Who is the inventor of the polygraph?
The polygraph was invented in 1921 by John Augustus Larson (1892-1965) a medical student at the University of California and a police officer of the Berkeley Police Department (Berkeley, California, USA). Dr. Larson, born in Shelbourne, Nova Scotia, Canada, was the first to simultaneously record more than one physiological parameter with the purpose of detecting deception. Dr. Larson developed and utilized the continuous method of concurrently registering changes in pulse rate, blood pressure, and respiration. In conjunction with his polygraph, Dr. Larson used a test/a scientific procedure originated by Dr. William Moulton Marston (1893-1947) in the Harvard Psychological Laboratory in 1915 and applied by him to various fields of investigation during World War I. Dr. Larson modified Dr. Marston’s procedure and applied it to the police procedure at the Berkeley Police Department beginning in 1921.
