The purpose of this short paper is to ‘add my two bits’ to the very long and extremely consistent message from bona fide behavioral scientists regarding the use of the polygraph technique to allegedly detect lying and deception. The immediate trigger for wanting to say something in this regard is due to the fact that I very recently read, in the Washington Post (May 27, 2003, page A19), an ‘op ed’ column in the editorial section. The column’s heading was: "Polygraphs: Worse Than Worthless" and it was written by Dr. Alan P. Zelicoff, who was identified as "a senior scientist with the Center for National Security and Arms Control at Sandia National Laboratories." Dr. Zehicoff described that in 1999, due to alleged leaks of nuclear weapons information, it was decided by the then Secretary of Energy that about 15,000 people with high-level security clearances would need to be polygraphed. Not surprisingly, Congress (which, in the past has been presented multiple times with the truth about polygraphing) agreed with the Secretary. However, even in the Congress, a few minds were operating in some sensible manner; Senator Bigaman (D, from N.M.) managed to convince the Senate to do a couple of things. One was that they get the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to take a look at the available scientific knowledge as to whether polygraph screening was "worthwhile." The second request was that, after the NAS report was completed, it be brought back to Congress. Late in 2002, the NAS completed its review on the subject; basically, their findings were that "the polygraph was not a worthless tool—indeed, it was much worse than worthless." In fact, the chairman of the National Research Council, Dr. Stephen Fienberg, on this very matter, warned the Government that subjects and administrators of the tests (i.e., polygraph examinations) had been lulled into a false belief that they were effective, raising the real possibility that spies who clear the tests could seriously damage national security. Dr. Fienberg cited movies where lie detectors are shown as effective tools to read other people’s minds, and he said, "the power of an image of a needle going up and down really fast evokes a response of overconfidence in this as a tool.":

     At this point I would like to describe my own professional familiarity with the polygraph technique, both to hopefully detect lying and separately as a scientific measuring procedure that his proven to be highly useful in many physiological psychology research endeavors. As I look back at my exposure and interest in use of the polygraph, I see that it has been long-term, continuous, and strong. I first became familiar with usage of the polygraph just about a half-century ago. [Oh my God, am I that old!] This would have been back in 1952, in my junior year at San Jose State University, I first used a Berkeley Polygraph machine to do research on emotional reaction to the presentation of English taboo words [which was reported in a research report, i.e., Stone & Baker, 1952]. Interestingly enough, this very old psychological research investigation, conducted by a couple of undergraduate psychology majors, can now be used to support or bolster the title of this current paper. Basically, we found that most individuals tended to respond to different sets of taboo words, in a way that indicated anxiety, when presented with and asked to say aloud the presented words that had been listed as being English taboo words. Such words were defined as being viewed by many as perhaps not being polite and/or somewhat less than acceptable in more polite or gentile circles. At the present time, we might refer to such words as being perhaps mildly "politically incorrect." 

     In the following two years, due to my familiarity with the polygraph machine, I was frequently called upon, by the Department of Psychology faculty, to demonstrate use of the Berkeley Polygraph, either in sessions that were conducted to educate large audiences or to small groups to fellow students who were contemplating possible use of the equipment. During these couple of years, I was motivated to study what was written, in the field of psychology, regarding use of the polygraph to detect lying. Of course, during the early 1950s this particular scientific literature subject was not overly extensive nor overly supportive of the thesis that the instrumentation could be effectively used to spot deception and lying. The only real support for such a thesis seemingly had been written by police type persons who really were not trained or oriented as scientists. It should be noted at this point that the Berkeley Polygraph, with which I was familiar, was a small portable three-channel instrument that was beautifully contained in a well-finished oak box case. It had been developed, in the early 1920s, by Dr. John August Larson, while he was employed as a research physiologist with the Police Department of the City of Berkeley, as well as having an academic association with the nearby University of California. William Marston, an attorney had in 1917, popularized, as a lie detector, a device that had been technically developed about a decade earlier. His very early polygraph only measured pulse and blood pressure. In the early 1920’s, Marston became associated with a legal case in Washington D.C. involving a James A. Frye. Out of this case, in 1923, came a well-known legal decision, i.e., the "Frye Rule", which even up to now has had important implications with respect to the use of scientific methods and tools and admissibility of findings from their use with respect to legal trial proceedings. The Frye Rule established the fact that results from the polygraph cannot admitted to a court as valid scientific evidence to suggest that a lie had (or had not) been told. This meant that the polygraph could not be regarded as acceptable courtroom evidence. This decision is still the legal one that denies use of polygraph results in courtroom situations. 

     Dr. Larson has been called, quite correctly, as the "Father of Polygraphy" as he did very much in the early years to establish polygraphy scientifically as a possible tool to detect deception and guilty knowledge. Others have attempted to give this title to Marston and/or to L. Keeler, who most certainly, in the years following World War II, did much to commercially popularize the polygraph as a lie detector. Keeler’s work seemed to represent a continuation of U.S. Governmental attempts, during the war years, to try to use the polygraph in matters that had been identified as involving national security concerns. It should be noted that in the earlier years, Keeler had become involved in polygraph work as he had originally served as a type of assistant to Dr. Larson. Marston, in his later years apparently ceased his practice as an attorney and also no longer appeared to have any continuing association with polygraphy. Instead, in his later years he achieved a great deal of success as the developer of the comic book character of Wonder Woman! But getting back to Dr. Larson, in the early part of the last century he also, but not surprisingly, authored several very authoritative scientific books and articles directly pertaining to the use of the polygraph in criminal investigation and other applied areas (i.e., Larson, 1923, 1932). These and some of his psychology journal articles, for many years formed the only real scientific basis for polygraphy.

     While employed, prior to my obtaining of my doctorate in psychology, I was employed for a little over two years as a staff psychologist (i.e., having earned a masters degree in psychology in 1954) in Montana’s single state mental hospital that still is located at Warm Springs. During my last year there, the hospital hired a psychiatrist who when he physically arrived was seen to appear to be very old and markedly physically disabled (i.e. he had lost a leg, was rather deaf and showed a number of other disabilities that typically are associated with advanced age). This old gentleman turned out to be the Dr. John A. Larson, the very one who had built and made popular the Berkeley Polygraph, close to 40 years earlier. It turned out that, of the entire clinical staff of the hospital, I was the only one who recognized and was aware of Dr. Larson’s earlier psychological research and thinking that had a great impact upon medical/psychological research, especially as such related to the criminal justice field. Being aware of just how ‘big’ Dr. Larson had been in behavioral science field, especially in his young and middle-aged years, I ‘maneuvered’ myself, in my job assignment, to have an increased work association with Dr. Larson. This close working relationship, of about a year’s duration, soon developed into the type of social friendship relationship that can exist, in a somewhat limited fashion, between a then 27-year-old masters degreed psychologist and a then very old and ill psychiatrist who, at the time, was in his eighties. Dr. Larson’s first doctorate was a Ph.D. degree in physiology and later he went on to earn an M.D. degree, followed by a specialty in psychiatry/neurology in which he became Board Certified. During our one year association, I learned a great deal from Dr. Larson – I only wished that I could have known him when he was younger and in better general health. However, it was interesting that when I could get him to start talking about polygraphy, his mental sharpness seemed to greatly improve. [About eight years later I read an OBIT that announced that Dr. Larson had died in 1967, at the age of 89.] 

     In 1959, I left the Montana hospital to return to graduate school and was awarded my Ph.D. degree in psychology in February of 1962. Even though, during this particular time period, I did no formal work in psychology that was directly focused upon the polygraph technique, but due to my earlier work with the instrument, which had been later bolstered by my rather recent one-year contact with Dr. Larson, I continued to ‘keep up’ with the psychological literature that pertained to the polygraph and its use. Actually, very little was being written, in those years, by psychologists in the scientific psychological literature, however much more was being written by non-scientist police-oriented authors. The use of the polygraph apparently was increasing greatly, but just about all was almost totally outside of the field of psychology, where its early development mainly took place. In the 1960 and1970 decades, the public was being rather heavily "sold a bill of goods" by the polygraph instrument makers and the police types who were spouting forth a good deal of nontruths, i.e., the polygraph is 95% accurate, you cannot beat the machine as it knows when you are lying, there really is not way that the machine can be fooled., etc. Much of this was (and still is!) being spread by movies, TV, and the popular media.

     To further establish my past familiarity and association with the polygraph, I would like to mention that while serving, from 1964 to 1965, as the Chief Research Psychologist in the Mental Health Research Institute, operated by the Department of Institutions in the State of Washington, a number of research investigations, many involving use of the polygraph technique, were carried out in which I had a direct research association. None of these studies were at all addressed to detection of lying or deception. In fact, the general public generally is unaware that use of the polygraph is very frequently employed in a wide variety of psychological/medical research in a great number of different ways. We were using it (i.e., a Grass Polygraph) to measure aspects of changing anxiety or emotionality caused by modification (sometimes sudden) of subjects’ immediate environment. More specifically, we were studying physiological changes that take place associated with the "orienting response," which is one of the many psychological concepts developed by Pavlov. Let me state here, for the record, a couple of scientific articles that we successfully published, all based upon use of polygraph technique (Collins & Stone, 1966; Collins, Stone & Maire, 1967). Again, I can describe that, during my couple of years with the Mental Health Research Institute, I attempted to ‘keep up’ with the published literature that was focused upon the polygraph and its use (including its use as a lie detector).. Again, it was noted that just about all new such published works were authored by police-oriented persons, who clearly were not psychologists. Their concepts of reliability and validity were considerably different than understanding of these concepts by psychometric psychologists.

     In 1975, I was hired away from my then tenured full-professorship, in a quite old and established, doctoral-granting, psychology department, to join the National Security Agency (NSA) as a Senior Clinical Psychologist (the grade at which I was hired was within the GS-15 range). Prior to being given an invitation for employment at the NSA I had to undergo a lengthy security clearance investigation; one of the requirements in this process was that I had to "pass" the polygraph test portion The first session was with a female examiner, who I later discovered, was deemed by the Agency’s polygraph departmental management to not be suitable for such an employment role and was permanently removed from her polygraph operator assignment. During her session with me, she very loudly shouted (some might have regarded it to be at about a screaming level volume) that I was "a liar." Needless to say, I told her that her polygraphing skills were sadly lacking. The second polygraph session was conducted by a security officer, who I again later discovered, underwent some type of diagnosed psychotic break in the several weeks following his attempt to polygraph me. His mental problems were rather visible to me during the polygraph session as he loudly and very confidently accused me of being a communist plant or something similar. To over-simplify his problem, it seemed as if he were (as told to me later) "seeing communists under almost every chair." I could not imagine a worse individual to have the assignment of polypraphing candidates for employment in a very sensitive intelligence agency. Immediately following being polygraphed by this second polygrapher, I loudly complained to my recruiter ‘sponsor’, a high-level manager within the Agency, about my own observations regarding the lack of quality, professionalism, and even a question of competency, regarding the two polygraphers with whom I had contact. I also explained that the degree of knowledge that I thought I possessed regarding the history of polygraphy as well as having once been considered a kind of expert in operation of a polygraph and that I was "shocked’ and was very questioning at what was apparently passing as scientific polygraphing within the Agency. The result of all of this was that I was urged to spend another day (which was a Saturday) in Maryland and be polygraphed for a third time in the morning. 

     During this next morning, I discovered that being polygraphed a third time (and on a Saturday) almost never happened and was only resorted to in rather rare cases. The involved polygrapher this time was some type of deputy chief of some sub-section of the Polygraph Division; apparently he was especially chosen to process me. In fact, it being a Saturday, he was even earning ‘compensatory time’ for being there. In the first part of the session, I was interrogated by a younger man, who I later discovered, was considered by the Agency’s Office of Security to be outstanding in his interrogation technique and skills. In the polygraphing portion of the session, the session was conducted without any meaningful emotional displays on the part of the polygrapher. He seemed to stick to the role that seemingly would be approved by some outside expert who was observing. Before I left that morning, I was informed that I had "passed" the polygraph testing portion of the employment processing. A few months later, I was sworn in as a new employee of the Agency. In the following 14 years, until I was given a different work assignment, I worked closely with Agency polygraphers and especially their supervisors (in the Polygraph Division) as part of my taskings to conduct psychological evaluations of job applicants (as well as others). My ‘bottom-line’ evaluation of the use of the polygraph technique to screen job applicants (and others) became more firm and established as time went on. Today, it remains the same, I simply believe that the Government (at least with this particular Agency) employs non-scientifically oriented employees, whose training is, in reality, mainly in conducting a session, based upon their own use of lying and deception, to conduct an interrogation session. The polygraphers, in this Agency, were not really interested in the results from the polygraph in and of itself to look for lying and deception, rather they were mainly only interested in using the situation to ‘pressure’ a subject individual into a self-damaging confession. The obtaining of a sort of confession is what it was all about! Interpretation of deception, based upon only the squiggles of the polygraph recording pens, is a myth falsely perpetuated by the polygraphers to obtain confessions. To simply believe that measured anxiety can be used to reliably detect lying and deception is not something that is strongly believed in, even by the polygraphers themselves, or so it appeared in that Agency.

     Over the past couple of decades, the immediate above stated truism has been stated eloquently and, more importantly, by psychologists who based their conclusions upon what can comfortably be called as "scientific research." In the 1980s and 1990s, it became apparent that psychologists had begun to express a long-overdue interest in the polygraph and they viewed it for what it is, a psychological test. Right from the start of this renewed interest in polygraphy, scientifically oriented psychologists began to see and comment how the polygraph method, as a ‘lie detector,’ while in the hands of police-oriented persons, had been misused, misinterpreted and that much of the so-called research on the method had been badly designed and conducted. Even worse, a great deal of use the polygraph, especially in the area of employment or other screening seemed to be based upon no real supportive research at all.

     In 1980 a very important book, by David T. Lykken, was published and was entitled: "A Tremor in the Blood: Uses and Abuses of the Lie Detector." Seventeen years later, in 1998, a second edition of this work by Lykken was published by Perseus Publishing. During this almost two-decade long time span, between editions, a large number of scientific investigative data had been presented on this topic and Lykken very completely includes most of it to support his original contention; namely, that continued use of the polygraph to detect lying and deception is based upon myth and falsehood. Rather interestingly, Lykken, even in his first edition, argues that there is one major exception to the just stated opinion that polygraph lie detection does not work. He fully explains and scientifically defends the idea that what is widely known as the Guilty Knowledge Test (GKT). In polygraphy, the GKT seems to be based upon sound psychological principles, whereas the testing procedure that almost all polygraphers seem to always utilize, the Control Question Test (CQT) is consistently shown to be scientifically quite unsound. Needless to say, Lykken’s both edition versions of his book have been very positively received within the behavioral science community. For example, Dr. John E. Hocking, in his just published book, "Communication Research," published by Allyn & Bacon, states that Lykken"s "book should receive a Pulitzer prize. It is a must reading for anyone who has an association with die detectors or polygraphs ...or for anyone who would like to go on an intellectual joy ride while swooping to an understanding of how an entire society can be duped by pseudo ‘science.’ Lykken reviews virtually all known research about lie detection with brilliant scientific rigor. He concludes that there exists no credible empirical evidence" ... for the test’s validity (p. 411)." This review comment by Hocking seems to be just about the standard comment that has come from bona fide behavioral scientists.

     Actually, major investigation of this same topic, i.e., the validity of polygraph lie detection, has been the focus of lengthy and complete investigation, fully supported by the U.S. Congress. In 1983, Congress tasked their own Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) with the job of reviewing the then existing scientific evidence, for and against use of the polygraph technique to possibly detect lying and deception. The OTA then organized and created an appropriate study group, headed by a well-known senior academic research psychologist, Dr. Leonard Saxe, to head up this study group. They followed their Congressional OTA given tasking and some many months later submitted their findings in a report. This report later appeared as a federal government publication (i.e., U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment [1983, November] "Scientific Validity of Polygraph Testing: A Research Review and Evaluation, [OTA-TM-H-15], Washington, DC: Office of Technical Assessment). Essentially, the same findings and conclusions were later published by Saxe, Dougherty and Cross, in the American Psychologist (1985, Vol. 40, pages 355-366) with the title of "The Validity of Polygraph Testing: Scientific Analysis and Public Controversy." Basically, Saxe et al, ended up saying that "polygraph tests to detect deceptiveness have been conducted for many years, although their validity has not yet been established." Their review strongly suggested that serious problems with validity regarding both the theoretical rationale underlying use of polygraph tests and the quality of available evidence underlie any use of the polygraph, and especially with tests given by the Department of Defense to persons regarding access to classified information, were clearly seen. 

     As an interesting comment to the above noted 1983 OTA study, commissioned by the U.S. Congress, various parts of the Government that had been making use of the polygraph in evaluating applicants for employment as well as their own employees, were ordered by Congress to provide a summarization of research that they were aware of that positively supported their use of the polygraph technique.  I was fortunate to receive a copy of the summarization report (i.e., Department of Defense, 1984) prepared by the Department of Defense (DOD).  It should be especially noted that the DOD employee, who was in charge of development and preparation of their summarization report, was the Editor of Polygraph, the official journal of the American Polygraph Association.  A reading of this DOD prepared summarization report made it very evident that they (i.e., the DOD polygraphers) were totally unable to present or document any relevant research that positively supported their particular usage of the polygraph technique. 

     Again, in the past few years, another highly respected arm of the U.S. Federal Government, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) was tasked, again by the U.S. Congress, with just about the same inquiry focus as was given to the OTA some 20 years earlier. The more timely problem was that the Government was apparently going to have to polygraph some 15K scientists, most of whom were associated with the Department of Energy and involving nuclear energy matters. These scientists were loudly protesting being so tested and they quite-rightfully argued that the polygraph technique for lie detection had been shown and proven to be an invalid test. Although the NAS subsequently reported, in a very detailed fashion, the very meaningful shortcomings of the polygraph technique, it’s ‘bottom line’ comment essentially was "that there exists no credible empirical evidence" ... for the test’s validity.

     As a psychologist professional for the past approximately 50 years, allow me to again get back to my own exposure to the practice of polygraphing for the purpose of detection of lying and deception. As mentioned earlier in this paper, my first, as an undergraduate student psychologist, I and a fellow student (i.e., S. T. Baker) conducted research that involved use of a Berkeley polygraph to measure anxiety changes as a function of exposure to English taboo words. We found reliable emotional changes to what appeared to be identifiable collections of such word stimuli. For example, we found one subject to seemingly reliably show some emotional changes when presented with and asked to orally repeat words that we identified as having some association with dermal (i.e., skin) matters. He showed increased anxiety when involved with words such as itch, rash, scab, and scratch, etc.. Another subject was observed to show increased anxiety when involved with words that described seldom exposed body parts, such as breast, belly button, butt, and genitals. Other subjects appeared to show increased anxiety when exposed to other word category collections. Nothing in this long-ago conducted experiment was involving lying or deception, as far as well could tell and were aware of. This research did though suggest that persons can and do react emotionally when exposed and involved with individual words and concepts. The act of lying and of attempting to deceive may have absolutely no connection, whatsoever with emotional changes that are detectable using the polygraph technique. Major causation may simply be emotional reaction to certain words and concepts.

     As mentioned earlier, I briefly detailed my own experiences being polygraphed by U.S. Government intelligence agency polygraphers. In addition to the three separate polygraph sessions, each involving a different polygrapher, that were required for me to get through the "passing" polygraph requirement in the initial employment and security clearance granting processing, in the next 22 years of employment with that agency, I had to undergo an "every five years" re-polygraphing that was a standard requirement for all employees. Therefore, I can recall being polygraphed at least seven separate times during my pre-employment and employment phases with that agency. I already explained my experiences with the first three; the next four exposures gave me no increased belief or understanding that the polygraph testing, that I was being exposed to, in anyway, showed anything that could reliably, in any real scientific fashion, detect a lie or attempted deception. The involved polygraphers attempted to orally communicate that their polygraph instruments could detect lying to an almost perfect degree, yet their overall general behavior could be interpreted as being indicative that they had little respect for their tool, which they were using as some kind of hoped-for prod for obtaining truthful answers to their questioning. With each and every polygraphing session, in which I was the subject individual, I left the session totally feeling that no polygraph detected response, that I might have emitted, could ever be identified as truly representing a lie or attempted deception, on my part. It should be noted here that the particular polygraphing test technique that was always used, in all these sessions, was of the CQT type.

     Due to my long-term interest (over 50 years) in polygraphy, such undoubtedly had a lot to influence regarding my research and development of a quite new and novel approach to detection of the presence of guilty and special knowledge that an individual might choose to attempt to hide. This new psychological testing approach, I eventually titled as the Serial Position Test (SEPO). A rather full detailing of the SEPO is available to any interested reader of the present paper and its address can be found , on the Internet, as: http://www.home.earthlink.net/~lastone2/sepo.html. This Internet address is for an article-like paper that appears as part of the writer’s overall Web Site. The SEPO is based upon serial learning and the very well established Von Restorff effect. This SEPO technique does not at all involve anxiety or emotional testing, as does the polygraph approach. It requires no assumption or belief that the act of lying involves some identifiable emotional changes. Instead it is based upon an assumption that if an individual has truly learned something once before, then a relearning of that something will be easier and faster than if that something had never been learned before. No measuring of changes of emotion are involved in SEPO testing! Rather interesting, the SEPO testing approach makes use of a type of systematic exposure to information in a fashion that is very similar to that described by Lykken as the GKT. 

     What has been the response of the polygrapher community to the SEPO? The technique has been demonstrated a number of times to state and federal organizations, and its reception by psychologists has always seemed to be quite favorable, they express very positive interest. Unfortunately, when such demonstrations are set up with agencies, almost always, the presence of agency psychologists is never seen; the agency audiences have so far almost always been composed solely of agency polygraphers as well as a few chemist and physicist type agency managers. The SEPO has been formally demonstrated to the FBI, at their DC Headquarters, at least three times. Not once was an FBI psychologist employee present, but always the number of FBI polygraphers constituted the majority present to witness the demonstrations. Not surprisingly, their interest levels are very predictable - their response clearly is uniform and negative. I always was left with the impression that no FBI psychologists had even been asked and invited to attend any of these demonstration sessions. Polygraphers’ very predictable hostility to any suggestion of procedures (other than the polygraph) that might be employable to detect deception and/or the presence of special/guilty knowledge actually represents another clue that their perception of their own deployment of polygraphs is one that is not scientifically well grounded and that the polygraph, as a detector of deception, is factually not overly defendable.

     Rather interestingly, in a couple of the SEPO demonstration sessions conducted with the FBI, I asked the Bureau’s polygraphers who were present, if they had ever administered any polygraph testing in which the GKT type testing was employed. Interestingly enough, not one that responded indicated that they had ever done so. This is rather interesting considering that Lykken has long argued that the GKT seems to be the ONLY type polygraph test that can be regarded as producing scientifically reliable and valid results. Over the years I have questioned other U.S. Federally-employed polygraphers, as well as a number of policeman polygrapher, employed at a city or state level, as to whether they have ever employed the GKT type procedure in any of their official work. Their responses all seem just about 100% consistent with one another - no police or national security oriented polygraphers seem to have ever relied upon use of the GKT technique.

     During my first 14 years (i.e., from 1975 to 1989) of employment by a federal intelligence agency, as a GS-15 level, Senior Clinical Psychologist, the majority of my professional activities were to psychologically evaluate employment applicants, employees regarding new assignments, as well as employees of contractor organizations. In the full evaluation process, of which the psychological evaluations were just a part, polygraphing was also conducted. There was purposely maintained a close communication contact between the psychologist and the polygraphers. Unfortunately, it was not at all unusual for an agency psychologist to discover some type of ‘horror story’ associated with the attempted polygraphing portion. For example, a young (i.e., age 21 or 22) female applicant for employment who was from Puerto Rico and who had just graduated from a convent type girl’s college that was very strictly run and operated by nuns of the Catholic Church, had been recruited by the agency (which most likely was then being motivated by some EEO or ‘diversity’ quota target figure). This young lady, after her first polygraphing involvement was ‘referred’ to an agency clinical psychology to hopefully assist her in some fashion that might improve her ‘chances’ were she to face a second polygraphing session. When she was introduced to the writer of the present paper, as he was the psychologist who the young lady saw, she was still very emotional. She was weeping and was very obviously emotionally upset. She soon revealed that her background had been almost entirely convent-associated even up to completion of college. She had never been in the company of a young male, on any type of ‘date’ arrangement, without being physically chaperoned by an older close family member (usually an aunt). She explained that, in her particular background, use of words that pertained to sex and sexual matters, were simply not used around her and that she never herself used such words. She further explained that although she knew the English language, it was her second language and that hearing sexual content, when expressed in English, was even a more rare experience than hearing the same concepts expressed in Spanish. [At about this time, I immediately recalled the psychological experiment involving use of the polygraph with English taboo words that I was involved with some 35+ years earlier.]

     As it had turned out, her heightened emotional state had started when being polygraphed and being asked about her past homosexual experiences. For someone who seemingly became anxious when even hearing words pertaining to sexual matter, it was not at all difficult for her to begin to believe that the involved polygrapher was accusing her of being a homosexual and of having engaged in all types of deviant sexual behaviors. Actually, it was not at all difficult to believe her when she declared that she was sexually still a virgin, and that this status had been motivated very much by her cultural rearing. The reason why I have chosen to relate the above incident is to show, by example, how blundering a polygrapher (who had no bona fide training in mental health matters) could be. Her showing increased anxiety when confronted with sexual questioning could (and should have been) better explained and understood, by the involved polygrapher, than simply to assume that she was lying and that she, in the past, had indeed engaged in homosexual behavior. When using non-psychologists to administer a complex psychological test, which the polygraph clearly is, is to then expect blundering test administrations and interpretations. Policemen, with a couple of weeks training in how to administer the polygraph, as well as to clean and repair the machine, simply are not adequately trained psychometrists!

     As I suggested in some of the above paragraphs, when I was employed by the Federal intelligence agency, I had considerable contact with many of that agency’s polygraphers, many of whom became ‘at-work’ friends. With most of these associations, I usually was able to, at least once, ask whether they thought they might be able to obtain the results they were after, even without ever turning on the machine (i.e., the polygraph). Almost all, admitted that not only that they believed that any good polygrapher could be successful even with a machine that was never turned on, but that in some cases they had actually proven to themselves that one could successfully carry off such a charade. To me this could be considered that the polygraphers themselves were fully aware that what they were doing was interrogation and that the polygraph merely was a prop that could be used to encourage the subject individual to confess.

     Even though I did not retire from federal service until January of 1997, I did maintain, from about 1969-1970, a limited private practice that was exclusively devoted to forensic psychology concerns. From about 1977 until the present time, almost all of this forensic practice involved psychological examinations, usually based upon a tasking by the involved defense counsel, of persons who were facing charges in the criminal justice system. During the 1977 to 1997 years, most of my forensic psychology practice was conducted on weekends, holidays, or days on which I took annual leave time from my federal employment. Following January of 1997, my forensic practice was allowed to approach something that could be regarded as being a full-time involvement on my part. With a large number of the cases, in which I was officially involved, the subject individuals had been polygraphed by police as part of the investigations conducted. Many of these individuals, who I psychologically evaluated (many of whom I subsequently testified about in court) related details regarding their being polygraphed. A number of whom polygraphed, in their police investigations, were floridly psychotic and some were marked mentally retarded. I recall one case in which the accused showed a WAIS-R Full Scale IQ of 51; all else in his life history was very much in agreement with his tested IQ value. Another case is very clearly recalled in which there was no disagreement between myself and the psychiatrist who had been hired by the prosecution (i.e., the ‘other side’) as to the accused being floridly psychotic, i.e., he reported both auditory as well as some visual hallucinations and was rather delusional. It would have been generally obvious to any polygrapher who was attempting to test these types of suspects that, for rather clear-cut reasons, no bona fide scientifically-oriented polygraphings should be initiated or continued, if started. What is the validity of administration of a police-conducted polygraph session with individuals who are mentally retarded and/or psychotic?

     As noted earlier, polygraphing of suspects, in criminal justice cases, as is carried out generally by policepersons, can be believed to be accomplished by persons who it appears truly do not believe in the hypothesis that signs of increased anxiety can be believed to indicate the presence of lying or deception on the part of the subject individual. No one who truly believes in the polygraph use hypothesis would yell at, or accuse subjects of lying, or other highly emotionally charged interpersonal engagements. If signs of anxiety are to be interpreted as a possible lie or deception behavior, then the operator of the polygrapher should never attempt to trigger off, by his own show of emotional behavior, any increased anxiety on the part of the subject individual. Just talk to anyone who has undergone being polygraphed as a suspect in a potential criminal justice case. Chances are that the individual will relate how the polygrapher, during the session, showed anger, accused the suspect of lying, and further explained how the polygrapher is almost always 100% accurate and that there is no use in trying to ‘beat’ the machine.

     I could go on for many more pages in relating specific examples of what I have attempted to communicate about in the above paragraphs, however it seems best to end this paper with only one more matter to be mentioned. In my approximately year-long contact with Dr. John Larson, the apparent ‘true’ father of polygraphy, he clearly communicated to me, multiple times, that after all his research work with police-oriented polygraphy, he had become convinced that the only type test that was scientifically supportable was the paradigm that later has been labeled as the GKT. Dr. Larson, in the closing years of his life was very strongly convinced that use of the polygraph in employment screening type situations simply constituted an invalid deployment of the technology.

     Use of the polygraph to detect lying and deception appears to only be practiced in a certain few countries and is not used or believe in by most countries. The USA appears to be where the polygraph myth is most widely believed and consequently it is here that most of its misuse takes place. Apparently, it is also used, to a very limited extent, in Japan, Israel, and the Philippines. A high-level U.S. Air Force officer (a psychologist), who had been assigned to the Philippines when Ferdinand Marcos was still its dictator, and who had had some official and ongoing contact with Philippine police authorities, related the following information to me. In the Philippines, young attractive virgin females were selected to be trained to be polygraphers. During and following their training they were required to live what could be regarded as a kind of cloistered life, i.e., no association with males, no sex, and forced to live a very restricted life. Their use and effectiveness as polygraphers was with something resembling religious type regard. Apparently, they were seen as some kind of modern ‘vestal virgins’ in that their effectiveness as polygraphers was believed to be related to their virginity status. What did this mean? Most surely, polygraphy, at least practiced during the reign of Ferdinand Marcos, was not at all set up as a scientific endeavor but rather more of a spiritual or religious conceptualization.

     In Israel, use of the polygraph is at a frequency or rate much lower than here in the USA. When dealing with terrorists, the Israelis are not as limited in their interrogation methods as we seem to be. What is especially interesting is that use of the polygraph to detect lying and deception never seemed to be a viable tool in the old Soviet Union (which basically is now Russia). This lack of interest and use of this type of methodology, by the Russians can be thought of as a surprising decision on their part. A great majority of Soviet/Russian science of psychology is based upon the teachings and research of Professor Pavlov. Pavlov’s brand of psychology was heavily based upon physiological groundings. He visualized much of what we do to have its physiological underpinnings. With this type of orientation, use of the polygraph, which is a tool that measures physiological changes associated with emotionality, would be expected to be something that would ‘fit in’ most naturally with Pavlovian thinking. Actually, it is understood that the very pragmatic Soviets/Russians learned very early on (most like back in the 1930s and 1940s) that using the polygraph to detect lying and deception simply did not work and that there was no reason why one would want to continue to employ an invalid procedure. Of course, our knowledge and understanding of Soviet/Russian police practices has shown us that they had and used many other more effective interrogation practices.

     I would like to end this paper with a quote from Lykken. He concludes that "it is madness for courts or federal police or security agencies to rely on polygraph results." He further indicates that the methodology surrounding the test is a deeply entrenched mythology similar to children believing in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny [page. 279].

     When will the leaders of the USA accept the fact that, since its very beginning use as a lie detector, the polygraph technique has really never been scientifically supported. In fact, just the opposite has been documented, over and over again in bona fide books and journal articles, written by behavioral scientist authorities, for the past several decades. They have clearly declared that use of the polygraph technique to detect lying and deception has been a major hoax.
 

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