Michael T. Bradley

Michael T. Bradley is a Professor of Psychology at the University of New Brunswick Saint John in Canada. His research interests include information detection with the polygraph and general problems resulting from a historic emphasis on inferential statistics over accurate measurement. Over the course of his career spanning from the 1980s into the 2010s, Bradley established himself as a leading academic researcher examining the psychological and psychophysiological foundations of deception detection, particularly through the Concealed Information Test (CIT).

Bradley made substantial contributions to understanding the validity and limitations of the CIT in polygraph testing. His landmark 2011 study with Malik and Cullen examined how accuracy rates with polygraphs using concealed information tests depend on memory for crime details, with some participants reading instructions on murdering a dummy victim that specified exact crime details asked on the subsequent CIT. His research explored critical issues including information leakage to innocent suspects, the role of personality variables (such as extraversion and Machiavellianism) in detection accuracy, and the Control Question Test with actual controls for truth. One influential study showed correct identification of 86% of guilty subjects and 83 to 89% of innocent subjects using modified control questions that were unambiguous and answered truthfully. Bradley also developed the Guilty Action Test (GAT), a variant of the CIT designed to reduce false positives among informed innocents.

Bradley's work has been highly influential in the polygraph research community, with over 1,600 citations to his publications. His series of studies on information leakage conducted with colleagues from the 1980s through 2011 became foundational references in the field, frequently cited in discussions of CIT validity and the challenges of applying laboratory findings to real-world settings. He collaborated extensively with researchers including Michel Pierre Janisse on early psychophysiological studies, and later worked with Fahreen J. Malik and Michael C. Cullen on realistic mock crime scenarios. His research has been published in premier journals including Psychophysiology, Perceptual and Motor Skills, and Journal of Applied Psychology.

Beyond polygraph research, Bradley's work extends into broader methodological issues in psychology, including statistical measurement and effect size estimation. He maintained his affiliation with the Department of Psychology at the University of New Brunswick, P.O. Box 5050 Tucker Park Road, Saint John, N.B., Canada, where his research bridged laboratory experimental psychology, psychophysiology, and applied forensic science. His critical examinations of CIT validity under realistic conditions have shaped contemporary understanding of both the promise and limitations of memory detection techniques in credibility assessment.