The use of the Keeler Polygaph as a check on responses to personality test items

The assumption has been made that anxiety is reflected in bodily symptoms, If properly stimulated, some of these bodily symptoms can be measured and recorded with the aid of a psychophysical instrument. If a subject is stimulated with items that produce any of these bodily symptoms, and some measure is made of his reaction to these items, this will be an index of anxiety. Further, it was felt that if such paper and pencil tests that are used to measure anxiety were used as the stimuli for producing reactions of anxiety, the resulting effects would constitute a check on such a scale. The purpose then of this study is further to investigate a problem that has long bothered many clinicians, that is, whether or not paper and pencil questionnaires that we use in the laboratory reflect the bodily symptoms that are supposed to be characteristic of anxiety. In effect, the purpose of this study has been to investigate the usefulness of the Keeler Polygraph as a means of measuring anxiety, using the items of Winners Scale of Neuroticism as stimuli.