SomePerson,

Thanks for sharing your polygraph experience. It's interesting that your polygrapher mentioned AntiPolygraph.org by name. If you had visited this site before, and admitted to the fact during the pre-test, there's a significant risk that you would have been accused of using polygraph countermeasures.

As Archangelsk noted, the questions on which you "lied" were comparison (or "control") questions. Your answers to these questions were secretly expected to be less than completely truthful.

An unintended consequence of the Control Question Test's (CQT's) methodology is that it can leave examinees thinking that they "beat" the polygraph becaused they passed even though they gave an untrue answer to one or more control questions. In an attempt to mitigate this effect, some polygraphers will give examinees who pass a hard time about the control questions, trying to leave them with the impression that they just barely passed.

For more about polygraph procedure, see Chapter 3 of The Lie Behind the Lie Detector:

https://antipolygraph.org/lie-behind-the-lie-detector.pdf

Quote:


These are comparison questions; you were expected to be lying on them.

I forgot to mention that several times he had to stop the test as my breathing wasn't consistent. He told me to breath normally, well my normal breathing consists of long breaths when I am thinking... and sometimes short breaths. He would get pissed when I would take a long breath and stop the test.

So I recently had a CI poly (don't want to say when exactly) this month (October 2014), and I passed.

Before the actual poly, the examiner asked if I knew of any CM techniques. Other what I had seen in the movies, I did not. He then asked if I had been to this site, I had not, but since he brought it up, I decided to check it out.

He then says he is going to ask me a bunch of questions to get to know me, and see what questions would apply to me etc. 

He then asks me to write a number down. He then tells me to lie when asked if I wrote that number down while strapped into the machine etc. He then says we are good and can tell when I am lying. In my head I am thinking yeah right. Let me say that I am not a terrorist, nor do I support any kind of action detrimental to the US Govt. I did lie on 2 questions on the poly. So I know its not an exact science.

So the first round of questions about being a terrorist... hacking into govt computers etc... he said I passed.

He then asked me about personal things. Have I ever broken anyone's trust (I am sure I have, but can not remember anything recently), and have I ever cheated in an exam. 

At this point, he came back and said there were some inconsistencies. I knew he was playing games with me. He never talked about my educational background while 'getting to know me'. He asked if I had ever cheated in college, highschool, or even with my current academic program. So I knew I had already passed and he was looking to find anything he could as he must have looked at my SF86. He came back and said, we need to know that you don't have a history of deceiving people and cheating. He then said, you aren't that kind of guy now, ARE YOU? I tried not to laugh.

Anyhow, I lied on the cheating part, as I remember getting help on a coding project in college that one of my friends did for me. So yeah, even though I knew I was lying, I passed. 

Sorry for the rambling, but I am trying to remember everything clearly.

Ill come back and check this if anyone has any questions.