The Psychological Forensic Division provides legal assistance by applying psychological principles for various demands of the judicial system,
such as crime prevention, investigations, trials and correction fields.
The division performs tasks to collect criminal information by helping victims and witnesses recall their memory through analysis of the authenticity of
statements through measurements of physiological responses and analysis of verbal and behavioral responses, personality and cognitive ability assessment,
inference of psychological process leading to suicide, cognitive interviews and hypnosis.
Psychophysiological examination, EEG and statement analysis to confirm the truth of statements
Comprehensive assessment for personality, intelligence, cognitive and emotional states that help legal judgment
Forensic hypnosis·forensic cognitive tests and montage creation to help victims and witnesses recall their memory of a crime
Analysis of crime motives and crime environment, research on crime prevention
Inference of the psychological process that led to suicide of a person based on objective data
The Psychological Forensic Division consists of two laboratories, including a Psychology Research Lab to evaluate the psychology of examinees such as through psychophysiology tests to verify the truth of statements of examinees, analysis of the validity of statements, personality and cognitive ability, etc. and Crime Analysis Lab to perform research on forensic hypnosis test to help victims and witnesses recall their memory as well as the causes and methods of crimes.
The Psychology Research Lab conducts psychophysiological detection of deception to judge the authenticity of statements, psychological assessment to evaluate psychological characteristics, and research related to each field.
The Crime Analysis Lab conducts forensic hypnosis·forensic cognitive tests and crime analysis. For forensic hypnosis·forensic cognitive tests, hypnosis and cognitive neurological techniques are applied to enhance the recall of memory when there is no physical evidence left at a crime site and the investigation needs to rely on the statement of a victim or witness, when the victim or witness finds it difficult to recall the memory related to the incident due to the psychological impact or the passage of time. The incident is reconstructed by inducing emotional stability of the victim or the witness and psychological regression into the time of the incident, and the memories for the visual and auditory clues are retrieved to be used as clues for investigation including situational and psychological clues at the time of the incident, appearance and voice of the suspect, the weapon used in the crime, the model and color of the car, etc.
Psychophysiology examination system is used to judge the authenticity of a statement by measuring the physiological response caused by the psychological change of an examinee. The Forensic Psychology Division developed NFS chairs for lie detecting, for which each part can be adjusted according to the body shape of an examinee to minimize the physical discomfort that may affect the examinee's psychological state (patent registration in 2011) and uses them for examination.
Statement-behavior analysis is a technique to judge whether a statement is true or false by using information of nonverbal behaviors, facial expressions, language and phonetic features, and emotional expressions of an examinee appearing during an interview. It can supplement the psychophysiology test result and improve the validity and reliability of authenticity examination of the statement.
Used for examination of an examinee's perception of crime-related information by analyzing the EEG that appears when presenting various stimuli related to the crime to the examinee.
Montage is created by a witness selecting facial areas (e.g., eyes, nose, mouth, hairstyle, face type, etc.) similar to a criminal from a database saved in a computer.
This equipment is used to monitor the EEG and event-related potentials of subjects during the forensic hypnosis process to help victims and witnesses memorize the event and analyze the data. It performs real-time digitalized monitoring for the relaxation and immersion of victims and witnesses during the forensic hypnosis process and emotional changes in the process of stating what they witnessed. At the same time, it makes a judgment on the accuracy of the event-related memories of the victims and witnesses in an objective and scientific way
A mother, Lee, uploaded a video that included interviews with her voice, "I am a dirty woman, but I am a mother." Lee argued that she met around 1,000 men during her 20 years of marriage, and her sons were also raped by more than 300 men. For the persons pointed out by the victims as perpetrators, psychophysiological tests were performed, and based on the results of the analysis, Lee and the shaman associated with Lee were arrested for making false accusations and instigation of false accusation, respectively. Yonhap News "The mother and two sons case was a lie.” The mother and the shaman associated with the mother were subsequently arrested (2015.11.12.)
On August 25, 2015, at around 4:50 pm, Park (54), an inspector, shot Park, a corporal constable, with a 38-caliber revolver that he was carrying because the corporal constable ate snacks with sharing it with the inspector at the 1st Dormitory Room of the Military Joint Checkpoint in Gupabal, Eunpyeong-gu, Seoul. Park was shot in the left chest and died. The psychological forensic division analyzed if the inspector, Park, shot intentionally, and the result showed that there was no intention, which was consistent with the supreme court’s judgement. The court declared him innocent for the murder. Hangyorae Newspaper “The policeman of the Gupabal shooting accident was asked for 6 year-sentence…homicide has not been accepted (2016. 1.27)
In the morning of June 10, 2014, a woman in her forties was found dead in a bag in a riverside area near Gonggeun-myeon, Hoengseong-gun, Gangwon-do. The suspect and the suspect’s brother were investigated with regard to the murder. Based on the analysis result, the suspect was pressured and admitted to the crime. Newsis "The brothers who killed and abandoned the female employee of Hoengseong Café are under arrest” (2014. 7.20.), SBS Morning Wide (2017. 3. 6.)
On January 2, 2015 at 23:36 pm, a suspect picked up the victim and the crime reporter, who were drunk, in his car, after lying he would drive them home. As the victim vomited, he parked the car in front of a convenience store and asked the reporter to go and buy wet tissues. While the reporter was in the store, the driver ran off and committed sexual assault on the victim. As a result of the forensic hypnotic test for the reporter, she recalled the number of the car, door handle, fragrance, auxiliary brake light molding, and the driver 's face. Investigation was carried out based on the results of the test, and the suspect who had consistent characteristics with those found in the test was arrested.
강원도 원주시 한의원에서 불임치료목적으로 지은 한약, 한약가루약(일명 반묘가루) 및 한약추출액을 혼합하여 마신 직후 환자가 사망하였으며, 감정결과 위 내용물 및 혈액에서 칸타리 딘(cantharidin)이 검출됨. 칸타리딘은 반묘의 주성분으로 치사량이 10mg이고 과량복용시 복통, 이질, 토혈, 혈뇨, 혈압 저하 등에 이어 사망한다고 알려져 있음