Effects of Physical Countermeasures on the Physiological Detection of Deception

Abstract

Effects of physical countermeasures on the accuracy of the control question test (CQT) were assessed in two laboratory mock-crime experiments. In Experiment 1, 21 male and 27 female college students were divided into four groups, three of which enacted a mock crime. Two of these guilty groups were trained in the use of a countermeasure, either biting the tongue (pain countermeasure) or pressing the toes against the floor (muscle countermeasure) during the control question zones of the CQT. All countermeasure subjects were given extensive information about the nature of the CQT. No significant effects for countermeasures were found. Experiment 2 assessed the effects of additional training and the concurrent use of both countermeasures with 31 female and 26 male college students who were divided into three groups, two of which enacted a mock crime. Countermeasure subjects produced 47% false negatives as compared to 0% false negatives for Guilty Control subjects. False negative outcomes occurred when subjects were able to produce physiological responses that were larger to control questions than to relevant questions. These results should be qualified by the possibility that the countermeasure task would be considerably more difficult if the relevant questions dealt with a real crime in an actual investigation. Countermeasure detectors, counter-countermeasures, and the implications of these results for the probative value of the CQT are discussed.

Full text

Journal
of
Applied
Psychology
1985, Vol.
70, No. 1,
177-187
Copyright 1985
by the
American
Psychological
Association,
Inc.
0021-9010/85/S00.75
Effects
of
Physical Countermeasures
on the
Physiological
Detection
of
Deception
Charles Robert Honts
and
Robert
L.
Hodes
Virginia
Polytechnic Institute
and
State
University
David
C.
Raskin
University
of
Utah
Effects
of
physical countermeasures
on the
accuracy
of the
control question test
(CQT) were assessed
in two
laboratory
mock-crime
experiments.
In
Experiment
1,21
male
and 27
female
college students were divided into
four
groups, three
of
which
enacted
a
mock crime.
Two of
these guilty groups were trained
in the use
of
a
countermeasure, either biting
the
tongue (pain countermeasure)
or
pressing
the
toes against
the floor
(muscle countermeasure) during
the
control question
zones
of the
CQT.
All
countermeasure subjects were
given
extensive information
about
the
nature
of the
CQT.
No
significant
effects
for
countermeasures were
found.
Experiment
2
assessed
the
effects
of
additional training
and the
concurrent
use of
both countermeasures with
31
female
and 26
male college students
who
were
divided into three groups,
two of
which enacted
a
mock crime. Counter-
measure subjects produced
47%
false
negatives
as
compared
to 0%
false
negatives
for
Guilty Control subjects. False negative outcomes occurred when subjects were
able
to
produce physiological responses that were larger
to
control questions than
to
relevant questions. These results should
be
qualified
by the
possibility that
the
countermeasure task would
be
considerably more
difficult
if the
relevant questions
dealt with
a
real crime
in an
actual investigation. Countermeasure detectors,
counter-countermeasures,
and the
implications
of
these results
for the
probative
value
of the CQT are
discussed.
The use of
physiological recordings
to
make
inferences
about
the
veracity
of a
person's
statements
is
known
as the
physiological
de-
tection
of
deception
(FDD;
Podlesny
&
Ras-
kin,
1977).
FDD
techniques have gained
in-
creasing acceptance
in
recent years
as
pro-
bative
evidence
in our
courts
of law
(Raskin,
1982).
Along with this forensic use,
the use
of
FDD
techniques
for
personnel screening,
The
research reported
in
this article
was
presented
in
part
at the
annual meeting
of the
Society
for
Psycho-
physiological
Research, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1982.
Experiment
1
served
as
partial
fulfillment
of the
require-
ments
of the MS
degree
for the first
author
at
Virginia
Polytechnic
Institute
and
State University.
The first
author
is
presently working toward
the PhD
degree
in the
Department
of
Psychology
at the
University
of
Utah.
The
second author
is
currently associated with
the
Department
of
Neurology
at the
University
of
Wis-
consin—Madison.
The
authors would
like
to
thank Lisa
Paterson
and
Larry
O'Keefe
for
their assistance
in
these experiments.
Requests
for
reprints should
be
sent
to
Charles Robert
Honts,
Department
of
Psychology, University
of
Utah,
Salt Lake City, Utah
84112.
internal security,
and
national security con-
tinues
to
grow
at an
increasing
rate.
Lykken
(198la)
estimated that over
1
million
FDD
examinations
per
year were conducted
in the
United States alone,
and he
recently described
FDD
as "by far the
most important appli-
cation
of
psychophysiology
in the
real world"
(1981b).
Psychologists have also shown
an
increasing interest
in
FDD
(Andreassi, 1980;
Bartol,
1983;
Barland
&
Raskin, 1973;
Grings
&
Dawson,
1978; Lykken, 1974, 1981a;
Orne,
Thackray,
&
Paskewitz,
1972; Podlesny
&
Raskin,
1977; Raskin, 1979, 1982).
The
FDD
technique most commonly used
in
the field is the
control question test (CQT;
Raskin, 1982; Reid
&
Inbau,
1977).
The
CQT
attempts
to
categorize individuals
as
truthful
or
deceptive
by
comparing
the
phys-
iological responses
of an
individual
to
relevant
and
control
questions.
Relevant
questions
deal directly with
the
issue
of the
examination
(e.g. "Did
you
steal
the
missing
test?").
Con-
trol questions deal with similar issues
but are
deliberately worded
and
presented
in a
man-
177
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