Having failed a poly 2 years ago for reasons of being freaked out and uneducated (and interrogated into the floor), I got educated this time around.

Even THIS time, I THOUGHT I had it all in order.  Until the examination time and then there was a big pit in my stomach; There were NO control questions on this test.  Simply three irrelevant ones at the beginning.  Is your name George?  Is this month May? Are you 36 years old?  Then maybe 20-30 relevant questions, with nothing in the middle.  Two extra statements by the examiner, one at the beginning - 'Start the Test', and at the end 'The test is finished'.  This sequence was repeated FOUR times.  The guy was not intimidating, and acted in a calm professional manner. (They actually do this?).  I think the fourth round of questioning was because I had become very nervous with the lack of control questions.  He said, normally we don't do this but I just want to get a good clear chart to verify the rest of them.

Using information from TBLD and DW, I did my best to show my cool, and showed strong reactions to the beginning and end of test statements.  Kept my cool through the rest of it.  Now I don't know if what I did was correct... to show the reaction to the beginning and end, but it DID get the examiners attention.  The chair was very uncomfortable (very poorly adjusted for my 6'++ height), the office was HOT, and the atmosphere at the place in question seemed almost hostile. (No wonder you fools, turn up the AC!).   

Apparently this guy wanted out of there as fast as I did too because of the heat factor alone but in the end, I passed this crazy exam.  When I left the office I had a feeling of great satisfaction and relief that I passed.  But enroute home... it finally hit me.  I beat this thing. This realization  has made me feel a bit saddened because so much faith and belief is put into it worldwide.  Especially for the examiner, whom I actually liked in the end.  Now if I can pass this 'exam' under these circumstances on a dead pan suprise (I almost lost control of myself on this) of no control questions, then anyone can pass.  Just get educated.  I still shake my head in disbelief that I got through it.

If this examination were truly reliable, it would detect 'white lies'.  Those that are deemed so insignicant that they don't matter.   

Here's my assumption of the way a no control question examination works:

On a test with zero control questions, your physiological responses are compared on all of them.

There is an inherent assumption that the applicant will be truthful on many.  What they are looking for are the major physiological responses that would result from "deception needed" questions (I'm lying that I never sold drugs), where one has a problem with as opposed to the "Hell I have NEVER sold ANY drugs!".  Anyone that is scared-shtless, or bugged, or just hosed on one of them will show a deceptive reaction compared to the rest of the relevant questions. 

But in the case of the pathalogical liar, he could pass any test, because of strong belief in self, which results in zero deception.  (This is documented somewhere by the APA I think).

I never had a problem with white lies, (those that never hurt anyone and would only inflame versus help a situation).  Almost all of the questions I answered truthfully, though some were necessary to be untruthful because it was just NONE OF THEIR BUSINESS.

They don't need to know I have sex with my Bull Mastiff every week.  Especially when it comes to the NUMBER of times per week.  Asking if you have sex with your dog, and then the follow on being how often is so disgusting to me.

Just kidding, but you get the drift.

Armed with the right knowledge Kev, anyone, even Jack the Ripper could pass this examination.

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I agree with you that Unreal's posts could have been written more clearly. But it appears that he correctly understands that in the polygraph technique he has described (which is similar to the Keeler relevant/irrelevant technique), the polygrapher was looking for a "con-spec-nificant" (consistent, specific, and significant) reaction to one of the relevant questions.

It also appears that Unreal correctly identified the announcements of the beginning and end of the examination as "control" stimuli and augmented his reactions to them accordingly.

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Your apparent obsession with this website (reflected in the ad hominem attacks that you post on an almost daily basis) belies your latter claim. It obviously gets your goat that the tricks of the polygraph trade are being made public here.

You are not alone in your fear of AntiPolygraph.org. In the nearly four years since we went on-line, countermeasures has become a hot topic at polygraph seminars across the country. Paul Menges, who teaches the countermeasure course at DoDPI has even gone so far as to suggest that making countermeasure information (such as that found in The Lie Behind the Lie Detector) available to the public should be criminalized:

http://antipolygraph.org/articles/article-029.shtml

Mr. Menges wouldn't have made such a radical proposal if he agreed with you that the polygraph profession had "nothing to fear" from those whom you characterize as "idiots."

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So what you are saying is that it takes a mental patient to understand a mental patient.  I guess George has a function to perform after all.  Who knew?