welcome to the idiotic workd of the polygraph, with their condescending, arrogant, self-important legion of mind reading examiners.

Great point about the commanding officer...however, he never did question me again with the polygraph on.   

I told him that in a combat situation, you try to slow your breathing down....and i quote "If you slow your breathing down, what happens?   Your heart rate goes down (gee thanks, been in the medical field for years)...but here, your heart rate didn't go down, so your little trick didn't work"

Actually, I've heard it said, and seen it through personal experience, that college courses don't necessarily guage intelligence, but simply one's ability to memorize and regurgitate for an exam. I've also often heard people, especially those who come from ethnic backgrounds that don't conform to typical white bread Academia, claim that college entrance exams measure one's ability to take tests, not one's intelligence. However, I would not characterize the polygraph that way for one reason: The examiner goes into great detail in his or her instructions regarding protocol during the exam. Go against the protocol at your peril.

So, you can be a very intelligent person, but if you can't follow instructions, your common sense may be questionable.

Actually, no, that's not common sense. That is a trained ability. Athletes learn it. Soldiers learn it. Cops learn it. There are countless self-help tapes and CDs about relaxation, and all of them focus on breathing. Good meditation requires good breathing. And it's understandable that you would attempt to control your breathing during a polygraph exam, which is undeniably a stressful situation.

Maybe the examiner totally screwed up, but if he saw your breathing was abnormal during the exam--or at least abnormal in his opinion--the normal thing would be to point that out, without dwelling on it too much, that he wanted you to breathe normally.

If you weren't breathing in one of the patterns that we polygraphers know to be indicative of countermeasures--if all you were doing was breathing slowly and trying to relax--then the polygrapher should have recognized that and not waited until after the exam to point that out. In other words, if he wasn't getting good data, he had his opportunity to point that out DURING the exam.

Actually, we polygraphers just love people like you who say they don't lie. It makes our job easier, as I'm sure one of the anti-polygraph guys will be happy to explain.

Ok, once a person makes the statement, during the interview stage before the test, that he or she doesn't lie, the person is much less likely to then turn around and admit to a lying past. Polygraphers don't want someone to admit, admit, admit before taking the test, unless of course they are admitting to criminal behavior. Otherwise, we want people to shut up, hold those lies inside, and as a result completely ace the test or fail miserably. We want one or the other. We don't like an inconclusive result, which is somewhat more likely if the person has both nothing to hide on the relevant issues and is hiding nothing on the other questions as well. In other words, if none of the questions are meaningful to the subject, the test won't mean as much. This generally won't happen if a person has a criminal past and is lying to the relevant issues, but it can happen if the person truly has no criminal past and is hiding absolutely nothing on any of the other questions as well. As I said, I'm sure one of the anti- guys will be happy to explain this in greater detail, with a conspiratorial, evil slant to it, but the fact is that the examiner wants you to either ace the test or fail miserably, nothing in between, and he or she will try to help you either save or hang yourself, according to what you truly deserve.

See, anti-polygraphites: Some polygraph examiners aren't afraid to speak frankly.

You know the answer to your own question, and you attempt to bait me. Well, I don't care, Polyfool. I will respond to the question because I don't feel that my response will in any way negatively affect potential polygraph subjects. I know all of the "ins and outs" of the polygraph, and I have been tested repeatedly. A properly conducted polygraph works almost every time on me or any other basically honest person.

A polygraph depends on questions being significant to the subject. Most people have not engaged in serious criminal activity, or at least I am optimistic enough to believe that to be the case. But everyone--and I mean everyone--has lied and does lie on a consistent basis, whether that be daily, weekly, or even just monthly. Obviously some people are more honest than others. My brother, for example, is very religious, and he almost won't lie about anything, yet he feels the need to go to weekly confessional. So obviously, at least in his own mind, he feels the need to confess his "sins," and he feels that he "sins" on a regular basis. My cousin, on the other hand, lies about everything, and seems to feel no remorse for doing so. If I were testing these two individuals, I would use "universal" lie questions that would apply to both of them. Even though my cousin seems to feel no remorse for his lies, it doesn't really matter because the polygraph does not depend on a guilty conscience as many people believe. It depends on questions being significant to the subject. It operates on recognition, whether it's a "stim test" or a CQT test.

When a subject admits, admits, admits in the interview, the examiner has not done his or her job correctly. A good examiner will make honesty seem so necessary to get the job, and convince the subject that anyone who doesn't measure up to those standards isn't what the department or agency is looking for, that the subject will feel that there is no alternative other than claiming to be an honest person and the kind of person fit for the job. Then the examiner will ask the subject if he or she is honest, or if he or she is a liar. Any normal person will say that he or she is honest. The examiner will praise the subject for his or her honesty. After all of this, almost no subject is then going to turn around and admit to being a big liar. 

So you see, in a properly conducted polygraph exam, it is highly unusual for a subject to admit, admit, admit, thereby making himself or herself out to be a big liar even before the test begins. Admission to many lies during the interview stage does not make a person appear to be an honest individual, but rather a scared individual--someone who has a lying past but who is now scared when faced with the polygraph. If a person does admit, admit, admit, it is the polygrapher's job to make the person feel bad about his or her admittedly lying past. When done properly, the polygraph works almost all the time, whether or not a person admits to anything. But there is no polygrapher who wants to have a subject to whom none of the questions have any significance, and there is no polygrapher who wants to sit there and be a priest to someone's every transgression, so excessive admissions are discouraged.