I have a question in regards to this statement,

"The polygrapher assumes that if your physiological responses as
measured by the polygraph are stronger when answering a relevant
question (e.g. “Have you violated this agency’s guidelines concerning
the use of illegal drugs?”) than when answering the “control” questions
(e.g. “Have you ever lied to a loved one?”), then you must
have been deceptive in answering the relevant question. If your
physiological responses while answering the “control” questions are
greater, then you must be telling the truth in answering the relevant
question. And if your physiological responses while answering the
relevant and “control” questions are about the same, then the outcome
will be deemed inconclusive. If these assumptions seem overly
simplistic to you, you’re right. As we stated at the beginning of
Chapter 1, polygraphy is not science: it is codified conjecture masquerading
as science."

If you are using countermeasures during control questions and answering with lies to relevant questions, would this not produce results that are equal?

Further, if the participant is choosing to use countermeasures does he/she answer yes to known control questions or only respond "no", knowing that no is the desired response?

Thanks

James.

Red wrote on Jan 28^th, 2004 at 8:48am:

This is in fact an assumption made by Matte in specific incident poly. His scoring "quadra zone" methodology has a non-linearity when the responses are the same between comparison and relevants to produce a deceptive outcome. This is described as a counter-countermeasure. Highly debatable IMO. One possible side effect is that the DI and NDI distribution curves favor a DI outcome which is the case with his published distributions.

-Marty