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THE LIE DETECTORS: THE HISTORY OF AN AMERICAN OBSESSION
Ken Alder Free Press, 2007 352 pages, $27.00 ISBN-10: 0-74-325988-2 ISBN- 13: 978-0-74-325988-0 (hardcover)
Bison Books, 2009 368 pages, $19.95 ISBN-10: 0-80-322459-1 ISBN- 13: 978-0-80-322459-9 (paperback)
Who was pilfering in the dorms? This question bedeviled the Berkeley police in 1921. The police chief, under pressure to solve the thefts, turned to one of his young officers - the worst shot on die force and a terrible driver but a possessor of a Ph.D. in physiology and a believer in forensic science, especially in a device he called the cardio-pneumo-psychograph. We know it as me lie detector.
The officer and inventor of the lie detector, John Larson, had built on earlier studies of physiological changes in subjects who were tested for truthfulness. Combining means to measure the physiological response of blood pressure, pulse, respirations, and skin conductivity as the subject answers a set of "yes" or "no" questions, the device was designed to detect lies and it seemed to work. Several coeds were suspected of the thefts, based on opportunity, their demeanor (think profiling), past records, and sexual histories (yes, it mattered). The device indicated deception by one, who soon gave a teary-eyed confession, after her initial denials, and pointed to her boyfriend, who had a record, as the instigator. The coed was allowed to leave the university, after promising to make restitution, and return to Kansas. Case solved.
The press dubbed the new machine "the lie detector." It was a publicity coup for the police, especially the chief, August Vollmer, who made his force the vanguard of professionalism in the 1920s. It made the inventor, Larson, famous, and the tabloids had a field day with the fact that Larson found his future wife while testing the machine on control groups of pretty coeds. Yes, he asked if she liked him when she was strapped to the machine.
In a broader context, the lie detector seemed to bring scientific expertise to the vexing question of credibility. In the era of boundless technological developments, the scientific measurements of people (IQ tests and scientific management), and the probings of psychology, the lie detector seemed like the next progressive step.
Ken Alder's The Lie Detectors charts the obsessions, delusions,...