Validity of the Technique for the Concealed Information Revealing Based on the Registration of Heart Rate during Polygraph Testing

Abstract

The construction of the integral model of polygraph testing implies the disclosure of a method that will be valid on the task of identifying the fact of information concealment. The aim of this study was to verify the criterion validity of polygraph testing method based on the registration of a person's heart rate with the use of a block test. The experiment was carried out in two series, where the examinees concealed autobiographical information, chosen according to the instruction (lie according to the instruction, 1st series), or at their own request (lie for the purpose of deception, 2nd series). The participants in the experiment (40 people in each part) were people undergoing the real polygraph testing, which increased the environmental validity of the experiment. We used indicators that reflect different systems of heart rate regulation and are observed for different types of mathematical calculation, which made it possible to take into account their interindividual variability. Based on the results of the study, the model based on the interpretation of heart rate indicators in the framework of the system-evolutionary approach was developed with a lie detection efficiency of 74.5%.