Trial by polygraph: Scientific and juridical issues in lie detection

The present article examines two methods of polygraph-assisted lie detection: the Control Question Technique (CQT) and the Guilty Knowledge Technique (GKT). It presents the rationale for both, arguing that only the latter is well grounded in psychological theory. It then surveys the empirical support for claims of the polygraph's ability to detect deception, arguing that such support often comes from studies that are methodologically flawed by contamination of various sorts—especially studies of the CQT. The article then explores the legal implications of introducing polygraph test results, as presently gathered, into the criminal courtroom.     

The victim's reaction to an attack as a function of his perception of the attacker following a verbal insult

This study investigated the role of perception in the victim's behaviour following a verbal attack. It was expected that the victim's counterattack and evaluation of attacker would be influenced by: (a) the victim's level of aggressiveness; (b) the attacker's perceived level of aggressiveness; (c) the attacker's status (prestige in the classroom); and (d) retaliation threat for counterattack. High and low aggressive subjects (victim's) were randomly assigned to one of four conditions differing in the attacker's attributed level of aggression and status. Half of the subjects in each condition received a retaliation threat treatment. The victims were interacting with an assumed partner (attacker) in a guessing game during which they were insulted. After each insult the victim could counterattack by withholding a monetary reward from the attacker. At the end, the victim rated his attacker on aggressiveness, potency and social desirability. The results indicated that there were significant main effects of the victims level of aggressiveness, the attacker's status and retaliation threat. There was also a significant interaction between victim's and attacker's aggressiveness, for the two dependent variables. In addition, victim's behaviour was influenced by the interaction between attacker's status and his aggressiveness.     

Gender and sex-role appropriateness: Bias in the judgment of disturbed behavior

Male and female undergraduate raters made attributions of mental disorder, personality traits, and diagnostic and treatment judgments for four case studies in which sex of client and sex-role appropriateness of client behavior were manipulated. Significant interactions of sex-role appropriateness with both client sex and rater sex highlighted the significance of sex-role stereotypes in the attribution of mental disorder by nonprofessionals. The data indicated that these cultural sex-role definitions had the strongest negative effect for females and the female sex role. Implications of these findings for the clinical judgment process and female self-perception are discussed.The order of authorship was determined by random selection.     

The Perceived Advantages and Disadvantages of Presymptomatic Testing for Machado-Joseph Disease: Development of a New Self-Response Inventory

This study describes the construction of a self-response inventory to evaluate the perception of advantages and disadvantages of the Machado-Joseph disease presymptomatic testing, in 44 individuals at-risk for this disease. The results showed that the reliability of this inventory was satisfactory. Factor analysis revealed a bidimensional structure: perceived advantages (pros) and perceived disadvantages (cons) of presymptomatic testing. Social desirability was found unrelated to the total scores of our inventory. Additional correlation studies, with other scales, confirmed the convergent validity of the instrument. These results suggest adequate construct validity. This inventory thus seems to be a proper instrument to assess expectations involved in the decision-making process of Machado-Joseph disease presymptomatic testing.     

The influence of decision task and deliberation style on the verdict of the juries

The influence of decision task and deliberation style on the verdict of the juries. In the Kameda's Deliberation Style Model the emission of verdicts of responsibility when the deliberation style of the juries (elemental/compound) and the type of decision task (disjunctive/conjunctive) are jointly manipulated, is favoured in certain conditions. Given the consequences that these approaches could have in real judicial processes, this model is analyzed using a manslaughter crime under the Spanish judicial context conditions (nine members juries and seven or five members majorities emitting a verdict of guilty or not guilty, respectively). The obtained results indicated a better operation of the model when a conjunctive decision task was demanded.     

Anxiety, self-esteem and self-perceived satisfaction as predictors of health: differences between men and women

The main objective of this research is to analyze whether there are differences in physical health between men and women when considering their working situation. Three psychological variables are analyzed (anxiety, self-esteem and satisfaction) as well as several indicators of physical health for different working situations. The results seem to indicate that although women have worse health than men (when the group is analyzed in general), these differences vary when we take into account the working condition of the participants, and the differences even disappear. The psychological variables used in this survey only explain the variance of the subjective indicators of physical health, most of all, the Physiological Anxiety, which is responsible for the highest rate of the explained variance. The psychological variables predict women's physical health more than men's, what seems to indicate that women's physical health is closely related to psychological health.     

The attentional blink effect: influence of negative words in an affective valence categorization task

In this study, we explored the emotional modulation of the Attentional Blink effect. In a Rapid Serial Visual Presentation procedure, a word (Target 1), either positive, negative or neutral, was followed by the word "WATER" (Target 2) in one half of the trials. The task included two conditions. In one of them, participants only had to detect the word "WATER". In double-response trials, participants also categorized Target 1's valence. Results showed that the detection of Target 2 was impaired in the double-response condition, this impairment being greater when negative word appeared as Target 1, as compared to positive and neutral words. However, these effects were independent on the Anxiety-Trait levels of participants. Overall, the pattern of data suggests that cognitive resources are focused on negative stimuli when their negative valence is emotionally salient enough.     

Effects of subchronic administration of gammahydroxybutyrate (GHB) on spatial working memory in rats

GHB, a popularly known drug as "liquid ecstasy", is a substance with abuse potential. Among the possible described side-effects after the continued consumption of GHB are amnesia and deterioration of memory. Likewise, recent studies indicate the existence of neurotoxicity in certain brain regions after its prolonged treatment. The aim of this study was to examine the effect of the subchronic administration of GHB (10 and 100 mg/kg) on spatial memory and sensoriomotor reflexes in male rats, using the Morris water maze and a battery of sensoriomotor tests, respectively. The results indicated that animals treated with GHB (10 mg/kg) showed a greater latency of escape during the phase of acquisition in the days first and third of tests, as compared with the control group (p<0.05), as well as a deterioration of grasping reflex with the two doses of GHB (p<0.01). Numerous studies indicated that the medial prefrontal cortex is a crucial neuronal substrate in the working memory and grasping reflex modulation. These results suggest that prolonged administration of GHB could alter structure and/or function of the medial prefrontal cortex, as well as its interconnections with other brain regions involved in the evaluated cognitive and neurological processes.     

Schizotypy and verbal memory in the adolescent general population

The following study examines the relationship between verbal memory deficits and schizotypal traits measured psychometrically from a non- clinical adolescent population. In this transversal analytical study participated 139 subjects. They were secondary school students, with ages ranging from 13 to 16 years old (mean= 14, 35; Sta.Dev.= 0, 548). After administrating the scales O-LIFE (psychometrical schizotypy), CVLT (verbal memory), and Letters and Numbers subtest of WAIS-III (working memory), data was analyzed utilizing Pearson correlations and mean comparison test. Results showed lack of relations between schizotypy measures and working memory. Nonetheless, some of the O-LIFE dimensions correlated with verbal memory. These findings support partly the literature reviewed. Yet, more work focused on schizotypy and cognitive deficits as risk factors are suggested.