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How Lie Detectors Work · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know
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Speaker 1: from House Stuff Works dot com? Hey, and welcome to
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Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me is always a
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Speaker 1: child to beat? Chuck Bryant liar you you could tell
0:25
Speaker 1: there's the ways you can find out Chuck. Sure. Um,
0:27
Speaker 1: we'll get to that in a minute. There's stuff you
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Speaker 1: should know. Let me finish. Okay, and it's you lie.
0:33
Speaker 1: Remember that guy Joe joey Pants or whatever the congressman's
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Speaker 1: name was. Yeah, Saturday night Life. That is a funny
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Speaker 1: skit that he had gotten a whole group of people
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Speaker 1: that all stayed up at once, wasn't the deal? And
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Speaker 1: well yeah, and he supposed he had a whole group
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Speaker 1: of senators that we're gonna all stand up and yell
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Speaker 1: you lie. And then he was the only one that
0:53
Speaker 1: did it because he was out of the room when
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Speaker 1: they were like, no, we can't do that. I think
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Speaker 1: that will say that that's funny. Yeah. So um, we're
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Speaker 1: talking about a lot of detectors. But let me take
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Speaker 1: you back to a little place in time and space
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Speaker 1: called the jazz age. Early nineteen twenties. Yeah, no, that's
1:15
Speaker 1: the beat Nicks that did that. Um, I'm sure a
1:19
Speaker 1: jazz person snapped their fingers at one point. Um, but
1:23
Speaker 1: not like that, right, It was more like like Coltrane style,
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Speaker 1: just like that. Anyway. This is Chuck in Berkeley, California,
1:35
Speaker 1: at u c l A, Berkeley, And there is a
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Speaker 1: place there called um the College Hall, which was a
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Speaker 1: women's dorm. And in that year there were a theft,
1:47
Speaker 1: a string of there was a string of um thefts,
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Speaker 1: cash rings, um, pretty much anything of value went missing
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Speaker 1: for a little while there. And uh, there is a
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Speaker 1: man working at the Berkeley Police Department, Okay, called College Hall.
2:05
Speaker 1: There was a man working in the in the Berkeley
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Speaker 1: Police Department. His name is John Larson. And John Larson
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Speaker 1: was the first cop ever to have a PhD. And
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Speaker 1: he had gotten interested in this device called a cardio
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Speaker 1: newmo psychograph, which had been invented just a few years
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Speaker 1: before by another guy named William Marston. And William Marson
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Speaker 1: was a lawyer in a Harvard shrink and he also,
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Speaker 1: as an aside, created Wonder Woman with her Lasso of Truth.
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Speaker 1: He's the guy who invented the what's now called the polygraph.
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Speaker 1: But what about the Wonder Woman? He created Wonder Woman,
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Speaker 1: the character he was kind of a renaissance man. But
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Speaker 1: that's William Marson. John Larson works at the at the
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Speaker 1: Berkeley Police Department, and he's become interested in this thing,
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Speaker 1: the cardio neumo psychograph, and he realizes, okay, this is
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Speaker 1: a perfect chance to apply it. So he rounds up,
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Speaker 1: you know, some suspects. He does some some normal police
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Speaker 1: work and finds out who the suspects are in this
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Speaker 1: in this hall, and he rounds him up, brings him
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Speaker 1: down the station, and he starts hooking people up to
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Speaker 1: this um, this machine. And he gets to this one woman,
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Speaker 1: her name is Helen Graham, and guilty, yes, pretty much
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Speaker 1: is what he does. He goes U ms Graham, this
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Speaker 1: machine is saying that you're that you took this, that
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Speaker 1: you you took the money, you know, did you? Um?
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Speaker 1: And he said that he noted on the machine a
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Speaker 1: sharp drop in blood pressure followed by a sudden rise.
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Speaker 1: And then after that this woman flew into a rate.
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Speaker 1: She tried to attack the machine. She went crazy, so
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Speaker 1: they they basically string her along for a few days
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Speaker 1: and then finally she confesses and it's the first time
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Speaker 1: that a polygraph was ever used to to um solve
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Speaker 1: a crime. Ever, that that was probably the heyday because
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Speaker 1: before the people knew what it was, they could just
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Speaker 1: say this machine says that you're guilty, and they would be,
4:00
Speaker 1: oh my god, that's exactly right. Very early on, some
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Speaker 1: of the early proponents, specifically a guy named a Leonard
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Speaker 1: keeler Um recognized the placebo effect value before anyone knew
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Speaker 1: there was a placebo effect. That the placebo effect value
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Speaker 1: of a polygraph. That just the idea if you believed
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Speaker 1: in this machine and that it could rude outlies, then
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Speaker 1: it could force you to confess. Just being hooked up
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Speaker 1: to it, you weren't going to pass it. They should
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Speaker 1: have called it the guilt box. They called it the
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Speaker 1: magic lie detector is one of the one of the
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Speaker 1: facts that they called it. Yeah, Leonard Keiler called it that.
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Speaker 1: He worked with John Larson at the Berkeley Police Department,
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Speaker 1: and eventually, over time John Larson saw the what he
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Speaker 1: considered the truth behind the lie detector and the fact
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Speaker 1: that it kept being cold light detector, which is driving
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Speaker 1: him crazy um and he eventually distanced himself from it.
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Speaker 1: Later on in his career. UM, but Leonard Keeler ran
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Speaker 1: around marketing it to anyone and everyone, saying, just having
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Speaker 1: this is going to not only help you hire um,
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Speaker 1: more more truthful, forthright people, but it's going to keep
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Speaker 1: them in line while they're working for you, because they
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Speaker 1: know you've got access to this thing and you can
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Speaker 1: strap them to it at any time. Yeah, so that's
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Speaker 1: where the polygraph came from. Yeah, there's a little prehistory
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Speaker 1: to just to give them their due. Uh. In e
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Speaker 1: Cesaire lambroso he's an Italian criminologist. He measured changes in
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Speaker 1: blood pressure for police cases in in nineteen o four
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Speaker 1: a device by Vittorio Bernosi measured breathing and so they
5:34
Speaker 1: were early nineteen hundreds, late eighteen hundreds. They were kind
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Speaker 1: of on the scene of of measuring these things in.
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Speaker 1: Dr James Mackenzie in nineteen o six first mentioned the
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Speaker 1: word polygraph with his instrument that he didn't use to
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Speaker 1: root out the truth, but for uh he did use
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Speaker 1: it when giving medical examination. ZO and then right before
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Speaker 1: the polygraph was the unigraph unigraph, which was part of
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Speaker 1: what's still used today in the polygraph UM. It measured respiration.
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Speaker 1: Pretty cool, yeah, Um, but then you add to it
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Speaker 1: a couple of other things and you got the polygraph.
6:12
Speaker 1: We could stop here. This is interesting enough right now.
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Speaker 1: So there's no uh you really, there's no um, no
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Speaker 1: one walking the planet who has anything to do with
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Speaker 1: polygraphs that call them lie detectors, And anyone, even the
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Speaker 1: most ardent defender of polygraph technology would correct you if
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Speaker 1: you called it a lie detector. They would be like,
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Speaker 1: it's it's not a lie detector because you can't detect
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Speaker 1: a lot. It's possible. The whole basis of a polygraph
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Speaker 1: is that it is a set of um medical instruments
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Speaker 1: that use to measure changes in things like your heart rate,
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Speaker 1: your respiration um and sweatiness. Basically, I would fail. Um, well,
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Speaker 1: a lot of people do fail, and we'll get to that.
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Speaker 1: But um oh because of your sweat Yeah, that's okay.
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Speaker 1: They would they would even hook me up. Um. So,
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Speaker 1: when you're hooked up to this machine. The whole point
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Speaker 1: is that it measures these physiological changes in the idea
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Speaker 1: that there you're going to undergo physiological changes based on
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Speaker 1: the concept that a person hooked this machine who is
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Speaker 1: guilty will experience fear that they're going to be detected.
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Speaker 1: So this machine is designed to detect that fear, that's right,
7:32
Speaker 1: which is really round about. But for a century almost
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Speaker 1: these things were used um and abused, and it took
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Speaker 1: a while for people to kind of catch on that.
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Speaker 1: There's a lot to criticize here with polygraphs, yeah, for sure,
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Speaker 1: but they're still used, all right, So let's get into
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Speaker 1: this um. First of all, we need to point out
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Speaker 1: that analog polygraphs are what you have long seen in
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Speaker 1: movies and TV when they have the little jit he
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Speaker 1: uh looks like a seismic graph on the on the
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Speaker 1: paper scrolling by, and uh, you're hooked up to all
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Speaker 1: these different things on your chest, in your forehead and
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Speaker 1: your fingertips. These days they do that digitally, but it's
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Speaker 1: basically still the same technique. They just don't use the
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Speaker 1: little scrolling needle. Do They have a name for that.
8:22
Speaker 1: It's called an inkfield pen. It is, okay. But the
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Speaker 1: three things that they do, Josh, They measure your respiratory rate,
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Speaker 1: as you said, They take newmographs, which are rubber tubes
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Speaker 1: filled with air time around your chest and your abdomen,
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Speaker 1: and that is going to measure whether or not you're
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Speaker 1: you know, you start breathing heavy essentially when you get nervous.
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Speaker 1: It monitors your breathing pattern and any changes to it,
8:45
Speaker 1: and it does it pretty cleverly. Right. Yeah. With bellows,
8:48
Speaker 1: it it's they're filled with air. So when you when
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Speaker 1: you breathe in real deeply or have a change, it's
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Speaker 1: going to displace that into the bellows and that will
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Speaker 1: Originally that was attached the bellows were literally attached to
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Speaker 1: the mechanical arm that showed the change. These days is
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Speaker 1: a it's a transducer that converts it digitally electronically, right,
9:08
Speaker 1: it converts it to an electrical pattern, right, Yeah, the
9:13
Speaker 1: same thing. Yeah, Um no, I think it looks a
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Speaker 1: lot like it. If you look, there's a picture of
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Speaker 1: a modern one in the ground. It looks just like
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Speaker 1: But yeah, it's not a it's not a paper read
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Speaker 1: out any longer, which is kind of interesting, Like this
9:27
Speaker 1: technology hasn't hasn't changed on a very fundamental basis for
9:31
Speaker 1: like a hundred years almost. Yeah, I mean the early
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Speaker 1: one from Mackenzie in nineteen o six. They say that
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Speaker 1: a lot of the same components are still very similar today. Right. Um,
9:40
Speaker 1: you also are going to have so you're gonna have
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Speaker 1: two tubes, one around your chest, one around your abdomen.
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Speaker 1: It's um keeping an eye on your breathing. Um. You're
9:49
Speaker 1: going to have a blood pressure cuff which UM, which
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Speaker 1: keeps an eye on your heart rate and your blood pressure.
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Speaker 1: And it does it through sound, right, Yeah, realize this.
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Speaker 1: So when you're when the blood comes in and out
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Speaker 1: of your veins, it creates sound. And sound can also
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Speaker 1: be used to displace air, causing of bellows to contract,
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Speaker 1: which again moved the arm on the scroll and now
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Speaker 1: is created or turned into an electrical pattern. Um. But
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Speaker 1: it's the same thing, but it's sound, which I just
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Speaker 1: think is very neat. Well, and what's also neat is
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Speaker 1: the sweat one. I figured they would have some sort
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Speaker 1: of like a moisturerometer just to detect moisture. But it's
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Speaker 1: called galvanic skin resistance or GSR or electrodermal activity, that's right.
10:38
Speaker 1: And they hook up these fingerplates to galvanometers and they
10:41
Speaker 1: are basically measuring the skin's ability to conduct electricity. And
10:45
Speaker 1: if your skin is moist it's going to be able
10:48
Speaker 1: to conduct electricity easier. And that's what they're measuring there.
10:51
Speaker 1: It's like the ones the little um heart rate monitors
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Speaker 1: that they clip to your fingertips in the hospital. But
10:59
Speaker 1: these things as your electricity instead, uh, which if you
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Speaker 1: are dry, you're going to conduct less of electricity. If
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Speaker 1: you're wet, you're gonna conduct more so since you have
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Speaker 1: so many pores on the end of your fingers and
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Speaker 1: you sweat when you're nervous. There you go. Done. So
11:18
Speaker 1: you put all this together and um, it paints this picture.
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Speaker 1: It's the A c l U among other people have
11:25
Speaker 1: decried as just what are you doing here? Basically is
11:29
Speaker 1: what the A c l U says, right, Um, what
11:33
Speaker 1: what you have is a picture of a person who
11:37
Speaker 1: is undergoing stress, maybe feeling embarrassment, is maybe just scared
11:43
Speaker 1: to be there. Uh, maybe doesn't like having things wrapped
11:47
Speaker 1: around his or her chest. Um, maybe doesn't really like
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Speaker 1: the person asking the questions. The results of these these
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Speaker 1: um changes in pattern, the data is totally subjective, that's right,
12:02
Speaker 1: which makes polygraphs totally subjective, which takes it in large
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Speaker 1: part out of the realm of science. Yeah, voodoo science
12:10
Speaker 1: is what they call it. And uh. Although proponents will
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Speaker 1: say that a well trained forensic psychophysiologists, which is the
12:18
Speaker 1: examiner can get through all that to still get a
12:22
Speaker 1: good result. They're like, yeah, they know all this stuff,
12:24
Speaker 1: and if you're good, then you can factor that in
12:27
Speaker 1: and still get a good result. So let's talk about
12:30
Speaker 1: what the forensic psychophysiologist does. There's apparently I've seen anywhere
12:35
Speaker 1: between five thousand and ten thousand of them in the
12:37
Speaker 1: US at any given time, UM, And some of them
12:43
Speaker 1: belong to professional organizations. I think probably maybe half or third,
12:49
Speaker 1: depending on where you are in the on that estimate.
12:52
Speaker 1: UM belong to any number of professional organizations. Some have
12:57
Speaker 1: no accreditation whatsoever, UM, but are still able to open
13:01
Speaker 1: up shops depending on the state there in. Some states
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Speaker 1: have zero laws about being a forensic psychophysiologist a k
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Speaker 1: A polygraph examiner. That's right, but there is also some
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Speaker 1: there are programs out there. Uh. The who wrote this article,
13:17
Speaker 1: Kevin bondser I think so. He he um interviewed a
13:21
Speaker 1: guy who founded the Accodon Academy. Exciton is a manufacturer polygraphs,
13:27
Speaker 1: and they founded this academy as well, where um, you
13:31
Speaker 1: go through a certain amount of training to become a
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Speaker 1: forensic psychophysiologist. And he actually interviewed that guy. Yeah, his
13:38
Speaker 1: name's Bobb Lee Lee uh and Lee says that if
13:42
Speaker 1: you come to their academy, UM you have to have
13:45
Speaker 1: a baccalaurea degree bachelor's right, or you have to have
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Speaker 1: at least five years investigative experience and an associate's degree. UM.
13:54
Speaker 1: You have to take a ten week course, and after
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Speaker 1: you complete the ten week course, you have to carry
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Speaker 1: out twenty five polygraph examinations and submit them to be reviewed. Uh.
14:07
Speaker 1: So these are like real life ones. I guess you're
14:09
Speaker 1: working with your local police department or whatever. Maybe you're
14:12
Speaker 1: already a cop UM and you have to submit it
14:15
Speaker 1: to the Accident Academy board for a review. And then
14:20
Speaker 1: once they're all reviewed and everybody's all thumbs up, you
14:23
Speaker 1: are a licensed I guess. But you're not licensed because
14:27
Speaker 1: there's no licensing body. UM. You are you graduate, I
14:31
Speaker 1: guess is is what they call it. So that's as
14:36
Speaker 1: accredited as it gets. I guess. And like you said, UM.
14:41
Speaker 1: Proponents of polygraph testing say that there, if you're a
14:45
Speaker 1: good FP, you're gonna be able to structure everything correctly
14:49
Speaker 1: so that you can see past somebody who's just who
14:51
Speaker 1: sweats a lot like you, or who gets stressed out
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Speaker 1: easily like me, Um, and design your questions appropriately, and
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Speaker 1: you're gonna able to to figure out whether this person
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Speaker 1: is deceptive or not. So how how would you do that? Chuck? Well,
15:09
Speaker 1: we should talk about the test itself. I guess. Uh,
15:11
Speaker 1: you're gonna you're gonna go in and you're gonna get
15:13
Speaker 1: a pretest before you get strapped up to anything. Could
15:16
Speaker 1: take about an hour. This is just you and those
15:19
Speaker 1: the only two people in the room. You're not surrounded
15:21
Speaker 1: by folks like in the movies and stuff, although in
15:25
Speaker 1: the movie sometimes it's just two people, I guess. But
15:27
Speaker 1: the pretest that you're just gonna get an interview basically
15:30
Speaker 1: about basically about why you're being investigated. Uh, they're also
15:35
Speaker 1: gonna be profiling you and checking you out and just
15:38
Speaker 1: seeing what kind of questions you respond to and what
15:41
Speaker 1: might make you nervous, just so they'll be better informed
15:44
Speaker 1: about how to properly question you once you're all strapped in, right,
15:47
Speaker 1: and the pretest where you're just kind of hanging out
15:50
Speaker 1: with them casually. The examiners also kind of getting info
15:53
Speaker 1: out of you that you might not be aware of,
15:55
Speaker 1: like um, if you are if you talk leisurely about
16:01
Speaker 1: your favorite beer at one point and how you like
16:03
Speaker 1: it a lot, and then later on it also comes
16:06
Speaker 1: up that you have to drive a lot um. They
16:09
Speaker 1: might come up with it. They might use that for
16:11
Speaker 1: a control question UM, which could be something like have
16:14
Speaker 1: you ever driven under the influence of alcohol? And a
16:17
Speaker 1: control question is something where you would have to admit
16:20
Speaker 1: guilt um and you may not want to, but it's
16:23
Speaker 1: such a broad question that just about anybody is guilty
16:27
Speaker 1: of it, Like have you ever lied to somebody? Have
16:29
Speaker 1: you ever um stolen anything? That kind of thing to
16:33
Speaker 1: where if you say no, they now have a baseline
16:36
Speaker 1: for what it looks like when you lie. That they
16:40
Speaker 1: can make a reasonable assumption that you have just lied.
16:43
Speaker 1: And any of the data UM captured on the polygraph
16:48
Speaker 1: they're going to use to analyze everything else off of.
16:52
Speaker 1: That's pretty much it. That's the test, and afterward you
16:55
Speaker 1: have the post tests where they look at all the
16:57
Speaker 1: data and chart out whether or not they think you're
17:01
Speaker 1: deceptive and aware. Like on this question, you're deceptive. On
17:05
Speaker 1: this question you may have been deceptive. It's kind of
17:08
Speaker 1: hard to tell. On this one you definitely were deceptive,
17:10
Speaker 1: so so, and it's all in it's all in relation
17:13
Speaker 1: to that control question, that baseline. Right, So if you
17:17
Speaker 1: if your deception, if you if on questions where I mean,
17:21
Speaker 1: they're gonna have to talk to the police as well
17:23
Speaker 1: too and say what do you want to know out
17:25
Speaker 1: of this person? So they'll design questions around that as well. UM.
17:29
Speaker 1: So they may have a question like, um, are you
17:31
Speaker 1: wearing a blue shirt? That may be question one, it's irrelevant, right.
17:34
Speaker 1: Question two is, um, have you ever lied to your boss?
17:39
Speaker 1: That's the control question, and then question three is something
17:42
Speaker 1: like you know, did you steal the cookie from the
17:44
Speaker 1: cookie jar? Like, that's the one that the cops want
17:47
Speaker 1: them to ask. They'll compare the results of Q three
17:51
Speaker 1: against Q two and if they're the same or you
17:57
Speaker 1: can't really tell, that's in uh in that that's an
18:00
Speaker 1: uh inconclusive tests. So that's it. I mean, like you said,
18:04
Speaker 1: that's that's polygraph. It's pretty easy. It is. It's uh
18:08
Speaker 1: it's um jarringly easy, considering that it's used in legal
18:12
Speaker 1: cases a lot, right, Yes, that's true. Um. People try
18:17
Speaker 1: to to battle the LDE detector in various ways or
18:20
Speaker 1: a little tricks that the Internet says works, like taking
18:24
Speaker 1: a sedative or putting any perspirint on your fingers, which
18:28
Speaker 1: seems like they would make you wash your hands. Uh,
18:31
Speaker 1: putting attack in your shoe, and anytime you get asked
18:34
Speaker 1: a question, every single time you stomp on the tack.
18:37
Speaker 1: And the idea is that you're just gonna skew the
18:39
Speaker 1: test so they all look the same, so your body
18:42
Speaker 1: has the same reaction no matter what's going on, like
18:45
Speaker 1: they I guess if you press on the tack, your
18:47
Speaker 1: physiological response could overwhelm any response to the question. Right. Um,
18:54
Speaker 1: Like I said there, these these things are used in
18:57
Speaker 1: legal cases, but with caveats. Right, If you undergo a polygraph,
19:03
Speaker 1: whether you fail or pass, it doesn't really matter legally speaking, um,
19:10
Speaker 1: because of unless you're in New Mexico. Yeah, this is
19:14
Speaker 1: the only state that allows it just openly. Like if
19:16
Speaker 1: you take a polygraph, like, it's admissible in court every
19:19
Speaker 1: other state. Um. Usually the both sides have to agree
19:23
Speaker 1: on it being admitted or um. The judge has to say, yeah,
19:27
Speaker 1: we're gonna admit this one, right. Yeah, And federally the
19:30
Speaker 1: judge decides whether or not they're going to admit it, right,
19:34
Speaker 1: And I guess state judges kind of follow that federal
19:37
Speaker 1: ruling of polygraphing. Yeah, and it's sort of a crapshoot
19:41
Speaker 1: if a federal judge is gonna allow it or not.
19:44
Speaker 1: There's no precedent really to where they say we have
19:47
Speaker 1: to or we don't have to. Right, So, where are
19:50
Speaker 1: the problems with this um? The problems with a polygraph
19:57
Speaker 1: um or that it's subjective, Right, that's a one. But
20:01
Speaker 1: also because there because it's subjective, you can get what
20:04
Speaker 1: are called false positives and false negatives. Yeah, and you
20:09
Speaker 1: don't want that because then the test itself is just
20:11
Speaker 1: not valid. Uh, But I mean that a lot of
20:15
Speaker 1: people use that as evidence that polygraph polygraphy shouldn't be
20:20
Speaker 1: done at all, that it's not valid. False positive and
20:24
Speaker 1: polygraph thing is when you find somebody who is deemed
20:29
Speaker 1: deceptive but was telling the truth. False negative is when
20:33
Speaker 1: somebody who wasn't telling the truth um is deemed truthful.
20:38
Speaker 1: Like Gary Ridgeway, the Green River killer. They had him
20:41
Speaker 1: for a little while and gave him a polygraph and
20:43
Speaker 1: he passed and they let him go and he went
20:44
Speaker 1: and killed a bunch more women. All right, that's right.
20:48
Speaker 1: I didn't know that actually, Yeah, Well good for him.
20:53
Speaker 1: There's also the uh, you know, the federal government is
20:55
Speaker 1: the largest consumer of these exams, and if you work
20:59
Speaker 1: for the federal govern right, you've probably had one to
21:01
Speaker 1: get the job. But you can't do that in the
21:04
Speaker 1: private sector thanks to the Polygraph Protection Act Employee Polygraph
21:08
Speaker 1: Protection Act in the late eighties, they said, you can't
21:12
Speaker 1: force your employees to do this. You can request it,
21:15
Speaker 1: but if they don't want to do it, you can't
21:17
Speaker 1: fire them because of it. You just can't do it right,
21:20
Speaker 1: not in private land, right unless you have a contract
21:24
Speaker 1: with the government, and then that's not valid. But yeah,
21:27
Speaker 1: the the federal government is the largest opponent to them
21:31
Speaker 1: in court, but also the largest consumer. I imagine that
21:36
Speaker 1: UM and there's been a lot of cases that shaped
21:39
Speaker 1: its admissibility or not. But the polygraph it seems like
21:42
Speaker 1: it's kind of honest way out. I wrote an article
21:44
Speaker 1: about um M R I being used as lie detectors,
21:48
Speaker 1: and that's starting to kind of come into fashion. The
21:50
Speaker 1: more we start to understand, like how lies are born
21:53
Speaker 1: in the brain, being able to see it and saying
21:56
Speaker 1: this is the pattern that will happen, um it if
22:00
Speaker 1: this person is lying, and then that pattern happens. They say,
22:02
Speaker 1: what we know, you're lying. We just saw that live
22:04
Speaker 1: form in your brain. That makes sense. Yes, But at
22:07
Speaker 1: the same time, people who understand Mr. Eyes say, it
22:11
Speaker 1: is way too early to be doing that. And even
22:14
Speaker 1: if we can do it with accuracy, there are a
22:17
Speaker 1: lot of moral and ethical questions to it as well
22:20
Speaker 1: that we need to address. First always UH and then
22:24
Speaker 1: penile plus demography. What's that? So? Remember the the UM
22:30
Speaker 1: newmegraphs that go around the chest in the abdomen. Imagine
22:34
Speaker 1: one of those that goes around the penis and it
22:36
Speaker 1: does the same thing if the text changes in traction
22:41
Speaker 1: and girth. It's a perfect way to put it UM,
22:45
Speaker 1: and it's used to detect arousal. They use it for
22:47
Speaker 1: UM sex offenders. It's under at least as much attack
22:51
Speaker 1: as regular UM polygraphs. But I wrote this blog post
22:56
Speaker 1: called UM using science to root out late in homoset
23:00
Speaker 1: quality among homophobes. A study at U g A used
23:04
Speaker 1: UH penile plesim plethismography UM to find if anyone who
23:11
Speaker 1: they had deemed homophobic became aroused when exposed to homosexual pornography. Yeah,
23:18
Speaker 1: it's it's one of the better posts I've ever written cheese.
23:22
Speaker 1: All right, that's our future. I guess penole plethismography for everyone, um,
23:28
Speaker 1: everyone with a penis at least and then chuck. Lastly,
23:31
Speaker 1: I want to encourage everybody, if this has piqued your
23:34
Speaker 1: interest about lie detectors, to go watch the Shoe Court
23:39
Speaker 1: shoe store job interview clip from Mr Show on YouTube.
23:43
Speaker 1: You remember that one. That's very good bather friend Paula
23:46
Speaker 1: Thompkins and he has a breakthrough. See that one. Yeah,
23:52
Speaker 1: good old p f T. And that's it for lie detectors, right, Yeah,
23:56
Speaker 1: I want to take a test. If there's someone in
23:57
Speaker 1: the Atlanta area that administers these and would be willing
24:00
Speaker 1: to give me a lie detector test, I would love
24:04
Speaker 1: to do that, Okay, and I'll watch yes, um as
24:09
Speaker 1: long as I can, you know, approve the questions or
24:12
Speaker 1: not approve them. But I don't want to be like
24:15
Speaker 1: rooted out is some miscreant. It's a little late for that.
24:19
Speaker 1: Just keep it above bared. Um. If you want to
24:22
Speaker 1: know more about lie detectors and play with some lie
24:25
Speaker 1: detector flash animation, you can do that by typing in
24:28
Speaker 1: lie detector on this in the search bar on how
24:31
Speaker 1: stuff works dot Com. And um, that means it's time
24:35
Speaker 1: for listener. Now that's right, Josh, this is from Brad
24:39
Speaker 1: and Brad. If you remember, we had a list of
24:42
Speaker 1: suggestions from a listener not too long ago that thought
24:45
Speaker 1: our podcast could be a lot better if we changed
24:47
Speaker 1: a few things. Brad has some suggestions of his own
24:51
Speaker 1: of how we can make the podcast better. We should
24:53
Speaker 1: both have nicknames zazz up the actual name like welcome
24:58
Speaker 1: to stuff you should know with j C and the
25:00
Speaker 1: Ingo sit back while getting a big helping of knowledge
25:04
Speaker 1: from CHUCKO and the Duck. I second the suggestion to
25:09
Speaker 1: remove the personal anecdotes should be moved to a separate
25:12
Speaker 1: podcast called the Josh and Chuck Memoirs. Daily one hour
25:16
Speaker 1: podcast can recount your lives from birth to present, focusing
25:19
Speaker 1: on depressing stories that are marginally factual. In development is Chuck,
25:24
Speaker 1: please your raise your voice one octave, Josh, lower yours
25:28
Speaker 1: one octave? What okay? So now this is how I talk.
25:34
Speaker 1: The opening of the podcast should be a description of
25:36
Speaker 1: what each of you eight that day and the number
25:38
Speaker 1: of trips to the bathroom. This allows the listener to
25:41
Speaker 1: keep track at home, hedgehogs, brain surgeons, arcades, and Bolivian
25:45
Speaker 1: politics are underrated, under sorry, underrepresented on your podcast at
25:50
Speaker 1: least should be about these subjects. Do not exclude listener mail. Instead,
25:56
Speaker 1: create a quieter audio track reading the listener mail and
25:59
Speaker 1: overlay it on the rest of the podcast. That way,
26:02
Speaker 1: listeners can hear both the mail and the main content
26:05
Speaker 1: at the same time. This is a pretty good idea.
26:08
Speaker 1: Why not set the pod we literally drive people insane?
26:11
Speaker 1: If we did, then why not set the podcast to
26:13
Speaker 1: a backdrop of tribal drums and jungle animal noises. Would
26:17
Speaker 1: give it an exotic feel. That's over the listener mail track,
26:21
Speaker 1: over the whole thing. So that would be three tracks deep. Yes,
26:25
Speaker 1: and it would lead to suspense for the listener to
26:27
Speaker 1: wonder if you'll be eaten by jaguars uh. And it
26:31
Speaker 1: was clear from the podcast on mummies neither of you
26:33
Speaker 1: had ever been mummified. Please refrain from explaining topics that
26:36
Speaker 1: you don't have personal experience with. And then the final suggestion,
26:40
Speaker 1: just retail episodes of this American line that went that
26:45
Speaker 1: last one went down like the Staplerment top family. So
26:49
Speaker 1: that's Brad, Thanks brand. Those are all great ideas, three
26:52
Speaker 1: tracks all in one, streaming at once together listener mail
26:56
Speaker 1: quietly the podcast and tribal drumming and jungle noises. Yes, um,
27:02
Speaker 1: let's see. If you have access to a polygraph and
27:06
Speaker 1: want to hook chuck up to it, let us know.
27:09
Speaker 1: You can let us know on Facebook at Facebook dot com,
27:11
Speaker 1: slash stuff you should know. You can tweet to us
27:13
Speaker 1: at s y s K podcast, and you can send
27:16
Speaker 1: us a regular old email at Stuff Podcast at how
27:20
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Be sure to check out our
27:27
Speaker 1: new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join how Stuff
27:31
Speaker 1: Work staff as we explore the most promising and perplexing
27:34
Speaker 1: possibilities of tomorrow, brought to you by the reinvented two
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Speaker 1: thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you