tonsOqs,

To the best of my knowledge, there is no standardized list of polygraph questions asked by law enforcement agencies in the state of Florida. As elsewhere, agencies develop their own questions. In general, however, law enforcement agencies nationwide are particularly interested in past use or sale of illegal drugs and any undisclosed criminal activity.

You will find numerous examples of the kinds of questions asked in a typical law enforcement pre-employment polygraph examination in Chapter 3 of The Lie Behind the Lie Detector.

You say that you "just want to tell the truth and not lie on a lie detector test," but you need to understand that the polygraph operator secretly expects you to lie to the so-called "control" questions. In fact, the more honestly you answer the control questions, and as a consequence experience less stress when answering them, the more likely you are to wrongly fail the "test." This, too, is explained in Chapter 3.

Information on how to pass (or beat) a polygraph examination is provided in Chapter 4 of the book, so you don't have to read it if you don't want to. However, because of the very high risk of a false positive outcome (remember, there is consensus amongst scientists that polygraph screening has no scientific basis), you might want to read this chapter, too -- not in order to "beat" the polygraph, but rather to learn how to protect yourself against the random error associated with this invalid procedure. We wrote this book (and have made it available for free) not to help liars beat the system, but to offer truthful applicants like yourself a means of reducing the risk of being wrongly branded as liars.

Marty,

We've discussed this before, I must still respectfully disagree with you regarding the wisdom providing a "warning" when informing people about polygraph procedure. My reasons for this disagreement include:

1) polygraphy has not yet been demonstrated to reliably differentiate between truth and deception at better than chance levels under field conditions, even if the subject is unaware of polygraph procedure;

2) while the polygrapher will be unable to "set" the "control" questions with an informed subject, that subject will also understand that the whole procedure has no scientific basis, and that the truly "important" questions (the ones to which he must show a stronger reaction in order to pass) are in fact the "control" questions. This might well tend to increase rather than decrease the significance of the "control" questions for the subject, and perhaps increase involuntary reactions to them, even absent the conscious use of countermeasures. This might especially be the case in situations where the subject has made his/her best effort to answer the "control" questions as candidly as possible and would otherwise be relatively unconcerned by them vis-a-vis the relevant questions;

3) persons who decide that they will not use countermeasures without first understanding polygraph procedure have made an uninformed choice that they might not have made if presented with the truth about polygraphy;

4) it is a fair assumption that people who visit this website are seeking the truth truth about polygraphy;

5) a "warning" such as you have suggested is likely to be received as melodramatic at best and as cheap gimmickry intended to pique the curiosity of readers at worst.

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polygraph "testing" has not been proven through peer-reviewed scientific research to reliably work at better-than-chance levels under field conditions.
George,

You often repeat that statement which, while accurate, some may falsely read as meaning polygraphy has been scientifically shown to be no better than a 50-50 prop. It is accepted by the polygraph community and not really a matter of significant debate that the CQT yields more reliable results than the R/I test. Since the former requires and assumes a certain amount of examiner deception sufficient to get the examinee to lie and believe the lie matters, it's highly doubtful that polygraphers would have adopted it so strongly unless they really believed it better that the R/I format.

A more interesting question is: "What are the actual statisitics on well designed controlled, scientific studies of both specific incident and screening types?"

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Yes, and I've seen this argument advanced over at polygraphplace in one of their rare moments of candor.


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I regard this as the best argument. The idea that one is to be kept ignorant for one's own good is highly offensive, patronizing, and just plain wrong from my point of view - even if there is a reason behind it. There are psychological tests that also require the examinee be ignorant of the test workings. While ignorance is required, examiner deception is not so there are fewer ethical issues extant in that field.

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And I have found the site to be pretty factually accurate as to how the practice of polygraphy operates.

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And your lead in to the main page isn't designed to pique curiousity? Again:

Despite claims of better than 90% accuracy, polygraph "testing" has not been proven through peer-reviewed scientific research to reliably work at better-than-chance levels under field conditions.

-Marty

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George,

No offense taken. For that matter I don't think my argument is compelling either. It's just an argument, or perhaps only a preference. I only believe that knowledge of polygraph, without intent to use CM's may, increase risk of false positives.  OTOH, one can make an argument that an informed person who is unusually honest may lead to lower risk of false positives by increasing anxiety in control Q's that they had not lied on but were assumed to lie on by the examiner.

Perhaps I am reacting to the often heard polygraph examiner statements that they desire an informed examinee. One of the bigger lies floating around.

-Marty