The article analyzes the possibility of using the semantic differential in the study of the figurative sphere of a specialist's personality. Attention is drawn to the presence in experimental psychological semantics of two types of techniques: wide-profile and specialized. The growing interest of researchers in the problem of development of specialized semantic differentials, the use of which allows to describe the image of an object formed in a competitive professional group to a sufficiently large extent, is pointed out. The article describes a specialized semantic differential "Reference image of a border guard officer"developed in the border service of the Republic of Belarus.