Effects of Repeated Examinations on the Ability to Detect Guilt With a Polygraphic Examination: A Laboratory Experiment With a Real Crime.

Eighteen males who scored high on the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory Pd scale and 16 males who scored low on the Pd scale first took a written intelligence test on which they were urged to cheat by confederates posing as other subjects. Approximately one half of the subjects cheated. The subjects were then given a guilty knowledge polygraphic examination concerning their possible cheating behavior, during which three physiological measures (heart rate, finger pulse volume, skin resistance) were recorded. The examination was given to each subject twice. The results indicated that (a) only skin resistance was effective for detecting guilt, thus suggesting that other physiological measures employed by examiners may introduce errors; (b) the procedure was only effective for detecting guilt the first time it was used, thus indicating that repeated examinations may be invalid; and (c) there was no difference in the detection rates for subjects with high or low Pd scores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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