Like – if it’s based on a person’s physiological responses, isn’t it possible that a response to a question like “did you murder your hamster” would register as a lie due to the increase in heart rate and blood pressure cause of anxiety associated with being accused of something?
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As others have said, they really don’t. It’s absolutely not a hard science at all.
Occasionally they’re just used as a simple intimidation tactic. Good cop / Bad Cop stuff … except instead of having bad cop yell “I KNOW THAT YOU’RE LYING,” you have the machine do it. “THE MACHINE KNOWS THAT YOU’RE LYING.” In that setting, you might as well hook the subject up to an etch-a-sketch. There’s no useful data coming out. You’re just trying to get the person to confess.
However, sometimes they are used and you actually do want to get some useful information. So you make a whole day of it. Or evne 2 or 3 days, potentially. It can be a hell of a process.
To start with, you acclimate the person. Spend a while with them hooked up to the machine, and asking questions that aren’t really important. Start with simple stuff: “Where were you born, what year did you graduate high school, what was your first pet’s name, etc.” Turn it into a conversation. It helps to create a baseline, because even simple conversation is more tense when you’re hooked up to weird machines, in a strange room, with strange people asking you questions.
From there you start asking awkwardly probing questions that aren’t really important, but are designed to illicit an emotion response. “Have you ever had homosexual thoughts (assuming the subject isn’t openly gay). Have you ever taken prescription medication that wasn’t yours. Have you ever shoplifted or stolen from any of your jobs. How would you rate your own dick: small/medium/large.”
You’ll certainly get some kind of a reaction from some of those questions, and again, it’s used as a baseline. You’re not being accused of anything (yet) they’re just getting a reading for what makes you squirm, and how that shows up on the machine. From there, they can start getting into more specifically probing questions and use all of the previous responses to try and gauge a reaction.
Of course… it’s all easy enough to muddy by simply putting a rock in your shoe. Pressing down on the rock will cause your body to react internally. Doing this during the “baseline” portion will prevent them from having a useful comparison. And there are other ways to muddy the results. Even just crossing your legs, clenching up your butt-cheeks hard enough or holding your breath can register on the machine.
Of course… of course… a muddy result can also be useful data itself. It tells you that the person is probably doing this on purpose, and trying to hide something. You’re not going to get a printout with exactly what they’re trying to hide, but you know that they’re hiding something, and smart enough to try and deceive you. And that’s good to know.
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