Anti-Counter measures pad has anyone had any experience with them, looking on the polygraph manufactures websites these things can detect heart beats when set to high levels detection.

If this is true the anal sphincter muscle can’t be constricted can it? 

Doug’s book says the only way it can be detected is if they insert it, which is hard to believe if it can detect your heart beat. 

I have used the anal sphincter muscle method and passed with flying colors in past tests, but the agency I'm looking to move too uses the anti counter measures pad in the seat and has them on the floor to put your feet on. 

Any one used counter measures and passed with these things in place.

I have a friend who is an examiner in a neighboring town says they can’t be beat. Is he right, needing help. He does not have the pad or I could try it on his. I proved to him that the counter measures worked he still is in disbelief over it. 

I’m amazed that after reading this site for some time no one has any real advice on this subject. The tongue biting method is easy to detect or see. The examiner told me on another test that I swallowed when I was truly attempting the biting method. I have taken 7 total tests.  5 passed after learning countermeasures so I know they work, just want some help with that damn chair pad.

PD521 wrote on Feb 8^th, 2005 at 7:32pm:


So, when you say you used countermeasures and they worked, are you admitting that you were lying to the "relevant" questions and overcame your lies by countermeasures?  If so, which "relevant" questions did you lie to?  I'm curious.  I know, this is a no-win question for you: Either you were NOT lying to the "relevant" questions and you used countermeasures for no good reason other than your fear of a possible false positive (which would not prove they worked since you were actually not lying to the "relevant" questions) OR you used countermeasures to get through an exam you didn't deserve to pass, which, if the countermeasures you learned on this site actually worked, would make Antipolygraph.org complicit in providing bad people with a way to escape detection.

It would be interesting to know the educational backgrounds of the examiner(s) who administered the tests you failed.  Also, when you say "failed," are you possibly talking about inconclusive results rather than flat-out failure?  It takes a lot to flat-out fail a polygraph because the numerical analysis used gives even the guilty quite a buffer before assigning a deceptive result.  There is no clear-cut pass/fail line--you have some comfortable breathing space that is called inconclusive.  Unless your examiner(s) were poorly trained, poorly inspected idiots (and there are idiots in every profession), I would be more inclined to believe that there are some real skeletons in your closet with regard to the relevant questions than that you innocently responded off the chart on those questions.

PG111 wrote on Feb 11^th, 2005 at 8:04pm:


Actually, two years to get a Masters Degree in psychology is a joke, too, at least if you plan on teaching with it.  It's not good for much else, is it?  You are right about one thing, though: 8-10 weeks isn't enough to make anyone a great "polygraphist"  (thanks for making me laugh, man).  Of course, the Feds go to school a lot longer, and all their courses are Masters-level courses, but that still doesn't make them an expert polygrapher.  I once asked a very experienced polygrapher how long it took him to become so proficient and confident in his job, and he told me two or three years.   It's like any other serious profession, I'm sure.

If you have as much knowledge about the polygraph as you say you do, then shouldn't you realize that the more you know about polygraph the more you'll play with your own head and the more difficult it will be to pass the exam?  Several experienced polygraphers have told me that they are "ruined" for the polygraph because they know too much about it.  If that's true, then no wonder you had a difficult time.  It would also support my belief that this forum does a disservice to the scared little boys and girls who come here by making them play too much with their own heads, when they would otherwise have passed the polygraph with flying colors.

Oh, and I'm almost positive that you were being grilled just to see what you'd reveal.  Some agencies or departments want to grab any opportunity they can get to see what you're made of and what baggage you are carrying. 

Best of luck in your polygraph career, PG.  Now, here's my response, and thank heavens for cut and paste! 

(By the way, this is NOT the best forum I've been on.  Too many bitchers, moaners, whiners and worriers here for my taste.  I find online gaming community, singles chat rooms and sex forums much better, but that's just me.  Like some of those websites, this website should come with a disclaimer banner that reads "For Entertainment Purposes Only.")
 
Here is a reply I just sent to one of your most distinguished (or should I say extinguished) senior members, Gino Scalabrini: 
 
OK, Gino.  Although this will probably just lead to both of us citing studies and articles that none of the worriers on this forum will actually read, I'll humor you . . . at least once.  We'll look like two people arguing over the true meaning of an obscure Biblical passage.      
 
In 1983, the Office of Technology Assessment of the United States Congress selected 10 field studies they believed had scientific merit.  The overall accuracy of the polygraph decisions was 90% on criterion-guilty suspects and 80%  on criterion-innocent suspects (Lykken, D.T. (1997) The detection of deception.  Psychological Bulletin , 86, 47-53).  
 
Pretty darned good, huh, Gino?  It gets better, so read on:  
 
In 1997, the Committee of Concerned Social Scientists found four significant field studies that showed the average accuracy of field decisions for the CQT (comparison question test) was 90.5%.  It is signficant, though, that nearly all of the errors made by the CQT were false positive errors.  (Still, when you're dealing with accuracy over 90%, don't place too much emphasis on those FP's--besides, it just gets better after this, Gino.)  In the four studies, the data was derived from independent evaluations of the physiological data (the raw charts).   Because it is usually the original examiners who testify in court, and because they obviously make the decisions on how to proceed in their exams, the Committee went further in an effort to ascertain their accuracy compared to that of the independent examiners.  The Committee also included an additional two studies in this evaluation.  What they found was that the original examiners were even more accurate than the independent examiners.  In fact, the mean acccuracy for the innocent was 98%, while the mean accuracy for the guilty was 97%.  The studies used by the Committee are as follows:  
 
Horvath, F.S. (1977)  The effect of selected variables on interpretation of polygraph records. Journal of Applied Psychology, 62, 127-136.  
 
Honts, C.R. and Raskin, D.C. (1988) A field study of the validity of the directed lie control question. Journal of Police Science and Administration, 16, 56-61.  
 
Kleinmuntz, B. and Szucko, J. (1984) A field study of the fallibility of polygraphic lie detection.  Nature, 308, 449-450.  
 
Raskin, D.C., Kircher, J.C., Honts, C.R. and Horowitz, S.W.(1988) A Study of the Validity of Polygraph Examinations in Criminal Investigation, Grant No. 85-IJ-CX-0040.  Salt Lake City: Department of Psychology, University of Utah.  
 
Patrick, C.J. and Iacano, W.G. (1991) Validity of the control question polygraph test: The problem of sampling bias.  Journal of Applied Psychology, 76, 229-238.  
 
Honts, C.R. (1996) Criterion development and validity of the control question test in field application.  The Journal of General Psychology, 123, 309-324.  
 
So much for your crystal ball/tarot card/flip of the coin analogies, huh, Gino?  
 
(By the way, those two sunglassed smilies in the dates of one Honts and one Raskin reference should be 1988--your forum has a problem with the number one thousand nine hundred and eighty-eight--it shows the last eight as a smiley--weird!)  
 
 
Go ahead and come back with some more referenced studies that the worried boys and girls on this forum won't ever read.  This is more for you and me, Gino, just so you and I both know that I know what I'm talking about.  The difference between you and me, though, is that all you can do is counter with your own citations, while I have real-world experience and have rubbed elbows with the Top Guns of the polygraph world.  Take your best shot, Gino.  I probably won't waste so much time to counter your inane, memorized rhetoric again, so rest easy, baby!  
 
Oh, where, oh where has my little George gone, oh where, oh where can he be?  He'll be back, of course. This ridiculous forum is his whole life.  He's not much good for anything but entertainment, though.

If that's the best you can do, you really SHOULDN'T reply, Jeffrey!  Your comments about polygraphsters are funny, but tiresome.

Although the manufacturers of various sensor pads claim that they are effective at detecting such countermeasures as the anal sphincter contraction, there are no published studies documenting the validity of such claims. Nonetheless, I would not dismiss out of hand the possibility that they may work better than chance. If I were going to employ countermeasures and saw that such a pad was present, I would avoid the anal sphincter contraction. (My first choice, in any event, would be mental countermeasures.)

PD521 wrote on Feb 8^th, 2005 at 7:32pm: