Journal of Psychology & Psychotherapy
Open Access
ISSN: 2161-0487
+44 1478 350008
ISSN: 2161-0487
+44 1478 350008
Monika Kupcova, John C Kircher andTomas Urbanek
Masaryk University, Czech Republic
University of Utah, USA
Posters & Accepted Abstracts: J Psychol Psychother
A mock crime study using an Ocular-Motor deception test (ODT) that classifies participants as truthful or deceptive based on pupillary responses and eye movements while people read statementsâ?? concerning their possible involvement in illicit activities and respond true/false was conducted. The present study was the first preliminary pilot study using the ODT in the Czech Republic and assessed only pupillary changes as a response to the three item types (neutral, cash, exam). Forty participants were randomly assigned to a guilty/innocent condition as well as to an informed/uninformed condition; prior to the testing, participants in the informed condition had a chance to study a document with suggestions of possible countermeasures to defeat the ODT. It was found that (a) guilty participants show a greater pupillary response to cash items than innocent participants, (b) the information did not moderate the effect of deception on pupillary responses and, (c) seven guilty participants managed to appear innocent due to stronger pupillary responses to exam items than to cash items. Most of these participants had in common two categories of countermeasures: controlling the speed of answers and deliberate confusing of the test. Further research is necessary to explore whether there are efficient countermeasures that might threaten the ODT classification accuracy.
Monika Kupcova has earned a Bachelor of Science Partnership Degree in Psychology at Juniata College, PA, USA and a Master’s degree in Psychology at Masaryk University, Czech Republic. She currently is a PhD student at Masaryk University writing her dissertation on using Ocular-Motor methods to detect deception.
E-mail: mo.kupcova@gmail.com