That you have a hard time performing both breathing countermeasures and mental countermeasures at the same time is not necessarily a bad thing. The point of mental countermeasures is to create a mental workload that produces physiological responses.

Research on polygraph countermeasures is limited, so I cannot offer definitive responses to your questions. However, if I were choosing breathing responses, I wouldn't cycle through all of the scoreable breathing reactions. Rather, I would choose one or two of them, and I would avoid the first one mentioned in The Lie Behind the Lie Detector (suppression), as the federal polygraph school has taught (without proof) that this reaction is most commonly seen in deceptive subjects.

Not going to lie, I have a hard time doing both at the same time. Breathing control and counting backwards by 7. When I have practiced on control questions I typically have performed the breathing CM then right afterwards stop thinking about my breathing and do the mental arithmetic. Would that work? Additionally to expound on my previous question, when doing these different breathing CMs should I cycle through each breathing technique after each control question or stick to only two or three?

SimonBrown wrote on Dec 7^th, 2023 at 8:26am:


I think that mental arithmetic, whether solving a math problem in one's head or picking an arbitrarily large number and counting backward by 7s as fast as one can, are good choices. They should be done as soon as one knows for sure that the question being asked is a "control" question.

Haha, I'm liking my chances now honestly. Feel like I have prepped as much as I can. I look forward to it at this point, my worry is gone.

SimonBrown wrote on Dec 7^th, 2023 at 8:26am:


I find it hard to believe that anyone can say that they never did something illegal.  There isn't much to explain here.  I have done many illegal things.  During each control question, I just asked myself about all the times I cheated my taxes, had sex in a public place (random girls from years back that no investigator would ever find), drove drunk, lied on a job application, or other naughty deeds that I did.   

If you are truly a saint who never broke the law, think about something that scares the crap out of you during each control question.  Then relax on the relevant questions which should be easy once you understand that those polygraphers cannot read your mind and are just digging for some sort of confession from you.

At the end, you will be interrogated.  The polygrapher will accuse you of lying and hiding information in hopes to extract one final confession from you.  Don't budge.  Deny everything.  Tell him nothing.  Do this and you will enter the kingdom of polygraph-passing-heaven.

MentalCM could you possibly explain in more detail what I could think about and how I should time it? I really haven't done anything they would be looking for so I'm not sure I could use those thoughts to produce an reaction. 

Also, thank you again George I will look this over. I will also keep this forum updated with my results, I will be taking it this month. Hopefully I pass, but if not such is life. My plan is to utilize the breathing techniques, mix up my breathing reactions for each question and after performing each breathing reaction go through mathematics/anxious thoughts in my head. Also, I am contemplating recording the test covertly for the sake of it. I will keep you updated, please let me know if there is anything any of you think I should do.

SimonBrown wrote on Dec 4^th, 2023 at 10:44pm:


There's not much more I could tell you that's not already included in The Lie Behind the Lie Detector. You should be aware that the specific polygraph technique used by the U.S. Secret Service is the "Law Enforcement Pre-Employment Test." You may wish to familiarize yourself with the administration guide for this technique:

https://antipolygraph.org/documents/ncca-lepet.pdf

I am not aware that any particular countermeasure technique mentioned in The Lie Behind the Lie Detector is more effective than the others, but my personal choice would be mental and breathing countermeasures. As the late Dr. Drew Richardson, who studied polygraphy while assigned to the FBI's Laboratory Division, noted, the respiratory tracings are the only ones that the subject can directly control, so it seems worthwhile to do so, both to exhibit scorable reactions on the "control" questions and to avoid producing such reactions on the relevant questions.

Quote:


This is something that the late Doug Williams recommended in his manual, "How to Sting the Polygraph." However, I don't think it's useful advice. There is no need to make any special effort to produce "rounded" tracings on the pneumo channels.

Use mental countermeasures (CMs) on each of the control questions.  Think of something disturbing or mentally ask yourself a question about a serious crime you committed that you were never caught for so that you produce a physiological reaction.  I did this and was able to beat a U.S. federal agency's poly, four times.   

I recommend mental CMs over breathing CMs because there are pneumatic tubes around your chest during the poly that monitor your breathing.  If you screw up the breathing CMs, the polygrapher might see it on his charts.  There is nothing to monitor your mental activity during the poly.

Just my two cents.

Thank you for the response. I failed a poly about month back telling the whole truth and since then I pretty much figured it was fake. I want to make sure I don't get another false fail, do you have any tips on how I can practice the CMs, which are best to apply etc? I have another polygraph coming up with the USSS, and I would prefer not to fail if I can help it. I read the book, and think it will help significantly. I also read when doing the breathing techniques it is better to pause slightly after each inhalation to get the "rounded" look on the charts. Is this accurate?

It might be better to use more than one breathing reaction on "control" questions to help avoid producing what the polygraph operator might interpret as "cookie cutter" reactions, that is, reactions that appear suspiciously alike.

Hey! When attempting CMs, such as the breathing techniques would it better to utilize a variety of different techniques, or consistently apply the same CM? For example, using blocking after every control question.