Is their research being done as of right now to improve the accuracy of polygraph tests? Do you think they will ever have lie detection software that will be submittable in court?
I can only hope so! That would make convicting criminals a lot less stressful and make the process so much quicker. It may even decrease the crime rate.
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The polygraph is based on bodily reactions which occur when a normal person lies. Unfortunately, many factors (drugs, stress, lack of sleep, emotional issues, etc) also affect those reactions.
This makes the polygraph only approximately 90% accurate.
Now no one wants to convict one innocent person out of every ten showing positive results.
As for research to improve the accuracy…I am sure this is ongoing continuously. Whether they will ever approach 100% accuracy is total speculation.
And yes it would be very helpful to have totally accurate lie detection. It would simplify many things.
But I would then have to tell the truth about how big the fish I caught were.
It is impossible to determine the accuracy of a polygraph test since doing so involves either a priori knowledge of what a person believes to be true or the use of canned questions in an artificial environment.
I hope not–because the evidence I’ve seen indicate such tests do no more than measure the amount of stress a person is feeling. That is not a form of lie (or truth) detection. Yeah, it would move things along faster if they were permitted–but more importantly, we’d be catching fewer of the guilty and putting more of the innocent behind bars.
As long as there is reasonable doubt (which may only be 5 maybe 10%), it cant stand up in a court room.
I doubt it very much.