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Еще насчет полиграфа

В ряде стран данные, полученные при помощи психофизиологических опросов, не рассматриваются судами в качестве доказательств (В Германии[7] и Польше).

Верховный Суд США в своём решении United States v. Scheffer (1998) постановил, что вопрос о том, можно ли использовать результаты данных полиграфа в качестве доказательств в судебных процессах, должен решаться самостоятельно в юрисдикциях штатов и округов.[8] В подавляющем большинстве судов использование данных полиграфа в качестве доказательств не разрешается.

В 2003 году Национальная академия наук США опубликовала отчёт «Полиграф и выявление лжи». Академия наук обнаружила, что большинство исследований с применением полиграфа были «ненадёжны, ненаучны и предвзяты». После проведения экспериментов было установлено, что проверка на полиграфе большого количества людей в отношении различных событий (например, при приёме на работу) даёт результат ничем не лучше, чем случайное угадывание.

Polygraph Accuracy Almost a century of research in scientific psychology and physiology provides little basis for the expectation that a polygraph test could have extremely high accuracy. The physiological responses measured by the polygraph are not uniquely related to deception. That is, the responses measured by the polygraph do not all reflect a single underlying process: a variety of psychological and physiological processes, including some that can be consciously controlled, can affect polygraph measures and testresults. Moreover, most polygraph testing procedures allow for uncontrolled variation in test administration (e.g., creation of the emotional climate, selecting questions) that can be expected to result in variations in accuracy and that limit the level of accuracy that can be consistently achieved.

Theoretical Basis The theoretical rationale for the polygraph is quite weak, especially in terms of differential fear, arousal, or other emotional states that are triggered in response to relevant or comparison questions. We have not found any serious effort at construct validation of polygraph testing.

Research Progress Research on the polygraph has not progressed over time in the manner of a typical scientific field. It has not accumulated knowledge or strengthened its scientific underpinnings in any significant manner. Polygraph research has proceeded in relative isolation from related fields of basic science and has benefited little from conceptual, theoretical, and technological advances in those fields that are relevant to the psychophysiological detection of deception.

Future Potential The inherent ambiguity of the physiological measures used in the polygraph suggest that further investments in improving polygraph technique and interpretation will bring only modest improvements in accuracy.

Evidence of Polygraph Accuracy

Source of Evidence The evidence for polygraph validity lies primarily in atheoretical, empirical studies showing associations between summary scores derived from polygraph measures and independent indicators of truth or deception, in short, in studies that estimate the accuracy of polygraph tests. Accuracy—the ability to distinguish deceptive from truthful individuals or responses—is an empirical property of a test procedure administered under specific conditions and with specific examinees. Consequently, it may vary with a number of factors, such as the population of examinees, characteristics of individual examinees or examiners, relationships established in the interview, testing methods, and the use of countermeasures. Despite efforts to create standardized polygraph testing procedures, each test with each individual has significant unique features.

Realism of Evidence The research on polygraph accuracy fails in important ways to reflect critical aspects of field polygraph testing, even for specific-incident investigation. In the laboratory studies focused on specific incidents using mock crimes, the consequences associated with lying or being judged deceptive almost never mirror the seriousness of those in real-world settings in which the polygraph is used. Polygraph practitioners claim that such studies underestimate the accuracy of the polygraph for motivated examinees, but we have found neither a compelling theoretical rationale nor a clear base of empirical evidence to support this claim; in our judgment, these studies overestimate accuracy. Virtually all the observational field studies of the polygraph have been focused on specific incidents and have been plagued by measurement biases that favor over-estimation of accuracy, such as examiner contamination, as well as biases created by the lack of a clear and independent measure of truth.

Overestimation For the reasons cited, we believe that estimates of polygraph accuracy from existing research overestimate accuracy in actual practice, even for specific-incident investigations. The evidence is insufficient to allow a quantitative estimate of the size of the overestimate.

Estimate of Accuracy Notwithstanding the limitations of the quality of the empirical research and the limited ability to generalize to real-world settings, we conclude that in populations of examinees such as those represented in the polygraph research literature, untrained in countermeasures, specific-incident polygraph tests for event-specific investigations can discriminate lying from truth telling at rates well above chance, though well below perfection.

Accuracy may be highly variable across situations. The evidence does not allow any precise quantitative estimate of polygraph accuracy or provide confidence that accuracy is stable across personality types, sociodemographic groups, psychological and medical conditions, examiner and examinee expectancies, or ways of administering the test and selecting questions. In particular, the evidence does not provide confidence that polygraph accuracy is robust against potential countermeasures. There is essentially no evidence on the incremental validity of polygraph testing, that is, its ability to add predictive value to that which can be achieved by other methods.