Beyond the Polygraph: Deception Detection and the Autonomic Nervous System

Conclusion

The ability to detect deception is an important factor in determining security risk and adjudication of legal proceedings, but untrained persons are surprisingly poor at discerning truth from lies. The polygraph has been used by law enforcement and government agencies for decades to aid in interrogation and the screening of employees for security clearances and other types of access. However, results are vulnerable to inaccuracies in subjects with autonomic disorders and may be confounded by multiple medications. While emerging technologies such as fMRI and EEG may allow superior accuracy by bypassing ANS-based physiologic outputs, the polygraph examiner and the physician must be aware of the effect of autonomic dysfunction and of the medications that affect the ANS. This is particularly true within military medicine, as many patients within this population are subject to polygraph examination.