ALCOHOL AND THE PHYSIOLOGICAL DETECTION OF DECEPTION - AROUSAL AND MEMORY INFLUENCES

Eighty male volunteers participated in an analogue study of the effect s of alcohol intoxication at the time of a crime on the physiological detection of deception using control question and guilty knowledge tec hniques. Sixty-four of the subjects committed a mock crime and half of these were intoxicated during the crime. Sixteen subjects committed n o crime and served as innocent controls. We found that intoxication at the time of the crime had no significant effect on polygraph test out comes, although it did affect anticipatory arousal before the crime an d subsequent memory for crime details. Manipulations designed to influ ence memory for crime details and arousal during the crime had differe ntial effects for the two polygraph tests. On the guilty knowledge tes t, primed subjects who rehearsed specific details following the crime were more detectable than unprimed subjects. On the control question t est, primed subjects were also more detectable, but only when arousal during the crime was high.