No abstract

When individuals who commit a crime are questioned, they often show involuntary physiological responses to remembered details of that crime. This phenomenon is the basis for the concealed information test, in which rarely occurring crime-related details are embedded in a series of more frequently occurring crime-irrelevant items while respiratory, cardiovascular, and electrodermal responses are recorded. Two experiments were completed to investigate the feasibility of using facial skin surface temperature (SST) measures recorded using high definition thermographic images as the physiological measure during a concealed information test. Participants were randomly assigned to nondeceptive or deceptive groups. Deceptive participants completed a mock-crime paradigm. A focal plane array thermal imaging radiometer was used to monitor SST while crime-relevant and crime-irrelevant items were verbally presented to each participant. During both experiments, there were significant facial SST differences between deceptive and nondeceptive participants early in the analysis interval. In the second experiment, hemifacial (i.e., "half-face" divided along the longitudinal axis) effects were combined with the bilateral responses to correctly classify 91.7% of participants. These results suggest that thermal image analysis can be effective in discriminating deceptive and nondeceptive individuals during a concealed information test.

In a preliminary attempt to determine the generalizability of data from laboratory mock-crime studies, the authors examined the similarities and differences among the cardiovascular, electrodermal, and respiration responses of deceptive and nondeceptive individuals elicited to crime-relevant and crime-irrelevant questions. Participants in the laboratory group were randomly assigned to nondeceptive (n = 28) or deceptive (n = 27) treatment groups, and a mock-crime scenario was used. The field participants were confirmed nondeceptive (n = 28) or deceptive (n = 39) criminal suspects who underwent polygraph examinations between 1993 and 1997. The results indicated that there were salient differences between field and similarly obtained laboratory polygraph response measures. However, accuracy of laboratory participants' classifications using logistic regression analysis was not significantly different from field participants' classification accuracy.

Participants examined sets of apartments described along 4 dimensions. Attribute values were manipulated to provide a way to infer strategy from response patterns. Experiment 1 established baseline behavior in unconstrained search, whereas Experiments 2-4 constrained participants to search either by alternative or by dimension. Dimensionwise presentation resulted in higher accuracy and reduced looking times. In 3-alternative choice, mere was no evidence that strategy use depended on constraint condition. Evidence for possible strategy differences across constraint conditions was found when either multiple judgments rather than a single choice had to be made or the number of alternatives was increased to 5. These results supported features of the adaptive decision maker hypothesis (J. W. Payne, J. R. Bettman, & E. J. Johnson, 1988) but suggested that strategy use is not always strongly linked to acquisition pattern.

The public reporting burden for this collection of information is estimated to average 1 hour per response, including the time for reviewing instructions, searching existing data sources, gathering and maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing the collection of information. Send comments regarding this burden estimate or any other aspect of this collectior of information, including suggestions for reducing the burden, to Department of Defense, Washington Headquarters Services, Directorate for Information Operations and Reports (0704-0188}, 1215 Jefferson Davis Highway, Suite 1204, Arlington, VA 22202-4302. Respondents should be aware that notwithstanding any other provision of law, no person shall be subject to any penalty for failing to comply with a collection of information if it does not display a currently valid OMB control number. PLEASE DO NOT RETURN YOUR FORM TO THE ABOVE ADDRESS. REPORT DATE (DD-MM-YYYY)July 2000 5d. PROJECT NUMBER DoDPI97-P-00055e. TASK NUMBER 5f. WORK UNIT NUMBER PERFORMING ORGANIZATION NAME(S) AND ADDRESS(ES)DoD Polygraph Insituste 7540 Pickens Avenue Fort Jackson, SC 29207 The performance of scorers using the University of Utah and Department of Defense Polygraph Institute (DoDPI) physiological detection of deception chart evaluation rules were compared to discover if differences in laboratory-based decision accuracy rates are due to chart evaluation rules. Four scorers (two based at the DoDPI, two based at the University of Utah) evaluated the charts from 100 polygraph examinations (50 deceptive, 50 nondeceptive). We attempted to isolate scorer ability by equating the rules for making veracity decisions, number of charts used, and number of data channels considered. There was no evidence, when these variables were held constant, that scorers differed on the proportion of correct, incorrect, or no opinion decisions rendered. Results suggest no differences in chart scoring ability among scorers based at the two institutions. Observed differences in accuracies for Utah and DoDPI scoring systems may be due to differences in veracity decision rules, the number of charts evaluated, the inclusion of the photo-plethysmograph data channel, or a combination of these factors. The greatest accuracy was obtained by all scorers using the University of Utah chart evaluation rules. PERFORMING ORGANIZATION REPORT NUMBER DoDPIOO-R-0001 SPONSORING/MONITORING AGENCY NAME(S) AND ADDRESS(ES)DoD SUBJECT TERMSpolygraph, chart evaluation, veracity, decision accuracy, psychophysiological detection of deception Director's Foreword DoDPI has an abiding interest in developing and testing scoring and decision rules in the field of psychophysiological detection of deception (PDD), with the objective of disseminating best practices to field examiners in the government. As part of this continuing venture, the present study evaluated the DoDPI rules and the University of Utah rules on PDD recording collected in a laboratory study. Within the context of analog study data, the results suggest that th...