Planting the Seeds of Polygraph’s Practice A Brief Historical Review

Abstract

"The notion that the cognitive decision to lie carries physical cues has been practiced since ancient times as can be found in some of ancient detection of deception tests such as: the Hindu rice chewing or Bedouin hot spoon licking which are based on the belief that a deceptive person cease to produce saliva or in were the famous physician Erasistratus measured the Assyrian’s Prince Antiochus pulse in 300 B.C., are but just a few examples. Only in 1728 the celebrated Roman court physician, Giovanni Lancisi, perceived that emotion may be produced through the close dependence of mental functions upon the nerves, ganglia, and the coronary vessels of the heart. Emotions are produced, he thought, by more or less forceful heart action. From this he inferred that the characteristics of the mind derived from the structure and physical changes going on in the body (Trovillo 1938)."(...)