Could someone please direct me in the direction to which I could find the information pertaining to when motion sensors were implemented, and the person whose idea it was?

The use of motion sensors goes back considerably further than the 1950s.  Professor Aleksander Luria in the Soviet Union conducted research on a lie detection device he developed, the tremorgraph.  This consisted of an air-filled rubber bladder which was grasped by the person being examined.  Any changes in the air pressure caused by slight changes in how tightly it was held were recorded on a smoked drum known as a kymograph (a type of polygraph chart).  When a person lied, his hands often displayed a slight tremor.  Luria described his methodology in a 1930 article entitled Die Methode der abbildenen Motorik in der Tatbestandsdiagnostik (The method of recording movements in crime detection) in the German journal Zeitschrift für Angewandte Psychologie, vol. 35, pp 139-183.  It is further explained in his English language book The Nature of Human Conflicts: On Emotion, Conflict and Will published in 1932, as translated by W. Horsley Gannt.

     Dr. W. C. Langer followed up on Luria’s work in an article published in 1936 in the Journal of General Psychology, vol. 15, pp 445-461, “The Tremograph: An improved and modified form of the Luria apparatus.

     It is important to note that the tremorgraph was used to detect the stress associated with deception, whereas the movement sensors of today are used for detecting many types of physical countermeasures.

     [Statement of disclosure:  I am a retired polygraph researcher and examiner]  While on the topic of countermeasures, it’s of interest to note that, while a useful concept, dichotomizing CMs into “mental” or “physical” categories is not as straightforward as one might think.  All “mental” countermeasures achieve their end result primarily by manipulating muscles, either tensing them, such as those lining the blood vessels to cause an increase in blood pressure, or by trying to relax them.  All “physical” countermeasures, in turn, are caused by deliberate mental activity, namely the decision to tighten or relax certain muscles.

Peace

Gordon Barland