Question

WEEK 3 ASSIGNMENT

ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS BELOW:

1: Provide a brief history of polygraph testing in the workplace.

2: Furthermore, discuss if you have ever been involved with a polygraph test and what occurred. Relate this to this case study. If you have not been involved in a polygraph test, discuss your expectations of the experience.

Answer 1

1.The first polygraph was created in 1921, when a California-based policeman and physiologist John A. Larson devised an apparatus to simultaneously measure continuous changes in blood pressure, heart rate and respiration rate in order to aid in the detection of deception . The invention of the polygraph cannot be, however, attributed to a single individual. Seven years prior, in 1914, Italian psychologist Vittorio Benussi had published his findings on the respiratory symptoms of the lie (from German: ‘Die Atmungssymptome der Lüge’), and it was American psychologist, lawyer and author William M. Marston who invented the discontinuous systolic blood pressure test for the detection of deception in 1915 (Alder, 2002), which, when taken together, formed the basis for Larson’s polygraph.

The polygraph first came into significant contact with the legal system in 1923, when Marston attempted to have the results of a polygraph test admitted as evidence (United States v. Frye, 1923). The court rejected the results as evidence, stating that ‘while the courts will go a long way in admitting experimental testimony deduced from a well-recognised scientific principle or discovery, the thing from which the deduction is made must be sufficiently established to have gained general acceptance in the particular field in which it belongs’ (United States v. Frye, 1923. p. 1). This became known as the Frye Standard, which would govern the admissibility of expert testimony in US courts until well after the end of the Cold War.¹

The vast majority of early polygraph research was conducted by John Larson, who worked for the Berkley, California, police department throughout the 1920s. Berkley Police Chief August Vollmer saw Larson’s work as a means to significantly improve the effectiveness of his department, and thus allowed Larson to test and refine his polygraph through work on real cases (Carte & Carte, 1975). Vollmer’s focus on the polygraph’s practical value over any other concerns was something that would come to be a common stance within law enforcement in the US

2.Modern polygraphs no longer use pens attached to tambours to write in ink onto a roll of paper driven by clockwork (Mackenzie, 1908) in the way the original Keeler polygraph models used to work. Modern polygraphs produce digital outputs that go directly from the measuring instruments into a computer with the appropriate polygraph software.

if polygraph is not there it is difficult to handle,but new technologies can be developed.