This post is more personal observation/experimentation than expert opinion. I do find it rather easy to have a small bit of epithelial cheek tissue held in between the rear molars and to press down to produce minimal pain (undoubtedly resulting in the general autonomic response). This has two benefits:

1) it can be done without having to reach out the tongue to bite and

2) one can perform this action and minimally converse at the same time, i.e., respond "no" to a polygraph question.

However, after a little more practicing, I've come to the conclusion that the benefits I've listed with biting the buccal cheek tissue are more readily obtained with the posterior/lateral tongue surface, and that the biting is more easily concealed with the tongue.

It occurred to me that the thought process/observation that I went through (and the two considerations I raised), although they do not change the relative superiority of tongue biting to cheek biting, did serve one purpose: to instruct on how to bite the tongue. Done properly, one should bite the posterior/lateral tongue surface. This has has the two stated benefits plus concealment. Done improperly (that is, biting the anterior portion of the tongue), tongue biting would be much more subject to counter-countermeasures and suffer from not having the other two benefits (not having to reach and being able to be performed while enunciating "no"). The ability to press down at the same time as giving the negative reply cannot be overemphasized, because it allows for the countermeasure to be applied at the time of allowed/expected facial motion.

An additional (and important) benefit of a properly applied tongue bite is that the physiological response is guaranteed to occur within the proper time frame following the asking of the question.

ChemGeek,

The e-mail address you included with your message seemed to reveal your real name. To protect your privacy, the e-mail address in your post has been changed to "nobody@nowhere.com". If you disagree with this decision, please send a note from the e-mail address you included in your post to info@antipolygraph.org, and your e-mail address will be restored. You may wish to create a new e-mail account that does not reveal your name for use with this message board.

???

I'm just curious, I have completely read through the book and planned to use the technique of biting the tongue during my pre-employment polygraph.  But on practicing this technique in the mirror I noticed that it look kinda obvious, so I tryed different spots and found that biting the side of my mouth was not so noticable.  My question is will this technique produce the same affect as biting down on my tongue?