What are Lie Detectors?
A Lie Detector (polygraph machine) is nothing but a mechanical device, that is used to test, measure, and record various psychological gauges, for instance, respiration, pulse, blood pressure, and so on, while an individual is bombarded with a series of interrogations (mostly closed-ended at that
How do they work?
A Lie Detector is pretty simple to understand. It detects whether something an individual is saying is a lie or not but grasping signals of the psychological gauges, mentioned previously: the blood pressure, pulse, etc.
When the person taking the test begins to sweat, for example, his blood pressure either increases or decreases, these variations are instantly recorded and the results are thus declared. The more the fluctuations, the easier it is to make out whether the person is lying or not.
But, it is interesting to know that these test machines could be misleading and many times the person sitting at the test may be lying and still doesn’t get caught because they know how the machine records their fluctuations. This is a very common case for many people ditching the whole test result itself.
The machine can only tell when your body isn’t reacting in its most normal sense, it cannot tell whether you are lying or not. If you manage to maintain your blood pressure and pulse and stay put, without stressing out, you can deceive the test altogether, this is why the system isn’t mostly reliable.
The same is the case with someone who already comes into the room completely stressed out and panicking big time, this person would obviously not have his body functioning in its most normal form and thus any result that comes out of the machine is probably not going to be correct and would be ambiguous at the end of the day.
Can you fail a lie detector test if you are nervous?
The answer to that is yes and most definitely whilst at it. As mentioned previously, polygraph machines cannot always be reliable to detect a lie or a truth. They were initially not even designed for this task, they were used for recording a patient’s Blood Pressure, Pulse, breathing rate, temperature, etc. specially meant to monitor surgeries and to help diagnose cardiac divergences, which served its purpose, until it started to be used as a machine to check whether a person is telling the truth or simply giving in fraudulent and malicious information and came to be called as the Lie Detector.
The key to indicate to the lie detector that you are certainly not lying is to somehow keep your vitals stable and to not be nervous when strung to the device. Now, if you think about keeping your vitals stable at the time when you are strung to the device, you are potentially going to start stressing and would eventually fail the test, so be prepared to not let that happen, and if you know you are telling the truth, there is nothing to worry about, unless you are trying to deceive the machine and get away with it.
Q1. Is it advised to take a lie detector test to prove my innocence?
A1. Taking a lie detector test is not worth it. If a criminal investigator urges you to take one, try to avoid it. The consequences can be uncertain and mostly bad for you, because these investigators are probably just trying to gather evidence that serves their purpose and you are not obligated to take a polygraph test, so avoiding it is the best thing to do.
Besides if you are trying to prove your innocence before the court and decide to take the lie detector test, because you are aware that all the evidence gathered so far is already against you, you must know that the court deems the test results of a polygraph test inadmissible, but if the results come out positive i.e. slants towards you lying, you are going to suffer in this situation.
Q2. Would it make me look guilty if I refuse to take a polygraph test?
A2. No. In no way can refusing a polygraph test make you look guilty. You need to realize that the investigator or police at the other end, is not OBLIGED to tell you the truth, so they can have pretty twisted ways when it comes to gathering evidence as a whole.
You might as well pass a polygraph test and they fool you into thinking that the results were negative and that you were lying. Honestly, they psychologically try to marvel over you, because they wish to be the ones playing the strings in this situation and not the other way round.
Q3. Why are narcissists mostly the ones who pass lie detector tests?
A3. Narcissists are most commonly those individuals who manage to pass the lie detector test, even if what they’ve done is a lie or is criminal in every aspect. Fair points are backing this evidence. Narcissists and sociopaths, actually tend to believe that any and everything that they do is correct and cannot in any sense be wrong no matter what. So even if their actions aren’t normal or are said to be vulgar even, they do not admit that they are at fault and this they do even when they are strung to a lie detector with a straight face on, with their blood pressure being completely normal. This is the reason why Lie Detectors are said to not be reliable and are therefore inadmissible in court.
-Lydia Lynette Daniels
