a constraining device, reminiscent of the electric chair.
The demarcation between the supposed rationality of the male polygrapher and the supposed apparent emotionality of a female subject is a salient feature of lie detector discourse. The instrument was designed to reveal the supposed invisible pathologies of the female body, an approach with a long precedent in criminology, a history that this book examines. For the science of âpupillometricsââthe attempt to detect dishonesty by recording changes in pupil sizeâthe gaze of the subject becomes the important characteristic of the deception test. In a recapitulation of criminal anthropologyâs fruitless search for visible stigmata of criminality, almost every body part has been subjected to testing: the hand, arm, skin, lungs, heart, muscles, voice, stomach, and brain have all been examined at some point in the history of this technology. Sometimes it has not just been the human body that has attracted pioneers. In the late 1960s, Cleve Backster achieved international notoriety for attaching his polygraph to a philodendron plant, claiming it could detect âapprehension, fear, pleasure, and relief.â 8 A former Central Intelligence Agency interrogator and director of the Leonarde Keeler Polygraph Institute of Chicago, it was Backster who introduced the âBackster Zone Comparison Polygraph,â which became the standard polygraph model used at the U.S. Armyâs Polygraph School. By 1969 it seems he had single-handedly created the urban legend that plants had emotions: âWe have found this same phenomenon in the amoeba, the paramecium, and other single-cell organisms, in fact, in every kind of cell we have tested: fresh fruits and vegetables,
mold
cultures, yeasts, scrapings from the roof of the mouth of a human, blood samples, even spermatozoa.â 9
The traditional polygraph measures skin conductance, breathing rate, and blood pressure. The subject also undergoes intense visual scrutiny.
Cleve Backster, a polygraph expert for the CIA, attempts to detect deception in a plant. Photo by Henry Groskinsky, Life.com images.
Between the 1935 Lindbergh âcrime of the centuryâ and the 1995 O.J. Simpson âtrial of the century,â the notion of the lie detector became deeply embedded in the North American psyche. Despite constant criticism, satirical attacks, government prohibition, Papal condemnation, and a widespread suspicion that it âcan be beaten,â the use of the lie detector persists. High-profile cases in which the participants took polygraph tests include cases involving Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas, the spy Aldrich Ames, and the Oklahoma City and Atlanta Olympics bombings. Isuzu trucks, Pepsi Cola, and Snapple juice are some of the products that were advertised with the help of the âtruth machine.â It appeared in countless movies and television shows. In one
Star Trek
episode, Captain Kirk made Scotty take a lie detector test to prove he was not a serial murderer of women. An episode of the 1990s hit TV cop show
Homicide
featured âthe electro-magnetic neutron testâ which, unknown to the suspect, issued photocopies of a palm print upon which the words âTrueâ or âFalseâ had been printed beforehand. Many such depictions, of course, portray lie detection as a rational and technical science by contrasting it with âpseudoscience.â But use of the machine has constantly transgressed the boundary that supposedly demarcates factual science from sheer fantasy.
The use of the lie detector to manage contradiction is a key theme of this book, one that previous histories have not highlighted. The principle ambition here is to investigate how the lie detector came to be constructed as a technology of truth. 10 Why do these machines continue to feature in the dreams of those responsible for maintaining law and order? Recent scholarship has detailed the biographies
The demarcation between the supposed rationality of the male polygrapher and the supposed apparent emotionality of a female subject is a salient feature of lie detector discourse. The instrument was designed to reveal the supposed invisible pathologies of the female body, an approach with a long precedent in criminology, a history that this book examines. For the science of âpupillometricsââthe attempt to detect dishonesty by recording changes in pupil sizeâthe gaze of the subject becomes the important characteristic of the deception test. In a recapitulation of criminal anthropologyâs fruitless search for visible stigmata of criminality, almost every body part has been subjected to testing: the hand, arm, skin, lungs, heart, muscles, voice, stomach, and brain have all been examined at some point in the history of this technology. Sometimes it has not just been the human body that has attracted pioneers. In the late 1960s, Cleve Backster achieved international notoriety for attaching his polygraph to a philodendron plant, claiming it could detect âapprehension, fear, pleasure, and relief.â 8 A former Central Intelligence Agency interrogator and director of the Leonarde Keeler Polygraph Institute of Chicago, it was Backster who introduced the âBackster Zone Comparison Polygraph,â which became the standard polygraph model used at the U.S. Armyâs Polygraph School. By 1969 it seems he had single-handedly created the urban legend that plants had emotions: âWe have found this same phenomenon in the amoeba, the paramecium, and other single-cell organisms, in fact, in every kind of cell we have tested: fresh fruits and vegetables,
mold
cultures, yeasts, scrapings from the roof of the mouth of a human, blood samples, even spermatozoa.â 9
The traditional polygraph measures skin conductance, breathing rate, and blood pressure. The subject also undergoes intense visual scrutiny.
Cleve Backster, a polygraph expert for the CIA, attempts to detect deception in a plant. Photo by Henry Groskinsky, Life.com images.
Between the 1935 Lindbergh âcrime of the centuryâ and the 1995 O.J. Simpson âtrial of the century,â the notion of the lie detector became deeply embedded in the North American psyche. Despite constant criticism, satirical attacks, government prohibition, Papal condemnation, and a widespread suspicion that it âcan be beaten,â the use of the lie detector persists. High-profile cases in which the participants took polygraph tests include cases involving Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas, the spy Aldrich Ames, and the Oklahoma City and Atlanta Olympics bombings. Isuzu trucks, Pepsi Cola, and Snapple juice are some of the products that were advertised with the help of the âtruth machine.â It appeared in countless movies and television shows. In one
Star Trek
episode, Captain Kirk made Scotty take a lie detector test to prove he was not a serial murderer of women. An episode of the 1990s hit TV cop show
Homicide
featured âthe electro-magnetic neutron testâ which, unknown to the suspect, issued photocopies of a palm print upon which the words âTrueâ or âFalseâ had been printed beforehand. Many such depictions, of course, portray lie detection as a rational and technical science by contrasting it with âpseudoscience.â But use of the machine has constantly transgressed the boundary that supposedly demarcates factual science from sheer fantasy.
The use of the lie detector to manage contradiction is a key theme of this book, one that previous histories have not highlighted. The principle ambition here is to investigate how the lie detector came to be constructed as a technology of truth. 10 Why do these machines continue to feature in the dreams of those responsible for maintaining law and order? Recent scholarship has detailed the biographies
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