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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The polygraph isn’t even an effective lie detector. All it detects is how much stress the subject is under. If you feel no stress from lying then the polygraph will detect nothing.
Although it is possible that a polygraph could detect if you’re stressed out over a certain memory or not. If you had a traumatic event and repressed it you might have a stress response when trying to remember it. This would detect that there is a repressed memory but wouldn’t tell you what it was.
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