Does anyone have any info whether a polygraph is a parlour trick or real science? Has anyone had hard evidence of a spouse cheating and passing a polygraph?

You will be able to find hard evidence in both directions on this one. They are used in some court systems and not in others. Here is my non-professional input to your question.<p>My father was in Military Intelegence his entire adult life. He and his cornies actually studied who to beat a lie detector test because if ever captured, that was one of the tools our enemies would use to help extract information out of captured Americans. They’d use the lie detector to know if the prisoner was telling the true. If the lie detector showed that they were lying, the prisoner would bet beaten and tortured some then asked the questions again. My H went through similar training in his military career. <p>A lie detector test is measuring a persons reaction to their own lying. If a person can learn to control their body responses to lying, then they can control the test. They can make it look like they are lying/not lying at will.<p>And people who are pathological liers, who really no longer know if they are lying or not can get a false positive out of the test.<p>But…. And here’s the “but”. If you’ve never trained to control a lie detector test and you are a person who reacts normally to things, then the lie detector test will usually be able to tell if you are lying. They usually do a few test questions to calibrate a person’s responses to telling the truth and to lying. After that the tests can be pretty accurate.<p>It’s also very important how the questions are asked. If a person is asked if they ever had an affair, and they have had one night stands (ONS) but they do not believe that a ONS is an affair, it might show that they are not lying when they answer no.<p>You cannot control another person’s behavior… only your own. So that’s where you have to concentrate, on YOU. Set boundaries for what you will live with and what you expect.<p>You obviously have a problem with your H. Why not turn it around on him. He has a lot of power in your relationship right now. He is threatening to have an affair him self in revenge for your supposed affair. So…one can only wonder if he has someone in the background he’s about to do this with. Therefore accusing you.<p>I would turn to him, tell him that you are not lying. That you want him to take a lie detector test at this point because his behavior is suspicious. That either he is using this jealousy and accusation stuff as a smoke screen for his own behavior or he has a serious metal health issue. <p>Tell him that you have done all that is humanly possible to prove to him that you have not ever cheated on him. So there is nothing more you can do. And if he does drop the issue, you expect him to take a lie detector test and/or get some help for HIS problem. Tell him that while you love him right now he his pushing you away and will loose you over his behavior… not to another man, but through divorce.<p>There are times that we have to stand up to our spouses. This is one of them.<p>Just MHO

double post<p>[ February 24, 2002: Message edited by: zorweb ]</p>

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by pureheart:
<strong>Does anyone have any info whether a polygraph is a parlour trick or real science? Has anyone had hard evidence of a spouse cheating and passing a polygraph?</strong><hr></blockquote><p>It's easy to beat one. When I was 18 I had to take one to get a job in a retail store. I lied and passed with flying colors no problem. Then again I wasn't lying about anything big like cheating on my spouse, stealing or murder (it was stuff like "Have you ever smoked marijuana, ever been drunk etc.")