On the Influence of Sleep Deprivation on the Results of Polygraph Testing
Ładowanie...
Data wydania
2021
Autorzy
Tytuł czasopisma
ISSN
1898-5238
eISSN
2380-0550
Tytuł tomu
ISBN
eISBN
Wydawca
Oficyna Wydawnicza AFM
Abstrakt
Standards of polygraph examination exclude testing sleep-deprived people. Lack
of sleep (and examinee exhaustion) is a factor that can contribute to false polygraph
examination results (including false positives). Based on behavioral assessments
(careful observation of examinee behaviour during a pre-test interview and
subsequent stages of polygraph examination), the critical role of examiners is to
recognise incidences of lack of sleep and, consequently, to postpone the moment of testing. Professional literature treats the lack of sleep as a temporal inability to be
subjected to the test (Widacki, 2018, 434). However, such a decision is nowadays
usually powered with experts’ intuition (their experience) rather than the results
of empirical research. There is therefore a need for conducting studies like the one
presented below.
In practice, a sleep-deprived person could take a polygraph examination for two
main reasons. First, examinees may deliberately deprive themselves of sleep to interfere
with the results of tests. Secondly, such a deprivation may be connected with
external circumstances of a particular examination. In a case involving a jewelry
store robbery in Katowice, police officers wanted an expert to examine the building’s
security staff. They wanted to have outcomes of screening tests on the day of
the theft. The expert refused to perform the test because the security guards were
tired after the night shift. In any event, a polygrapher should not yield to pressure
and test sleep-deprived persons.
The main goal of the research reported in the present article is to explore the influence
of sleep deprivation of tested subjects on the accuracy of polygraph test results.
Opis
Tematy
Słowa kluczowe
Źródło
European Polygraph 2021, nr 2, s. 32-40.