NCJ Number
209867
Journal
Polygraph Volume: 34 Issue: 1 Dated: 2005 Pages: 10-23
Date Published
2005
Length
14 pages
Annotation
This study sought to increase the psychophysiological detection of deception accuracy for the Zone Comparison Test, a type of polygraph examination.
Abstract
Field procedures in the psychophysiological detection of deception mandate that physiological data be examined by a quality control officer so that blind evaluations can be made. Following a series of three blind evaluations, decisions on whether an individual is being truthful or not are made by comparing the three independent evaluations. The current study examined whether the diagnostic value of the blind evaluation could be increased by the mathematical combination of assigned scores produced by blind reviewers prior to the decision phase. In short, the authors compared whether it is more accurate to combine numerical scores from independent evaluators to produce a single decision regarding truthfulness as compared to the traditional approach that produces and compares multiple individual decisions regarding truthfulness. Decisions produced using ad hoc groups that had average assigned scores derived from individual evaluators were compared to decisions derived individually. Results indicated that it was not more effective to base decisions on the averaged approach in comparison to the traditional approach; no statistically significant differences were observed for decisions derived by the two approaches. Tables, figures, references