A new website, PolygraphPass.com offers for sale a manual entitled "How to Succeed at Pre Employment [sic] Polygraph Examinations." The manual costs U.S. $19.95, and may be ordered on-line by credit card and downloaded as a ZIP-compressed Adobe Acrobat (PDF) file.

The site itself is rather mysterious. It offers little information about the manual or about polygraphy. Moreover, the name of the manual's author is not revealed on the site. The author is, however, described as a member of the California Association of Polygraph Examiners and an associate member of the American Polygraph Association.

I couldn't resist the temptation. I pulled out my credit card and ordered "How to Succeed at Pre Employment Polygraph Examinations." After I had entered my credit card number and expiration date, my web browser briefly displayed a confirmation page that revealed the identity of PolygraphPass.com's operator: Sheri Dean. I did indeed find her name in the California Association of Polygraph Examiners' membership list, and found the following listing for Sheri Dean on PolygraphPlace.com:


Quote:

Central Coast Polygraph 4444 Scotts Valley Drive, #8D Scotts Valley, CA. 95066 831.438.2330 Hegenberger Road, #302 Oakland, CA. 95063 Contact: Sheri Dean 510.632.1400 School - San Francisco Center for Polygraph Studies 87 email: Rulying@aol.com URL: members.aol.com/polygraph2/index.html

Through the magic of JavaScript, the confirmation page was quickly replaced by a page titled "Purchase Complete" from which I downloaded Sheri Dean's zipped PDF file.

About the Manual

The manual, titled "How to Succeed at Pre Employment Polygraph Examinations," is a 14-page, 40,349 byte PDF file. The document information for this PDF file reveals that it was created on 17 March 2001.

Sheri Dean opens her manual with the following brief introduction:


Quote:

Congratulations on your determination to succeed at you pre-employment polygraph exam. This manual contains all the information you will need to study and prepare for your test. Nowhere else will you find such detailed information, written specifically for this purpose by a practicing polygraph professional. Obviously the first thing you have to do to pass a polygraph exam is to tell the truth. This manual assumes that you will be telling the truth and guides you as to what to expect and how to avoid common mistakes. Please review ALL of the information in this manual. Some of the sections address very minor issues but remember, its [sic] the little things that count! If you have additional questions feel free to e-mail me.

This introduction immediately set off bells and whistles. The Control Question Test, widely used for pre-employment polygraph screening, entails the polygrapher's expectation (hidden from the examinee) that the examinee's answers to the so-called "control" questions will either be untruthful or that he/she will at least experience considerable doubt as to the veracity of his/her answer. The polygrapher must mislead the examinee about that hidden expectation. But Dean says, "Obviously, the first thing you have to do to pass a polygraph exam is to tell the truth." If you have read AntiPolygraph.org's free book [url]The Lie Behind the Lie Detector,[/url] you know that this claim is untrue. Could it be that Dean had no intention of revealing the trickery behind the "control" questions? I continued reading.

A synopsis of the various sections of Dean's manual follows. Note that although sections are numbered/lettered in outline format, there is no internal consistency with regard to the alphanumerical sequence of sections and subsections.

In Section 1, "Environment," Dean discusses the settings in which polygraph interrogations are administered, noting that the procedure might be monitored without your being informed of the fact. She notes:


Quote:

At one location the department video tapes all polygraph interviews. The tests are given on location at the department. A tiny camera is hidden in a speaker hole of a radio sitting on a desk. All actions are monitored by an administrator at the time of the interview, and the video tapes are also forwarded to the background investigator.

Section II is titled "Presentation" and has subsections titled "Promptness," "Appearance," "Demeanor," and "Be Prepared" and provides tips similar those found in the  discussion of behavioral countermeasures in Chapter 4 of The Lie Behind the Lie Detector.

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