Furedy J J
Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Canada.
Pavlov J Biol Sci. 1987 Oct-Dec;22(4):145-52. doi: 10.1007/BF02700144.
It is suggested that purportedly scientific positions and technologies are actually spiritualistic or superstitious to the extent that specific effects are not identified and evaluated. This claim is then examined with respect to polygraphy, which appears to have particularly strong spiritualistic tendencies. This technology's putative basis is the science of psychophysiology, which is the study of psychological processes by means of unobtrusive physiological measures that reflect functions over which there is relatively little voluntary control. The underlying rationale of polygraphy is that information about these functions provided to the examiner has a specific, beneficial effect of improving the detection of deception. Before considering the validity of the polygraph in these specific-effect terms, the paper notes some serious societal problems involved in the use of the polygraph, problems that suggest that polygraphy is appropriately characterized as a serious "social disease". As to its scientific status, the technique suffers from at least three significant and possibly insurmountable problems: 1) the records are not read "blind"; 2) the method of scoring is subjective, compared to the standards of scientific psychophysiology; and 3) the so-called "control" question method does not involve control in the standard, accepted, scientific sense of that term. However, much of the rest of psychology is also criticised as teleological and spiritualistic, and it is suggested that the polygraph is merely a dramatic illustration of the spiritualist approach that permeates the thought of most researchers in, and practitioners of, the science of psychology.
有人认为，在特定效果未被识别和评估的程度上，所谓的科学立场和技术实际上是唯灵论或迷信的。然后针对测谎技术来审视这一说法，测谎技术似乎具有特别强烈的唯灵论倾向。这项技术的假定基础是心理生理学，它是通过反映相对较少受自主控制的功能的非侵入性生理测量手段来研究心理过程的学科。测谎技术的基本原理是，提供给检查人员的关于这些功能的信息具有提高欺骗检测能力的特定有益效果。在从这些特定效果的角度考虑测谎仪的有效性之前，本文指出了测谎技术使用中涉及的一些严重社会问题，这些问题表明测谎技术可恰当地被描述为一种严重的“社会疾病”。至于其科学地位，该技术至少存在三个重大且可能无法克服的问题：1）记录不是“盲态”读取的；2）与科学心理生理学的标准相比，评分方法是主观的；3）所谓的“控制”问题方法并不涉及该术语在标准、公认的科学意义上的控制。然而，心理学的其他大部分内容也被批评为目的论和唯灵论的，并且有人认为测谎技术只是渗透到心理学科学的大多数研究者和从业者思想中的唯灵论方法的一个生动例证。
