Severely handicapped class arrives - The Lowell

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PROFILES.
Did you lie? The polygraph knows
accuracy of the lie-detector test.
By PtUUp Kwoag
In 19*4 more than 25 percent of major U.S. companies
: the x*tat btfan to bead up on the hanienei criminal's employed the |olyf nph flic-dctectm) tests to wren job ap-
brow as he watched the needle dance wildly U/«A the sheet plicants or invempte wrong doings TTus pnctktt ts expected
of paper.
to increase in l9R5.ini Urge pan, becatue at lOcmitfaUn
"You m&*aM*c!!tunfrssnow. "said the eiamlntrcon- assumption thrf moM American* Kavc, that the polygraph
fotemfy. "We con tell tt*z yrm're tving."
exam* arc accurate in the deiermihition of • len a person
7hU twu more than the M&a hit man cvttU take as heis
lying.
started to sob uncontrollably o>i4 confess to estrythlnf. The Tint modern polygraph wu umstructol in 1921 by
As fa nniicS¥*tted up from if*-tetevisS*ri set the message John A IATVKX, a medical indent at the Univeriity of
MI dear: justice had again been vindicated: the joodguyiCalifornia.
Lanon't insuumem was capable cfconliaucxu-
had won. and the had guys hed tost — alt because of the ry rxording Wood pressure, pube and rcspiratx n. Since these
to lie and "to beat" the machine: taking drugs, shifting abor*
in the scat, biting the tongue, or pressing on a tack hidden
in a sort, may throw the machine off.
A judge in Los Angeles recently ruled that the result of
test taken by John ?.. DeLoreaa, former auto manufrcturer
accused of cocaine snuggling charges, could ad be used by
the defemc because "substantial Udy movemeia" had cast
doubts c in detecting when people were lying;
-d a polygraph.
however, in the same study the device diagnosed 55 percent
The polygraph has been formally and succcufutly used of those innocent as "deceptive."
In policr intelligence and investigation lines 1924. However, Or in other words, polygraph testing is biased against the
thete U tfill no complete agreement on its validity among innocent, because juilry people generally constitute only a
leading piycholofbts, and judges have been known to very small pcrcenugs of the gioup.
disallow polygraph results uibmittet' as evidence.
For example, if I ,OTnx(
There remans one undoflcst that m
hard or "too leng": The Final.
: > , Some people do well undw ihe pre
Week, but others crack.
' Many teachers inflate the value of
much as one-third or oae-half of the fir,
'