If someone is told a lie, and is unaware that it is a lie and takes it for the truth – would that person be able to pass a lie detection test. Would the test know that the person is lying even if he or she isn’t even aware of it his or her self?
I would hypothesis that they would, but I’ve hear nothing of something like this happening.
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If I recall correctly, lie detectors work by detecting the tension in our body that we have when we know we’re about to tell something that we know it’s not. A more accelerated pulse or something like that, signals of nervousness. That’s why someone who has been tested like that previously can pass a lie detection test while lying, because they know how it works like and what to do in order not to fail it.
Basically, the lie detector is only able to tell whether there is some cognitive dissonance between what the person says and what he/she knows, not actual external reality. Let me give you an example.
Say that a child is tested by a lie detector.
"Does Santa Claus exist?", the child is asked. He believes Santa Claus to exist, but he answers, "No". The lie detector notices that what the child says is different from what he believes, and starts beeping.
Yes, they would pass.
Also, they would fail if they told the truth but thought it was a lie.
The way they do it is very scientific, and beyond my knowledge. But your body reacts certain ways when you lie (intentionally) and that is how they determine whether you were lying or not. But if you are unaware that the information you are portraying is false, then I’m pretty sure you would indeed pass. But I’m no scientist.
That is called an unknown falsehood. It is not a lie if you don’t know that it is untrue. Therefore they would be able to pass that lie detector test.
Lie detectors use various means (electrical skin resistance, heart rate etc) to detect the stress generated when you knowingly tell a lie. They have no means of directly determining the truth of a statement that you are making.
They also have difficulty determining the difference between an answer in which you are lying and an answer that causes you stress in some other way. E.g. "Did you kill your best friend?" is likely to cause all sorts of physiological reactions, whatever the truth of the matter.
In fact, lie detectors are extremely (though not completely) unreliable, and most effective only when used by a skilled interrogator who is likely to be able to tell whether you are lying anyway. People who tell you otherwise are often either badly informed or trying to sell lie detection equipment to you or your organization.
Not knowing the fact or lie – answer honestly a pass or fail the results by the administrator.