Dr. Charles Honts is a Professor with the Department of Psychology. He earned his Ph.D. in Psychology in 1986 from the University of Utah. Since coming to Boise State in 1995, Dr. Honts’ research interests have involved scientific credibility assessment with adults and children, specifically the psychophysiological detection of deception. Other interests include quantitative methods, jury behavior, and the area of psychology and the law. A prolific author, Dr. Honts has published in the Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology, Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback, and Legal and Criminological Psychology. Additionally, he has served as a reviewer for a variety of publications and in 1996 founded the Journal of Credibility Assessment and Witness Psychology. In 2007 Dr. Honts received a $299,537 grant from the Defense Academy for Credibility Assessment for a project titled, Effects of Comparison Question Type and Between Test Stimulation on the Validity of the Comparison Question Test.
Articles
An EDA Primer for Polygraph Examiners (with Mark Handler, Raymond Nelson, and Donald Krapohl), Polygraph (2010)
Effectiveness of Pupil Diameter in a Probable-Lie Comparison Question Test for Deception (with Andrea K. Webb, John C. Kircher, Paul Bernhardt, and Anne E. Cook), Legal and Criminological Psychology (2009)
Purpose. There were three objectives of this study: (1) To assess the possibility of using...
Information Gain of Psychophysiological Detection of Deception in Forensic and Screening Settings (with William Schweinle), Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback (2009)
We adapted and applied the Wells and Olson’s (2002) Information Gain Analyses to examine the...
Integration of Pre-Employment Polygraph Screening into the Police Selection Process (with Mark Handler, Donald J. Krapohl, Raymond Nelson, and Stephen Griffin), Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology (2009)
The authors provide a polygraph primer for police psychologists involved in law enforcement personnel selection....
You Can Run, but You Can’t Hide: A Critical Look at the Fight or Flight Response in Psychophysiological Detection of Deception (with M. Handler), European Polygraph (2008)
Contributions to Books
Research Methods for Psychophysiological Deception Detection (with John C. Kircher), Research Methods in Forensic Psychology (2011)
For purposes of this chapter, we accept Vrij's (2000) definition of deception as "a successful...
Scientific Status: The Case for Polygraph Tests (with D. C. Raskin and J. C. Kircher), Modern Scientific Evidence: The Law and Science of Expert Testimony (2008)
The Scientific Status of Research on Polygraph Techniques: The Case for Polygraph Tests (with D. C. Raskin and J. C. Kircher), Modern Scientific Evidence: The Law and Science of Expert Testimony (2002)
Presentations
'The Utah Approach to Polygraph Testing: A Scientifically Validated Approach' and 'Interviews, Interrogations and Confession: Scientifically Valid and Invalid Approaches' (Invited Addresses), XII Seminario Internacional de Entrenamiento Avanzado en Poligrafía (2012)
Interrogations, False Confessions and the Polygraph: Issues and Concerns from Psychological Science (Invited Address) (with M. Handler), Annual Meeting, American Association of Police Polygraphists (2011)
A New Paradigm for the Study of Deception Detection at Portals (with Flavia A. Pitman, James V. Pitman, Scott T. McBride, Adela B. Anderson, and Ashley K. Christiansen), Association for Psychological Science Annual Meeting (2008)
We report the results of a new paradigm to study deception detection in portal settings....
The Incomprehensibility of Judicial Instructions and Subsequent Jury Decisions (with Ashley Christiansen), Off the Witness Stand: Using Psychology in the Practice of Justice (2007)
The present study examined one opportunity for jury error in capital trials. We measured participants’...