NCJ Number
76107
Journal
Journal of Applied Psychology Volume: 63 Issue: 6 Dated: (December 1978) Pages: 728-733
Date Published
1978
Length
6 pages
Annotation
Three closely related experiments tested the effects of attention, as indexed by subsequent memory, on electrodermal detection of information to determine if 'truncated' processing indexed by a susequent poor memory for the test items might result in reduced detectability in guilty knowledge tests.
Abstract
A total of 62 male college students attempted to conceal 6 critical items of information from a polygraph examiner recording their electrodermal response (EDR). In the polygraph test, the subject was asked if any of a list of 24 words, one every 10-15 seconds, were critical items he was concealing. The list was comprised of three semantically similar control words along with each critical word. Afterward, without forewarning, a second experimenter asked the subject to remember all the words he had been asked about on the test. Deceptive subjects who gave a larger EDR to critical rather than control words more often than could be expected by chance (i.e., were correctly detected as deceptive) remembered more control words than did other deceptive subjects who escaped detection. The results are interpreted to mean that the less thoroughly a subject processes the test words, as indexed by later memory, the less likely he is to be detected. Experimental results suggest that examining the effects on detectability of procedures that enhance the subject's processing of the test items might be a fruitful line of investigation. Seventeen references are provided. (Author abstract modified)