# Mr Lie Detector



## Jus260 (Mar 24, 2016)

This is the title of a podcast I recently heard on This American Life on NPR. It was an interesting listen. It's about a trained polygraph examiner who worked for a police department. He got information that polygraph could be easily beaten. When it was clear that was true, he then went on to try to have it abolished as a tool to detect lies. He then turned it into a business opportunity by charging people to train them on how to pass a polygraph.

https://m.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/618/mr-lie-detector


----------



## TX-SC (Aug 25, 2015)

Luckily, most cheating spouses are not skilled at this. Most cave and confess before it even goes to the actual test.


----------



## jb02157 (Apr 16, 2014)

...and on the other hand you have some spouses that are so committed to cheating and staying in their current marriage that they would do anything necessary to be able to beat it.


----------



## Jus260 (Mar 24, 2016)

TX-SC said:


> Luckily, most cheating spouses are not skilled at this. Most cave and confess before it even goes to the actual test.


They may not be skilled at this now but I imagine this information will come up in a Google search when someone wants to beat it.

Polygraphs are always thrown around as a solution on this subforum. Before listening to that podcast, I thought you needed special training or at least some skill to beat the test. Sounds like it's pretty easy.


----------



## TX-SC (Aug 25, 2015)

I don't believe that anyone should take a lie detector as their only form of evidence. But, it can be one tool in the arsenal.


----------



## Andy1001 (Jun 29, 2016)

I haven't watched the podcast but I worked for a company when I was younger and one of the things they manufactured were polygraphs.I worked with guys who designed them and within a couple of days we could all fool them easily.These machines work on the changes your body goes through while lying.The original ones worked on temperature and electrical resistance.The idea was if you were lying you would feel uncomfortable,get warmer and your skin would sweat and your body resistance would lower.This is exactly the same principle that an electric shock is worse if you are wet or standing in water.Your skin resistance lowers and electricity has an easier path to ground and more current passes through you.
The more modern ones are a lot more sophisticated,MRI scans,cat scans,pulse rate,breathing rate etc,you name it someone has tried to use it in a polygraph.The problem is people are naturally nervous when they are being tested and may give contradictory results even if they are being honest.
This is the best way to fool one.Get angry.Its that simple, if you are capable of getting angry just thinking about something then there is not a polygraph in the world that can't be fooled.The testers using the ones used for catching cheating partners only ask three or four questions and are easily fooled.Given enough time and a couple of hundred questions you may get a fairly accurate result but you may as well be reading palms.
People will say you can get the so called parking lot confession but that's about it.

Now for the twist in the tale.There is one that works but it is banned under some convention or other.(Or so I was told) It involves what some people would class as torture and also the use of drugs.Problem is people have been left permanently brain damaged from them.


----------



## MattMatt (May 19, 2012)

The polygraph expert used by the Jeremy Kyle Show spots the people who try to beat him and mention it in his report.


----------

