AWARENESS OF CRIME-RELEVANT INFORMATION AND THE GUILTY KNOWLEDGE TEST

The effects of awareness of crime-relevant information on the detection of deception with the Guilty Knowledge Test were examined. Student subjects were assigned to 1 of 3 groups: a guilty group, members of which committed a mock crime; an innocent group aware of details about the crime; or an innocent group unaware of such information. After following instructions, subjects were tested on the polygraph with a 10-item Guilty Knowledge Test and were offered $20.00 for an innocent test outcome. Skin resistance response scores of guilty subjects lying about crime-relevant information were higher than the scores of innocent informed subjects, whose scores in turn were higher than those of innocent unaware subjects. This replicated findings of an earlier study in which similar procedures were used and supported the view that subjects aware of crime-relevant information can appear less deceptive than subjects lying about crime-relevant information.