Psychology, 2016, 7, 1075-1091 Published Online July 2016 in SciRes. http://www.scirp.org/journal/psych http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/psych.2016.78108 How to cite this paper: Elaad, E., & Sommerfeld, E. (2016). Effects of Guilt, Disbelief, and Assessed Lie-Truth Telling Abilities on Physiological Responses in the Guilty Action Test. Psychology, 7, 1075-1091. http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/psych.2016.78108 Effects of Guilt, Disbelief, and Assessed Lie-Truth Telling Abilities on Physiological Responses in the Guilty Action Test Eitan Elaad * , Eliane Sommerfeld Department of Behavioral Sciences, Ariel University, Ariel, Israel Received 21 May 2016; accepted 11 July 2016; published 14 July 2016 Copyright © 2016 by authors and Scientific Research Publishing Inc. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Abstract This experiment used a mock crime procedure in which 100 participants were randomly assigned to four experimental conditions in a 2 × 2 factorial design. Two guilt conditions (guilty and in- formed innocents) were crossed with two human interrogation feedback conditions (believed and not believed). The Guilty Action polygraph test was administered several days after the mock crime and the human interrogation. Along with the common dependent polygraph measures (electro dermal, respiration, and cardiovascular measures), self-assessments of the ability to tell lies and to tell the truths convincingly, were gathered. Results showed enhanced responses to the critical items for all three physiological measures. Respiration responses significantly differen- tiated between guilty and informed innocent participants. No significant guilt effect was obtained for electro dermal and cardiovascular responses. The feedback manipulation failed to affect all three physiological responses. Informed innocent participants who rated low their ability to tell the truth convincingly elicited larger electro dermal responses to critical items than high raters. Guilty participants who rated high their lie telling ability showed larger electro dermal responses to critical items than low raters. Further research on the association between self-assessment of lie and truth telling abilities and physiological responsivity in the Guilty Action Test is recom- mended. Keywords Concealed Information Test, Guilty Action Test, Lie-Detection, Disbelief, Polygraph * Corresponding author.