PDD-Fed,

When I describe the Relevant/Irrelevant technique as a "thoroughly discredited" methodology, I am not quoting any individual, but summarizing what I've observed. The R/I technique is completely unsupported by any peer-reviewed research whatsoever, and to the best of my knowledge, has no defenders in the scientific community. The polygraph community itself has largely abandoned the R/I technique in favor of the CQT. John Reid and Fred Inbau exclude the R/I technique from their classic book, The Polygraph (Lie-Detector) Technique and James Allan Matte similarly excludes it from his more recent reference work, Forensic Psychophysiology Using the Polygraph. And over the past thirty years, the American Polygraph Association quarterly, Polygraph has published only a few articles on the R/I technique. (I believe they can be counted on one hand.) The most important of these articles is Raymond J. Weir's 1974 article, "In Defense of the Relevant-Irrelevant Polygraph Test" (Vol. 3, No. 2, pp. 119-166). That Weir felt the need to write an apology for the R/I technique is an indication of the low regard in which it was held within the polygraph community even 28 years ago.