4 channe l

Stoelting , (5) Sanborn 15 0

Recorder, (6) Keele r

polygraph, (7) Stoelting with

CAM, (8) Grass Model 7, (9)

physiograph, (10) 5 Channel

Reid, (11) varied !

(12) /

(13 )

(1) Sanborn, (2) Beckman, (3)

NaCl w/cornstarch
116

PHYSMEAS, Phys. measure used for results

PHYSME2, Were other phys. measures taken and

not used in analysis?

PHYSME3, If ans. to PHYSME2 is yes, why?

CHARTS, Number of charts on which examiners’

judgment based

PROCED, Did procedure differ from standard in

any way (e.g., Podlesny & Raskin d i d

not review control questions with Ss)

PROCVARY, Way procedure varied

EXAMEQ, Did examiners do own init. ratings

(i.e., chart interpretations)

If answer to EXAMEQ is “No,” answer following

polygraph Coding Form

Page 3

(1) SCR/GSR,

(2) Respiration, (3) 3100d

pressure, (4) Heart rate, (5)

Cardiovascular unpsecified,

(6) finger pulse volume, (7)

some combination

(1) yes, (2) NO

(1) results inconclusive,

(2) not give n

(1) Yes, (2) No

(Use variable list

code#)

(1) yes, (2) No

with respect to those who did do init. ratings

(Note these are not ultimate judges in field studies)

**PGBLIND, Were raters blind to subj

condition? (1) yes, (2) No

**KNWRATR , Did raters know rate of 9uilt? (1) Yes, (2) No

**RAITEXPF, Raters exp. ranged from (in yrs. )

**RATEXPT, Raters exp. ranged to (in yrs.)

OBJRAT’, Was orig. rating objective? (1) high (specific

measurement of phys.

variables), (2) medium (score

assigned to subjective

assessment, (3) low (rating

of guilt or innocence based

o.n visual assessment, (4)

very low (rating of guilt or

innocence based on case

files, clinical assessment

etc. )

NEXAM, Number if initial examiners
— —.-

117

Polygraph Coding Form

Page 4

INCZONE, Inconclusive zone (+ or - x)

PGPCTMAL, % of Polygraphers Male —

PGEXP, Avg. yrs Poly training and experience

EXAMEXPF, Examiners’ exp. range from (in yrs. )

EXAMEXPT, Examiners’ exp. ranged to

PGTYPE, Type of initial examiner

PGTRN, Place polygraph examiner trained

*JUDGES, Judge characteristics

NJUDGES, Number of judges or evaluators (not

initial examiners)

KNOWRATJ, Did judges know base rate of guilt?

JUDGAGRE, Method of judge agreement (if panel)

* JUDGEXP F , Judges exp . ranged from (in yrs.)

*JUDGEXPT, Judges exp. ranged to (in yrs.)

*JUDGEXP2, Judges exp. ranged to

*JUDGEXP3, Judges exp. ranged from

*AVJUDEXP, Av . judge exp (yrs.)

(1) private, (2) pOlice ,

(3) military , (4) other govt ,

(5) trt3irlee Sr

(6) not a prof.

examiner

(1) Reid, (2) Army, (3)

(1) Palygr’aphers trained at

same school, (2) Polygrapher s

trained at different school ,

(3) law enforcement agents ,

(4) legal professional s

(lawyers, judges), (5) Same

as initial examiners

(“utility” studies), (6)

Statistical analysis, (7)

Other methods of

identification (fingerprints,

handwriting, eyewitness), (8)

Other, (a) Polygraphers

[other than (1) & (2)]

(1) Yes, (2) N o

(1) Unanimou sf (2) Majorit y

(1) less than 1 yr. ,

(2) greater than 1 yr.

(1) less than 1 yr. ,

(2) greater than 1 yr.
1 1 8

Polygraph Coding Form

Page 5

DESIGN

SAMPLING~ Random selection of Ss or cases? (1) yes, (2) N o

EXCLU, If not randomly selected, % of populatio n

not included in sample

BASISSEC, Basis of selection (use variable code

listing )

ATTRIT, % attrition from sampl e

BASISATT, Basis of attrition (use variable cod e

listin g

KNOWRATE, Did init. examiners know rate of

guilt? (1) Yes, (2) No

MOTIV, Were subjects offered inducement to

beat machine? (analogue only ) (1) Yes, (2) N o

PGBLIND2, Did examiners know Ss were in an exp? (1) Yes, (2) N o

INDEPEND, Was initial poly g raph rating blind

(independent of examination?) (1) Yes, (2) No

*OBJRAT2, were ‘judges” r~tings objective? (1) high (specific

measurement of phys .

variables) , (2) medium (scor e

assigned to subjective

assessment, (3) low (r~t-n g

of guilt or innocence based

on visual assessment, ( 4 )

very l o w

FACTORIA, Factorial effect tested (use variable

code listing)

FACTORIB, Was factorial etfect 1A significant?

FACTOR2A, Second factorial effect tested?

FACTOR2B, Was factorial sffect 2A significant

FACTOR3A, Third factorial effect tested?

FACTOR3B. Was factorial effect 3B significant?

FACTOR4A, Fourth factorial effect tested?

FACTOR4B, Was factorial effect 4A significant?

(1) Yes, (2) N o

(1) Yes, (2) N o

(1) Yes, (2) NO

(1) Yes, (2) N o
—

119

Polygraph Coding Form

Page 6

OUTCOME

DETECTION STUDIES

GC

GNC

GIN

IC

INC

IIN

UNIT, Unit of analysis

JUDGMENT STUDIES

JGC

JGNC

JGIN

JIC

JINC

JIIN

for outcom e 1) Persons

(2) Questions,

OTHER CROSS-VALIDATION STUDIES

GC2

GNC2

GIN2

IC2

INC2

IIN2

CONTINUOUS SCORES (Means and signif. tests)

GUILTY, Mean for guilty (deceptive) subject s

IN?JO, Mean for innocent (truthful) subjects

SIGTEST, Significance test used

SIGDIFF, Was difference significant?

(1) F, (2) t

(3) , (4)

(1) Yes, (2) No
Appendix D

Acronyms and Glossary

Acronyms

ANS

CIA

C QT

DCI

DLCQ

DOD

DOJ

EDR

GKT

GSR

G QT

JAG

LEAA

‘MGQT

MMPI

NSA

NSDD

OPM

Pd

P OT

RCQT

R/I

SCI

SCR

—autonomic nervous system

—Central Intelligence Agency

—control question technique

—Director of Central Intelligence

–directed lie control question [technique]

—Department of Defense

—Department of Justice

—electrodermal response

—guilty knowledge test

—galvanic skin response

—general question test

–Judge Advocate General

—Law Enforcement Assistance

Administration

—modified general question test

—Minnesota Multiphasic Personality

Inventory

—National Security Agency

—National Security Decision Directive

—Office of Personnel Management

—psychopathic deviate [scale]

—peak of tension [test]

—Reid control question technique

—relevant/irrelevant [technique]

—Sensitive Compartmented Information

—skin conductance response

USAMPS–U. S. Army Military Police School

USPS —U.S. Postal Service

Z o c —zone of comparison [technique]

Glossary

analog studies: Analog studies are laboratory studies

of polygraph testing that simulate actual field examinations. Typical components of field examinations

are replicated, The goal of such studies is to test the

validity of various polygraph techniques under controlled conditions.

aperiodic checking: Polygraph tests conducted at irregular times with randomly or otherwise selected

personnel to ask questions for internal security purposes.

autonomic lability: Term used to describe individual

differences in autonomic arousal.

base rate: The number of guilty (or innocent) subjects

as a percentage of the total.

baseline: The readings on a polygraph chart that form

a point of comparison for the physiological responses to the polygraph questions.

classified information: Information that pertains to national security and by definition, cannot be disclosed

to others without clearance.

clinical components: Components of a polygraph test

procedure, including “proper” examiner attitude and

relationship with subjects, that attempt to ensure

accuracy.

construct validity: The extent to which a test or procedure measures what it is designed to measure,

control question technique: A polygraph question

technique that incorporates control questions which

are designed to be arousing for nondeceptive subjects and less arousing for deceptive subjects than

the relevant questions.

counterintelligence: Efforts of an organization to stop

outside groups from gaining information about

itself.

counterintelligence screening examinations: Examinations given to personnel who already have access

to classified information.

electrodermal response: A physiological measure that

has been shown to be related to physiological

arousal. It is measured as the electrical resistance of

the skin through the use of electrodes attached to

the fingertips.

external validity: The established generalizability of

a study to particular subject populations and

settings.

false negative: An erroneous decision that an individual is not deceptive when she or he is actually

deceptive.

false positive: An erroneous decision that a person is

being deceptive when he or she is actually being

truthful.

field testing: Actual techniques used by polygraph

examiners.

generalizability: The extent to which results of

previous investigations can be used in evaluation of

present investigations.

ground truth: The establishment of actual guilt or innocence. In a field study it is based on a criterion

independent of the polygraph test (e.g., confession,

judicial outcome, panel decision),

inconclusive: Outcome of an examination in which

it cannot be determined from the subject’s responses

whether he or she is deceptive or nondeceptive.

1 2 0
121

interaction: An occurrence which affects validity of

polygraph testing because individual character traits

or situational factors might result in unexpected

physiological responses.

internal validity: The degree to which a study has controlled for extraneous variables which may be

related to the study outcome.

irrelevant questions: Neutral questions designed to assess the subject’s baseline physiological response to

questioning and to provide a rest between relevant

questions.

numerical scoring: The assignment of numbers to polygraph chart responses.

physiological arousal: Responses related to increases

in anxiety. Those measured in polygraph examinations include electrodermal response, blood pressure, and respiration rate.

polygraph chart: A continuous graph on which a subject’s physiological responses are registered.

predictive association: An index which measures the

proportional reduction in the probability of error

in predicting one category (in this case, deception)

when the second category (in this case, polygraph

examination results) is known.

predictive validity: The accuracy with which criterion

scores obtained in the future can be estimated from

test data obtained in the present.

preemployment screening: The use of polygraph testing to question employee applicants.

pretest interview: The first portion of the polygraph

testing procedure in which subjects are informed

about the examination and their rights. In some pretest interviews, examiners also make observations

about subjects’ behavior to assist in determinations

of deceptiveness or nondeceptiveness.

psychopathy: A psychiatric diagnostic category signifying a character style prone to criminal activity

and amoral, manipulative behavior.

random sampling: A procedure used to obtain representative samples from a population. In complete

random sampling, each subject in the population

must have an equal chance of being selected and the

selection or nonelection of one subject cannot influence the selection or nonselelction of another.

relevant/irrelevant technique: An examination technique that utilizes two types of questions: relevant

questions and neutral questions intended to assess

the subject’s baseline response.

relevant questions: Polygraph test questions about the

topic or topics under investigation.

reliability: The degree to which a test yields repeatable

results. Reliability also refers to consistency across

examiners/scorers.

Sensitive Compartmented Information: Classified information above the top secret level.

socialization: The process in and by which individuals

learn the ways, ideas, beliefs, values, patterns, and

norms of a particular culture and adapts them as

a part of their own personalities.

validity: A measure of the extent to which an observed

situation reflects the “true” situation.

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