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If psychophysiology is the study or differentiation of psychological processes by means of physiological measures, then the experimental demonstration of deception as a psychophysiological phenomenon requires a comparison of physiological responses to two conditions (experimental and control) which differ only with respect to deception. To this end, the Differentiation‐of‐Deception Paradigm controls for differential question significance and frequency of occurrence. Thirty‐two subjects were tested in this paradigm, with the skin conductance response as the dependent variable. We examined, within subjects: a) the basic deception comparison which contrasted relatively neutral autobiographical questions answered deceptively with those answered honestly, and b) the mode of answering, which was either an immediate answer to the question (conventional method) or an answer delayed by 10 seconds. The deception phenomenon (greater responding to deceptive relative to honest trials) emerged significantly (and nondifferentially) to both the immediate and delayed questions, but (perhaps because of response interference) not when responding was measured immediately following the delayed answers. Future research should vary other conditions and measure additional dependent variables with the aim of investigating possible psychological and physiological mechanisms, as well as extending the deception phenomenon beyond its present electrodermal form.

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The present study focused on electrodermal differentiation between relevant and neutral items in the Guilty Knowledge paradigm. Three factors were varied in a between-subjects design. The role of deception was examined by varying the type of verbal answer to the questions ("yes," "no," and remaining silent). The intention to deceive factor was examined by contrasting subjects told to delay their answer ("yes" or "no") with those told to produce their answer immediately. Finally, motivation to avoid detection was manipulated by having half the subjects monetarily rewarded for an important (ego relevant) detection task (high motivation), whereas the remaining subjects were neither rewarded nor told that the task was important. The results indicated that a deceptive answer ("no") to the relevant question was associated with an increased differential skin conductance responsivity, but better than chance detection rates were obtained with truthful ("yes") and silent conditions. Equal and significant detection rates were observed when the responses were computed immediately following question presentation, whether the subjects had answered immediately or had delayed their answers. In contrast, differential electrodermal responsivity to the delayed answers was markedly attenuated. The motivation factor had no main or interactive effects on differential responsivity. The present results, together with those obtained in previous studies, suggest that whereas deception is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for psychophysiological detection, it may facilitate detection. Possible mechanisms through which such a facilitation could occur were considered.

Twenty-four 5s were differentially conditioned with light and tone as .3-sec. CSs and shock as the .3-sec. UCS. The trial series included interpolated UCS-alone trials, and UCS intensity was varied within 5s from .5 to 2.5 mA. The main purpose was to test the hypothesis, implied by the preparatory adaptive response (PAR) interpretation, that anticipatory galvanic skin response magnitude and the felt intensity of the immediately following UCS are, over trials, negatively correlated. The hypothesis, shown by internal experimental checks to have been adequately tested, was not supported. Another implication of the PAR interpretation was challenged by the failure of the signaled shocks to be rated as less intense than the unsignaled (UCS-alone) shocks, even though subjective intensity ratings were clearly sensitive to physical shock-intensity differences.

A “necessary‐gate” hypothesis is proposed regarding the relationship between awareness of the CS‐UCS relationship and autonomic classical conditioning. The hypothesis is that awareness is a necessary but not sufficient condition, and a gate but not analog condition, for human differential autonomic classical conditioning. Evidence in support of the hypothesis is reviewed and directions for future research and theory development are suggested.

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