I don’t have the firmest grasp on the way a polygraph functions, but I’ve just had this thought a lot.
Could a polygraph help people uncover repressed memories? For example if a person suspects they were being harmed as a child, but can’t remember details, could a polygraph help them get more answers? Like by asking specific questions maybe related to what a person suspects happened and detecting how they respond.
Or, is a polygraph only useful to detect truth/a lie about things someone is certain about and remembers fully?
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A polygraph is only useful to trick a suspect into incriminating themself or building a convincing probable cause argument. They don’t detect lies, they detect bodily stress responses, and one of the most stressful situations you can be in is defending your own innocence against someone who’s already decided that you’re guilty. The results of a polygraph test are not admissible in US courts as evidence of guilt or innocence for this reason.
I know that doesn’t answer your question but police love to use the fact that polygraph tests are so poorly understood to do things that moral or ethically-bound people might consider heinous. Don’t ever let the police talk you into taking a polygraph test even if you’re innocent and they tell you it could clear you, or you’re guilty and you think you can trick it.
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