Ex Member wrote on May 14^th, 2016 at 7:29pm:

Rome wrote on May 14th, 2016 at 2:58am: "It's not a lie if you believe it." As we learned in Seinfeld from the George character, it holds a lot of weight in reality.  You can rationalize just about anything in your head. Thanks for your detailed post. It provided a lot of insight into the experience. I personally have never been involved in a LE polygraph exam. About rationalization, I don't think this is possible. As much as we can all fool ourselves, on some level we know better. Also, the deliberation alone can produce a reaction. Regarding the rapport with the examiner, if this holds true, it only gives credence to the notion of "examiner bias." Can you remember the exact wording of the Relevant Questions?

You may be right about rationalization but I don't know. I'm not saying it's airtight, but it helps.  I think if you can convince yourself that whatever you did "doesn't count" or is no big deal, it'll cause less of a reaction when the topic comes up. It's a mental game that you can win if prepared.  A big thing I did is not think too much about what they're asking and not dwelling on it. After the question, forget it was even asked, think about a song, a baseball game, whatever. So I would definitely say you'd want to avoid deliberation and answer everything without hesitation.  The only time a slight deliberation may be OK is on the control lies; that may even help some.

Yes, my opinion is that examiner bias is a huge factor.  It may be the biggest factor of all.  I'm reading other people's experiences and that reinforces these beliefs.  If the examiner thinks you're trustworthy or a good person, that goes a very long way. A lot of my advice to someone would be to cultivate that persona as soon as you arrive or start meeting people with that agency.  If he thinks you are being deceptive for whatever reason, you're probably dead in the water. If your examiner says to himself beforehand that he's running "the toughest poly in the west" today, and you're the guy, it's over for you.

I don't remember the exact wording of the questions now.  All I can really say is they were all centered around my intentions of being honest about the relevant topics (Stealing, drug use, etc.). He never asked me a direct question from the book such as "Have you ever used cocaine?" or "Have you ever committed a robbery?" or whatever.