The effort involved in lying

Answer choices

1. A

   Very Weak Impact4% picked this

   Lie-detector tests can measure only some of the physiological reactions that occur when

   This somewhat diminishes the conclusion. We could try to argue that lie-detector tests aren't going to be a perfect method because there are some reactions they can't measure. But that's a potentially irrelevant response. If there are things that always accompany lying (like a sped up heartbeat), and a lie-detector can measure those reactions reliably well, then the lie-detector would still theoretically work.

   4%
2. B

   No Impact1% picked this

   People are often unaware that they are having physiological reactions of the sort measured

   People's awareness or lack thereof of their physiological reactions doesn't have anything to do with our goal, unless the answer is telling us that their awareness of being tested gives way to false positives. i.e., if we heard that "the awareness of subjects that their physiological reactions are being measured often triggers physiological reactions that are similar to those when people lie", that would weaken. That would make it seem like the test would produce false positives, because honest people who are just nervous about being measured might trigger the test to think that they were actually lying. But this answer doesn't take us into that useful objection territory. It only mentions people being unaware that their physiological symptoms are being measured.

   1%
3. C

   Strengthens, if anything1% picked this

   Lying about past criminal behavior does not necessarily produce stronger physiological reactions than does lying

   If we were told that "lies about crimes are easier to detect than are lies about other things", that would give us a way to say that lie-detectors are not a sure way of determining when someone is lying. We could argue that when you're lying about unimportant things, it's a fainter reaction and so the test might not detect our lie. But this answer is ruling out the objection that crime-lies produce much stronger reactions than other-lies. When we rule out an objection, we mildly strengthen.

   1%
4. D

   Correct94% picked this

   For people who are not lying, the tension of taking a lie-detector test can produce physiological reactions identical to the ones that

   Why this is right

   This allows us to argue that lie-detector tests are not a surefire way of detecting whether someone is lying. When Person A lies, their heart speeds up, so the test sees that and says, "Person A is lying!" But according to this answer, when Person B tells the truth they are still so nervous about taking a lie-detector test that their heart also speeds up, and the test measures this and says (incorrectly) "Person B is lying!" This answer is telling us that lie-detectors could have a lot of false positives, because people who aren't lying may nonetheless have physiological changes (like a sped up heartbeat) for other reasons and thus trigger the test into thinking they're lying.

   Skill tested: Weaken · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

   94%
5. E

   No Impact0% picked this

   When employers use lie-detector tests as part of their preemployment screening, some candidates tested are

   This talks about people's incentive to lie, but we're only here to evaluate whether the test itself will be a reliable indicator of determining when someone is lying. This doesn't say anything that affects our judgment about how reliable the test will be.

   0%