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"Beating" a Lie Detector
Although Forensic Linguistics (FL) are routinely admissible in court, whereas lie detectors (polygraphs or polys) are not without both party consent, the two are becoming more and more interrelated in global justice systems. This is true both in the area of "Beating" A Lie Detector (BALD) research and applications, and FL use both in poly question preparation and post poly truth (answer) analysis.
The web is filled with false and misleading information about beating polys (Don't even try!). Most of the information on BALD, including some scientific research, focuses on "thinking" of alternative "no" answer statements, while actually answering the examiner's questions (and thus replying falsely). These "techniques" ALWAYS give, at a minimum, an "inconclusive," and with a skilled examiner, a significant physiological response (lying).
"Secret" examiner techniques to tease out these attempts, such as videotaped eye movement monitoring, concurrent VOPAN, and other questionable heuristic or observation techniques are NOT scientifically proven, and VLD Reports and Runs on this site, as well as FL analysis, are far more accurate in both pre and post poly analysis, and do not give polys a bad name, as the EMM and VOPANs do. The real, legitimate BALD analysis and research is going on right here in the field of computerized FL, in the form of question formulation, and answer analysis.
Prosecutors, Defense Attorneys, prisons, court systems, Plaintiffs, Defendants, Investigators, Judges, law enforcement, and hundreds of others in justice and employee screening organizations use polys daily to decide on pursuing deals, plea bargains, whether or not to appeal or prosecute, sentencing, and much more. With the growth of public sector jobs, and concerns about terrorism and background screening (even for private senior and child care workers), prospective employers -- even outside of law enforcement and government-- are using polys more and more to screen candidates. Click HERE for comments from some of these users.
If an examiner asks a examinee "Have you ever had sex with a minor?" the question itself is far too general, and can encompass acts when the examinee was themselves a minor, or give false negatives if the examinee "mentally defines" "minor" in certain ways. With the wrong question formulation, child predators can get off with certain warped "sex education" views, and innocent examinees can show lying due to irrelevant acts when they were juveniles. Adding "since you were an adult" also has problems in FL research results, whereas the common FBI question about drug usage "in the past two years" has been shown to be valid.
Since most polygraph examiners are not linguists or FLs, more and more attorneys and polygraph examiners are using FL techniques and VLD runs with programs like TestiPro, to formulate questions BEFORE the poly, and to validate or invalidate responses AFTER the poly.
A full third of the thousands of report requests we get on this site relate to some aspect of polygraphs-- question formulation, result support, answer analysis, validation and invalidation, etc. Defense attorneys and prosecutors also have gotten "soft" poly admittance when FL analysis is the predominant aspect of the report. A two part analysis where the poly is not admitted and the FL report is has become common. Few judges will successfully deny FL reports in these days when terrorism trials hinge on them more and more often, especially in cell phone and plan document transcript linguistic analysis.
How We Can Help
-- Augment your poly with an FL Report Run
-- Validate your answers with admissible analysis
-- Formulate questions properly before the poly
-- Focus the questions in FL research proven areas
-- Support your strategy with a Dedicated Case Site
-- Supercharge your credibility with Certification
Instead of trying to "beat" or explain away a poly-- make sure, with an FL run-- that you are approaching the whole process with a winning strategy in the first place! Often, you won't get a second chance if you take or allow one with improperly formulated questions-- something we sadly see happening over and over. It is much easier to get it right the first time, than "fix" it after the fact of poorly formulated poly question linguistics. BONUS: if your report run relates to a poly in any way, we routinely include specific information on many thousands of winning strategies we've helped with in past runs and successful cases.
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