Offender
Profiling Series: Vol 1
Interviewing and Deception
Edited by David Canter & Laurence Alison
(1999)
back to Interviewing
& Deception
Interviewing and Deception
Murray Kleiner
The Psychophysiology of Deception and the
Orienting Response
The use of the polygraph or 'lie detector', for
purposes of detecting deception has been the subject of social and academic
controversy. Acceptance of the accuracy of the basis polygraph paradigms
has been conditional upon agreement with the psychological theories
underlying the test procedures. In this chapter a theoretical standpoint
is proposed to reconcile and encompass both the accepted Guilty Knowledge
Test and the contested Control Question Test, in one general theory.
The Guilty Knowledge Test is considered in terms of Sokolov's (1963)
orienting response theory and Tversky's (1977) contrast model of similarity.
The 'diagnosticity principle' of Tversky's model serves as a bridge
to the Control Question test, acting in concert with evaluative self-concepts,
to explicate the resulting psychophysiological processes in this test
paradigm. The cognitive and emotional processes included in the notion
of self-concepts are relevant in considering the relationship between
the significant cognitive constructs of offenders and the way in which
they commit their offences.
Chief Superintendent Murray Kleiner
(BA Psychology and Biology M.Sc Neurobiology) has
been a polygraph examiner for twenty years and is the director of the
Jerusalem Polygraph Laboratory, in the Behaviour Section of the Division
of Identification and Forensic Sciences in the Investigative Branch
of the Israel National Police.
