Chapter 4 Flashcards
Deception
What is a polygraph test
A device for recording autonomic nervous system responses, measuring a persons breathing, sweat, and heart rate
What are the types of polygraph test questions
- Relevant / Irrelevant Knowledge
- Comparison Question Test (control question test)
- Concealed Information Test (guilty knowledge test)
Relevant / Irrelevant knowledge questions
This is rarely used and we find that everyone responds well to relevant questions
Comparison question test questions
10 yes or no questions asked and the most commonly used right now
Concealed information test questions
Multiple choice questions instead of yes or no, asking questions that only the guilty person would know
Validity of the polygraph test
Difficult to determine the validity, some say it is and some say it is not, it is difficult to test the validity in real life situations
Laboratory studies
Has the advantage of knowing whether subjects are lying or telling the truth (ground truth)
Field studies
Involves real life situations, criminal suspects and polygraph examiners, must meet certain criteria:
- include representative sample of polygraph tests administered under real life circumstances
- charts must be independently scored by examiners who base decision just on charts
- need to compare scores with information independent of polygraph
Three ways to beat the polygraph
- Suppressing physiological response to relevant questions
- Increasing baseline measure by augmenting response to physiological control questions
- Suppressing physiological activity by taking drugs
Suppressing physiological response
Includes deliberate attempts to change pattern of thinking, it is less likely to be detected than physical countermeasures and works best when thinking emotionally arousing thoughts while asked control questions
Augmenting physical response
Inducing physical pain or muscle tension, which would likely result in an inconclusive diagnosis rather than truthful, by using several physical countermeasures at same time as it is more effective
Use of drugs
Ingestion of 400mg of tranquilizer Meprobamate reduces detection rate
CBCA criteria
- Logical structure
- Unstructured production
- Quantity of details
- Contextual embedding
- Description of interactions
- Reproduction of conversation
- Unexpected complications
- Unusual details
- Superfluous details
- Accurately supported details understood
- Related external associations
- Accounts of subjective mental state
- Accounts of perpetrators mental state
- Spontaneous corrections
Logical structure
Consistency and coherence of statements; collection of different independent details that form a coherent account of a sequence of events
Unstructured production
Narratives are presented in an unstructured fashion, free from an underlying pattern or structure
Quantity of details
Abundance of details, and looking for a detailed story. Many times people assume kids are lying because they leave out great amounts of detail, but that is the way they speak
Contextual embedding
Statements that place an event within its spatial and temporal context. Ex, kids struggle to tell the exact time of day something happened, easier for them to state if it was before or after a specific point in their day such as watching a tv show
Description of interactions
Descriptions of interrelated actions and reactions
Reproduction of conversation
Verbatim reproduction of dialogue
Unexpected complications
The reporting of either an unforeseen interruption or difficulty, or spontaneous termination of the event. This is actually an indication of truth
Unusual details
Inclusion of details like smells and touches
Superfluous details
details that are not necessary for the statements to make up an understandable goal
Should lay people be using the CBCA
No, they are expecting things in these answers that we should not expect from kids
Facticious disorder
Intentionally producing psychological or physicals symptoms, some sort of internal motivation to assume a sick role
Examples of factitious disorders
Münchausen syndrome and Somatoform disorder
Münchausen Syndrome
People who produce complaints and health concerns, they may inflict self harm to maintain patient status
Somatoform Disorder
People truly believe they have health issues when they do not, their symptoms cannot be explained by underlying conditions
Malingering
Psychological or physical symptoms are under voluntary control and there are external motivations. Malingerers will often refuse invasive procedures
Explanations of malingering
- Pathogenic model
- Criminological model
- Adaptational model
Pathogenic model
Malinger due to an underlying mental disorder, symptoms can increase in severity and true symptoms emerge
Criminological model
Strongly suspected if two of antisocial personality disorder, forensic assessment, lack of cooperation, and discrepancy between complaints and findings exist
Adaptational model
Malinger when perceived adversarial context, personal stakes high and no other alternatives perceived. Research supports this model
How to study malingering
Simulation design. A group of malingerers and a control group, most likely getting them to malinger schizophrenia or bipolar disorder
