The Detection of Deception for Multiple Issues.
Abstract
The effectiveness of single issue and multiple issue psychophysiological detection of deception examinations was researched in an analog study conducted by the Department of Defense Polygraph Institute (DoDPI). Thirteen DoDPI instructors tested a group of 100 subjects who had been assigned to one of four conditions: (1) innocent, (2) guilty of one mock crime, (3) guilty of two mock crimes, or (4) guilty of three mock crimes. Half the subjects were tested with a multiple issue test format which contained questions about all three crimes under investigation. The remaining subjects were tested using a series of three single issue examinations, each containing questions about only one crime. Scoring rules taught at DoDPI were used by the original examiners to evaluate the tests. Overall, the differences in the correct identification of subjects when using the single or multiple approach were not statistically significant. The same was true when assessing performance between approaches for the innocent subjects and the guilty subjects. However, within each respective testing approach the differences between correct identification of innocent and guilty subjects were statistically significant. In addition to there being no advantage to using one testing approach versus the other, the primary finding of the study was that the common practice of breaking out relevant questions for further testing may result in misleading examination results.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 1990
- Accession Number
- ADA339187
Entities
People
- Charles R Honts
- Gordon H. Barland
- Steven Barger
Organizations
- United States Department of Defense