Psychogalvanometer

Best known mechanical device to detect lying is the polygraph, perfected by Professor Leonarde Keeler of Northwestern University. A subject attached to the polygraph who tells an untruth supposedly registers changes in blood pressure, pulse and respiration which are indicated by a needle jiggling on a graph. Tested last week in Manhattan was another such instrument--the psychogalvanometer. The invention of tall, burly Father Walter G. Summers, S.J., Ph.D., head of Fordham University's department of psychology, the psychogalvanometer works not on the heart and lungs but on the minute electrical currents coursing through the body.

In Father Summers' Woolworth Building laboratory a newshawk grasped an electrode in each hand as if he were experimenting with a toy shock machine. The electrodes were attached to an apparatus resembling a radio set, inside which were two balanced electrical circuits, with a two stage amplifier on the input side hooked up to a recording milliammeter. Any electrical agitation the newshawk betrayed under emotional stress would jiggle the milliammeter, make a needle correspondingly scratch a chart.

Producing five cards, Father Summers asked the newshawk to choose one in his mind, then deny, card by card, that he had selected any of them when they were reshown him. Watching the needle, Father Summers flipped the five cards, heard the newshawk's answers, then declared: "Your card was the three of diamonds." The newshawk was compelled to admit it was.

The bigger the lie, says Father Summers, the bigger the jiggle. This year Providence, R. I. police let him use the machine on a woman suspected of theft. When she denied committing the crime herself, the needle moved mildly. When she denied knowing who had committed it, the needle jumped. In court it was established that the woman actually was an accomplice.

The psychogalvanometer is more comfortable than the polygraph, whose subject has a sphygmomanometer (blood pressure meter) strapped with oppressive tightness on his arm. Neither machine will work on madmen.

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