60 Fun Facts About Lie Detectors

A polygraph records several bodily signals at once. Which of these is one of them?

It also tracks pulse, breathing rate and blood pressure while the subject answers questions.

The polygraph appeared on which reference work's 2003 list of greatest inventions, "for better or worse"?

Larson's original instrument is now in the Smithsonian.

What does the scientific community largely consider polygraphy to be?

The American Psychological Association says most psychologists agree there is little evidence it can accurately detect lies.

A 2003 review of polygraph research concluding there was "little basis for the expectation that a polygraph test could have extremely high accuracy" was issued by which body?

It found 57 of the roughly 80 studies the American Polygraph Association relied on were significantly flawed.

In a polygraph session, what is the "stim test"?

The idea is to convince guilty subjects that the machine works, though innocent ones may become just as anxious.

What is the alternative to the Control Question Technique that is used in Japan, testing whether a suspect reacts to details only the perpetrator would know?

Also called the Concealed Information Test, it asks multiple-choice questions such as whether a .45 or a 9 mm was used.

What is a polygraph test called within the US federal government?

Roughly 70,000 federal job applicants a year were being polygraphed as of 2013.

In United States v. Scheffer (1998) the Supreme Court said polygraph results were "little better than could be obtained by" what?

It left individual jurisdictions to decide whether to admit polygraph evidence at all.

Which CIA officer turned KGB mole passed polygraphs in 1986 and 1991 while spying for the Soviets?

His handler's advice was to get a good night's sleep, be nice to the examiner and stay calm.

What did the KGB mole Ames say was the key to beating the polygraph?

"There's no special magic," he said; the examiners were later judged "overly friendly".

A common "specific point" countermeasure is to spike your reaction to control questions by doing what?

Thinking of something scary or exciting is the gentler version of the same trick.

Which country's police were described in 2017 as Europe's most frequent polygraph users, with about 300 tests a year?

Its results are used in jury trials there but not accepted as viable evidence in bench trials.

In England and Wales, polygraph tests became compulsory in 2014 for which group?

Failing cannot be used as evidence, but confessions made during the test can.

Which Australian state made polygraph evidence inadmissible under the Lie Detectors Act 1983?

The act also bans polygraphs for employment, insurance and lending decisions.

Roughly how many polygraph tests were estimated to be given each year in the United States in a 2018 Wired report?

Most go to paramedics, police officers, firefighters and state troopers, in a two-billion-dollar industry.

Which US state admits polygraph testing in jury trials under certain circumstances?

In 2007 polygraph testimony was admissible by stipulation in 19 states.

The Employee Polygraph Protection Act, which bars most private employers from lie-detector testing, was passed in which year?

Senate testimony said 400,000 workers a year were suffering after being wrongly flunked before the law.

Which industries are exempted from the Employee Polygraph Protection Act?

Government agencies at every level are also outside the act.

The 1923 court case that created the "general acceptance" test for scientific evidence concerned an early lie detector. What was it called?

The court refused Marston's systolic blood pressure deception test, and the Frye standard bore its name for 70 years.

Which 1993 Supreme Court case replaced the Frye standard for scientific evidence in federal courts?

Under Daubert the underlying methodology must be scientifically valid, a bar polygraphs struggle to clear.

The psychologist who invented the systolic blood pressure deception test later created which comic-book character?

William Moulton Marston wrote her under the pen name Charles Moulton, complete with a Lasso of Truth.

Who suggested to William Marston that emotion and blood pressure were linked, noting her own pressure seemed to climb when she got angry?

Elizabeth Holloway Marston appears in photographs of his 1920s laboratory but was never credited as a collaborator.

What device does Marston's Amazon superheroine use to force villains to tell the truth?

Her creator styled himself "the father of the polygraph" and lobbied for the machine in courts.

In 1938 Marston appeared in advertising claiming the lie detector proved which brand's products superior?

The same year he published his book The Lie Detector Test.

Marston's early deception research tested his blood-pressure method on which group?

The project was abandoned, but he claimed a strong link between systolic pressure and lying.

Who is credited with inventing the modern polygraph in 1921?

He was a Berkeley medical student and police officer, and the first American cop with an academic doctorate.

Larson's first criminal use of the polygraph in April 1921 investigated a string of thefts where?

He questioned all 90 residents of College Hall, and later married one of them.

Which nationally renowned Berkeley police chief encouraged Larson's lie-detector work?

Vollmer later became chief in Los Angeles, and the teenage Keeler followed him there.

What did the 1920s press nickname Larson's polygraph, because they could not pronounce "sphygmomanometer"?

His original instrument is now in the Smithsonian Institution.

Larson came to call his own invention a "Frankenstein's monster" that he had spent how long combating?

He objected to what he saw as incorrect and abusive use by some police forces.

Which of Larson's proteges made the polygraph portable and added galvanic skin response in 1939, producing the prototype the FBI bought?

He was named after Leonardo da Vinci and preferred to be called Nard.

Keeler's first handmade lie detector, destroyed in a house fire in 1924, was called what?

He was a Berkeley high-school student and amateur magician when he built it.

Keeler played himself in which 1948 film noir starring James Stewart?

He also opened the first polygraph school, the Keeler Institute.

Which Italian criminologist built an 1895 device to measure blood pressure changes in police suspects, one of the earliest lie-detection tools?

Vittorio Benussi followed in 1904 with a device measuring breathing.

In the Middle Ages, what was used to detect liars on the theory that honest men would withstand it better?

Earlier societies mostly relied on torture for lie detection.

Which director of the CIA said in 1978 that Americans were bad at beating the polygraph "because we are raised to tell the truth"?

He claimed some Eastern Europeans could defeat the machine "without a blip".

Which spy for China is, with Ames, cited as a notable case of a spy producing a false negative on the polygraph?

At least six Americans have committed espionage since 1945 while passing polygraph tests.

Which CIA officer's failed 1995 polygraph led to an investigation and his conviction for spying for Russia?

He showed a strong probability of deception on questions about foreign intelligence contacts.

Which serial killer passed a polygraph in 1984 and was only caught nearly 20 years later through DNA?

Another suspect in the Green River killings reportedly failed his test.

Bill Wegerle failed two polygraphs after his wife's 1986 murder in Wichita. Which serial killer's DNA later cleared him?

He was never arrested, but lived under suspicion for nearly two decades.

Cuban spy Ana Belen Montes passed a counterintelligence polygraph in 1994 at which US organisation?

In 2008 the DIA nonetheless announced annual polygraphs for all 5,700 of its staff.

The hand-held PCASS lie detector deployed by the US military in Afghanistan renders its verdict using what?

The Pentagon restricted its use to non-US persons overseas.

Who created and hosted the first Lie Detector television show in the 1950s?

Later versions were fronted by Belli, Anderson and, in 1983, F. Lee Bailey.

On the 1998 Fox revival of Lie Detector, host Marcia Clark questioned which O.J. Simpson trial figure about planting the bloody glove?

Examiner Ed Gelb ran the test on air.

Which British daytime programme was cancelled after a guest died by suicide shortly after failing an on-air polygraph?

Producers later admitted at the inquiry they were unsure how accurate the tests were.

On which Fox game show do contestants answer embarrassing questions in front of family, judged against a polygraph taken days earlier?

Daytime hosts Maury Povich and Steve Wilkos also use polygraphs on cheating and theft accusations.

On MythBusters, the polygraph examiner claimed that properly conducted tests are correct what percentage of the time?

No scientific evidence supports the figure; the hosts failed to fool the machine with pain or pleasant thoughts.

The so-called "Pinocchio effect" holds that lying sends blood to which body part, making people touch it more?

Dr Alan Hirsch of Chicago proposed the effect; studies find non-verbal cues to be weak evidence of lying.

How good is the average person at spotting lies, according to research summarised on Wikipedia?

Experts including police officers do not do significantly better.

Which brain-imaging technique has been marketed by firms like No Lie MRI as a next-generation lie detector?

Its results have not been admitted as evidence, most famously in Harvey Nathan's 2007 insurance fraud case.

Peer-reviewed studies of voice stress analysis, used covertly by banks and insurers, found it detects deception at what level?

One study of 74 interrogation recordings scored 48 percent accuracy.

Which body published a 1983 review finding 'only limited scientific evidence' for polygraph validity?

The National Academy of Sciences reached parallel conclusions twenty years later.

In the 1987 case R v Béland, which country's Supreme Court ruled polygraph results inadmissible?

Canadian police may still use polygraphs in investigations if the person consents.

In 2015, which country's Supreme Court declared polygraph use in interrogating suspects forbidden?

Polygraphs are widely seen in Europe as violating the right to remain silent.

In 1904, Vittorio Benussi built an early lie-detection device that measured what?

He tracked changes in the inspiration-expiration ratio; Lombroso's 1895 device had measured blood pressure.

Which CIA employee was dismissed in 1983 after truthfully admitting petty theft and drug use in a polygraph screening?

Howard later defected to the Soviet Union.

Which famed defence attorney hosted a syndicated Lie Detector series from Columbia Pictures Television in 1983?

Ralph Andrews had created the original 1950s show; a Fox revival with Marcia Clark followed in 1998.

Which country's Supreme Court in 2010 ruled narcoanalysis, brain mapping and polygraphs illegal without consent?

Article 20(3) of the country's constitution bars compelling an accused to be a witness against himself.

Paul Ekman's micro-expressions, said to leak concealed emotions, last less than what fraction of a second?

Ekman himself cautions that signs of emotion are not necessarily signs of guilt.

James Pennebaker's LIWC text-analysis method correctly classified what share of true and false statements?

Trained human judges managed only 52% on the same 400 statements about abortion.