Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1922-07-11
LIARS AND BLOOD PREsSURE-By Frederic j. Haskin

as an important question is asked ferocious
gorilla should leap through the window. This
would have nothing to do with the case, but
the subjects blood pressure would rise to a
record-breaking peak.
The tests are given +, room free from
disturbance, but even so the questioner has
to watch for outside influences that might
affect the chart. In order to read the chart
correctly afterward, each change in pres
sure must be marked with its cause
There is no way of deliberately cheating
+ his barometer, the psychologist asserts. It
might be possible for Hindu occult stu
dent to delay a test by self-hypnotism. Such
persons are able to slow down the heart
action until it almost stops, and other or
gans Of the body at the same time are af-
fected. A subject who put himself in this
state could not be tested until he released
himself. But no one can control blood pres
sure alone.
There is one type of individual who can
unconsciously cheat the sphygmomanomete r.
If a person is violently insane the test is
meaningless, because such person has lost
consciousness of right and wrong. Suppose
that your auditory nerve is pressed upon by
disease so that you imagine that bells are
ringing constantly. You would truthfully
say that you could hear bells ringing and
your blood pressure would accept it as a
fact. This is an example Of slight hallu-
| cination, but it serves to show how a per-
react to DECEPTION test.
In detectives and slightly insane cases
the mental and physical functions are sub
normal to varying degrees. Making allow
ances for this, the test can be used. In drug
addicts even slighter reaction to questioning
is shown. The chart of an addict will show
curves less than one-third as great as that
of a normal subject
The blood pressure test has already
proved a friend to the prisoner unjustly ac-
cused. It is the rel .ntless foe Of the skillfui
liar DR.. Marston tells of IN who was
taken by the police from disorderly
house. She claimed that she was carried
there drunk the night before and that she
had never lived there. Her story seemed
plausible and she would probably have
been released. The deception test was tried
on her, however, and it refusd to accept a
word of her tale. Furthermore, casual ques-
tions about the woman's husband brought
out cicious reactions on the hc~t
Closer investigation proved that the
woman was guilty, and by fellow, .1e clue
to her husband detectives discovered that ha
was notorious forger, wanted on a number
Of charges. The woman mad been hiding him
and passing forged checks at the house.
where she was tai.
DR.. EIarston believes that his .eot will
find a useful place wherever veracity must
be carefully judged. People write humorous
letters to him, he says, asking about the
instrument that can tell a liar. One man
earnestly begged to know where he could
buy the apparatus as he had an unearned
reputation with his wife for evading the
truth.
The sphygmomanometer, while not pro-
hibitive in cost, is not market commodity,
and it is not game. 1t is solemn propo-
sition. If you have any doubts, just reflect
that because Of it the art OF lying may soon
be useless and obsolete accomplishment