The effects of prior expectations and outcome knowledge on polygraph examiners' decisions

Eitan Elaad, Avital Ginton, Gershon Ben-Shakhar

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

The present study deals with the question of whether judgments made by experts working in familiar contexts are affected by prior expectations and beliefs. Two experiments in which prior expectations were manipulated were designed to determine whether and to what extent polygraph examiners are affected by their prior expectations when analyzing and interpreting polygraph charts. Prior expectations affected the examiners' judgments when the polygraph charts did not include clear indications of guilt or innocence, but when the objective physiological evidence included strong indications which clearly contradicted the examiner's expectations, judgments were not affected by these expectations. Theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)279-292
Number of pages14
JournalJournal of Behavioral Decision Making
Volume7
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 1994
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Control question technique
  • Hindsight bias
  • Hypothesis‐confirmation bias
  • Outcome knowledge
  • Polygraph
  • Prior expectations

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'The effects of prior expectations and outcome knowledge on polygraph examiners' decisions'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this