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Abstract
The present study examined the effects of automating the Relevant–Irrelevant (RI) psychophysiological detection of deception test within a mock-screening paradigm. Eighty participants, recruited from the local community, took part in the study. Experimental design was a 2 (truthful/deceptive) by 2 (human/automation) factorial. Participants in the deceptive conditions attempted deception on two items of an employment application. Examinations conducted with the automated polygraph examination were significantly more accurate than examinations conducted by the human polygraph examiner. Statistical analyses revealed different patterns of physiological responses to deceptive items depending upon the automation condition. Those results have potentially interesting theoretical implications. The results of the present study are clearly supportive of additional efforts to develop a field application of an automated polygraph examination.
Acknowledgments
The authors wish to acknowledge the contribution of the following research assistants who provided valuable assistance with this study: Blair Kidwell, Cara Lundquist, Elagrace Lyerla, and Kimberly Otter-Henderson.
Notes
1. Unfortunately, there was an error in this process. The original design called for 20 participants in each condition. However, in the human examiner condition we ran 21 guilty and 19 innocent participants. We discovered this error after the data collection period was over. Although unfortunate, this error does not affect power of the design and we considered it trivial enough that no additional participants were run.