well intentioned, have suffered from a separation from mainstream scientific thinking and from their organizational location within agencies strongly committed to one technique. This has hampered progress in polygraph research and largely prevented the government from giving adequate attention to alternative and supplementary approaches.

We wish to note explicitly that in recent years, the DoD Polygraph Institute (DoDPI) has been working to put polygraph research on a more scientific footing. For example, technical reports are being submitted to peer-reviewed journals, and outside academic reviewers are providing advice on improving the scientific quality of DoDPI-funded research. These are salutary developments for polygraph science and should be commended, but they have not gone far enough. The effectiveness of DoDPI as a source of solid scientific knowledge on detecting deception is significantly undermined by two structural/institutional factors: (1) that its mission is narrowly defined in terms of the polygraph rather than the larger purpose of detecting deception; and (2) that the research activities are housed in an organization whose mission involves promoting and training personnel in a specific technique of detecting deception. These factors create real and perceived conflicts of interest with respect to research that might question polygraph validity or support an alternative method as superior.

The organizations that carry out the expanded research program should support both basic and applied research. They should follow standard scientific advisory and decision-making procedures, including external peer review of proposals, and they should support research that is conducted and reviewed openly in the manner of other scientific research. Classified and restricted research should be limited only to matters of identifiable national security.

The fundamental research sponsored in the research program should not be totally separate from other related scientific efforts (for example, research on brain imaging supported by basic science and health research agencies), but some separation is essential to ensure that mechanisms are in place for periodically assessing progress toward national security goals and for assuring that promising approaches move from the laboratory to testing in applied settings.

Expanding basic research on deception and deterrence as outlined above does not lessen the need the for government to review and assess the implications and uses of the research for defense and homeland security, and specifically to develop and test operational versions of procedures that can enhance such security and to train those who will be charged with implementing these procedures. Thus, at least some of the applied research in the expanded program should be sponsored by or linked to organizations with operational responsibilities for national se-