The Polygraph and Lie Detection

417 Pages·2003·7.64 MB·English

by  National Research Council, Committee to Review the Scientific Evidence on the Polygraph

Committee to Review the Scientific Evidence on the Polygraph
Board on Behavioral, Cognitive, and Sensory Sciences
and
Committee on National Statistics
Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education
THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS
Washington, D.C.
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This study was supported by Contract No. DE-AT01-01DP00344 between the
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The polygraph and lie detection.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-309-08436-9 (hardcover)
1. Lie detectors and detection—Evaluation. I. Committee to Review
the Scientific Evidence on the Polygraph (National Research Council
(U.S.))
HV8078 .P64 2003
363.25’4—dc21
2002151541
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Copyright 2003 by the National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
Suggested citation: National Research Council (2003). The Polygraph and Lie Detec-
tion. Committee to Review the Scientific Evidence on the Polygraph. Division of
Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education. Washington, DC: The National
Academies Press.
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COMMITTEE TO REVIEW THE SCIENTIFIC
EVIDENCE ON THE POLYGRAPH
STEPHEN E. FIENBERG (Chair), Department of Statistics, Carnegie
Mellon University
JAMES J. BLASCOVICH, Department of Psychology, University of
California, Santa Barbara
*JOHN T. CACIOPPO, Department of Psychology, University of
Chicago
RICHARD J. DAVIDSON, Department of Psychology, University of
Wisconsin, Madison
PAUL EKMAN, Department of Psychology and Human Interaction
Laboratory, University of California, San Francisco
DAVID L. FAIGMAN, Hastings College of Law, University of
California, San Francisco
PATRICIA L. GRAMBSCH, Department of Biostatistics, University of
Minnesota, Minneapolis
PETER B. IMREY, Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, The
Cleveland Clinic Foundation, and Departments of Statistics and
Medical Information Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-
Champaign.
EMMETT B. KEELER, RAND Health, Santa Monica, California
KATHRYN B. LASKEY, Systems Engineering and Operations Research
Department, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia
KEVIN R. MURPHY, Department of Psychology, Pennsylvania State
University, University Park
MARCUS E. RAICHLE, Department of Radiology and Neurology,
Washington University, St. Louis
RICHARD M. SHIFFRIN, Department of Psychology, Indiana
University, Bloomington
JOHN A. SWETS, BBN Technologies (emeritus), Tequesta, Florida
PAUL C. STERN, Study Director
ALEKSANDRA SLAVKOVIC, Consultant
SUSAN R. McCUTCHEN, Research Associate
DEBORAH M. JOHNSON, Senior Project Assistant
* Served on the committee until May 28, 2002.
v
BOARD ON BEHAVIORAL, COGNITIVE,
AND SENSORY SCIENCES
ANNE PETERSEN (Chair), W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Battle Creek,
Michigan
LINDA MARIE BURTON, Center for Human Development and Family
Research, The Pennsylvania State University
STEPHEN J. CECI, Department of Human Development, Cornell
University
EUGENE K. EMORY, Department of Psychology, Emory University
ROCHEL GELMAN, Center for Cognitive Science, Rutgers University
ANTHONY W. JACKSON, Disney Learning Initiative, Burbank,
California
PETER LENNIE, Center for Neural Science, New York University
MARCIA C. LINN, Graduate School of Education, University of
California at Berkeley
ELISSA L. NEWPORT, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences,
University of Rochester
CHARLES R. PLOTT, Division of Humanities and Social Sciences,
California Institute of Technology
MICHAEL L. RUTTER, Institute of Psychiatry, University of London
ARNOLD SAMEROFF, Center for Human Growth and Development,
University of Michigan
JAMES W. STIGLER, Department of Psychology, University of
California at Los Angeles
JOHN A. SWETS, BBN Technologies (emeritus), Tequesta, Florida
RICHARD F. THOMPSON, Neurosciences Program, University of
Southern California
WILLIAM A. YOST, Office of Research and the Graduate School,
Loyola University Chicago
CHRISTINE R. HARTEL, Director
vi
COMMITTEE ON NATIONAL STATISTICS
JOHN E. ROLPH (Chair), Marshall School of Business, University of
Southern California
JOSEPH G. ALTONJI, Thomas DeWitt Cuyler Professor of Economics,
Yale University
ROBERT BELL, AT&T Labs-Research, Florham Park, New Jersey
LAWRENCE D. BROWN, Department of Statistics, University of
Pennsylvania
ROBERT M. GROVES, Director, Survey Research Center, University of
Michigan
HERMANN HABERMANN, United Nations Statistics Division
JOEL L. HOROWITZ, Department of Economics, Northwestern
University
WILLIAM KALSBEEK, Survey Research Unit, Department of
Biostatistics, University of North Carolina
ARLEEN LEIBOWITZ, School of Public Policy and Social Research,
University of California at Los Angeles
THOMAS A. LOUIS, Department of Biostatistics, Bloomberg School of
Public Health, Johns Hopkins University
VIJAYAN NAIR, Department of Statistics, Department of Industrial and
Operations Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
DARYL PREGIBON, AT&T Labs-Research, Florham Park, New Jersey
NORA CATE SCHAEFFER, University of Wisconsin-Madison
MATTHEW D. SHAPIRO, Department of Economics, University of
Michigan
ANDREW A. WHITE, Director
vii
Contents
PREFACE xiii
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1
1 LIE DETECTION AND THE POLYGRAPH 11
The Instrument, the Test, and the Examination, 12
The Lie Detection Mystique, 18
Scientific Issues, 21
Context of Polygraph Tests, 25
Structure of This Book, 26
Notes, 27
2 VALIDITY AND ITS MEASUREMENT 29
Reliability, Accuracy, and Validity, 29
A Consistent Approach to Measuring Accuracy , 37
Validity and Utility, 51
Criterion Validity as Value Added, 58
Conclusions, 60
Notes, 62
3 THE SCIENTIFIC BASIS FOR POLYGRAPH TESTING 65
The Scientific Approach, 65
Theories of Polygraph Testing, 69
Inferences from Polygraph Tests, 83
ix