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Show New Machine Pegs Criminal Polygraph Operates As 'Remorse Meter' NEW YORK, N. Y. Science is using a device that may prove to be a diagnostic tool to test whether a person is a habitual criminal. The device is the polygraph, a copying machine which records changes in blood pressure, the heart beat, breathing, and the electrical elec-trical resistance of the skin. Use of the new technique on a series of persons has been reported by Dr. C. J. Ruilmann, associate professor of psychiatry, University of Tennessee, in the Southern Medical Medi-cal Journal. Studies with the device, according accord-ing to the report, show that when most persons commit a crime, or Injure some one, they feel a sense of shame or remorse. But not so the "psychopathic personality." The habitual criminal, the tests show, steals and then steals again with no feeling of remorse. Such personalities, who make up a high proportion of the criminal population, popula-tion, have a lifelong character defect "which prevents them from reacting to social or interpersonal relations," Dr. Ruilmann reported In using the polygraph, Dr. Ruilmann Ruil-mann hooked up the device to a subject and a series of 20 questions was put to the patient. Dr. Ruilmann said "there appears ap-pears to be a close correlation between be-tween feeling in the general area of apprehensions or anxiety and the electrical resistance of the skin measured from the palm of the hand." |