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George, you understand the theory of CQT better than many polygraphers. Therefore, I know you can see that an examinee's belief that certain questions are important and other questions aren't can easily cause a focus and consequent reaction where, were the examinee less "knowledgable," that focus and consequent reaction would be much less pronounced or wouldn't exist at all.

I believe that the "knowledge" you impart to potential examinees might leave them with no other recourse than to attempt countermeasures, and I know from sad experience what happens to some of those people when they get caught.

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Thank you for your own limited concessions, George.  I took the liberty of quoting you piecemeal not because I object to what you said, but simply in the interest of space and because what I have left quoted is obviously what I want to address.

When I say that examinees are led by your imparted "knowledge" to the belief that only certain relevant questions matter, I'm talking about which questions matter most to the examiner. If an examinee believes that the examiner only really cares about certain questions, then that examinee, being an intelligent, rational person, is going to find it nearly impossible to avoid reacting to those questions. Which leaves such an examinee with only two options:

Fail the exam or at best come up inconclusive because his/her reactions to those questions he/she knows matter to the examiner will cause them to be scored higher than the surrounding questions.

OR

Attempt countermeasures to augment the surrounding questions that the examinee now believes are of no importance to the examiner.

The ironic thing is, now that the examinee believes only those relevant questions really matter, his/her reactions to those questions are going to be much stronger than they would have been, leaving the examinee with the unenviable task of trying to augment the control questions to such a degree that they stand out as abnormal responses to a trained examiner, especially when taking into account what IS normal, i.e. normal habituation and normal variability of response to the same question presented at different times and in different orders throughout the exam.

No, I don't know of a good study that proves that all or even a majority of examiners can reliably detect countermeasures. But I do know from experience that I have been able to do so--and it wasn't guesswork--and it was not a fun experience for either myself or the examinee. If you feel that it was "prudent" in their case to employ countermeasures when all it did was lead to their failure, well, I don't know what to say.

Now, you say that the polygraph community has said nothing about how examiners should handle knowledgable examinees. Well, I'm part of the polygraph community, so I'll tell you what we have to do. We have to do our best to help those examinees pass the exam in spite of their knowledge. We have to try to erase the unfounded confidence that knowledge gives them, or at least cause them to question it. That's not an easy task, George. And it's not an easy task to have to fail an examinee when you know, as an experienced examiner, that had they not received well-meaning but damaging "knowledge" prior to the exam, they probably would have passed.

Per LBCB
"Ecchasta, 
Are you really that dense, or is it all an act? "

It's true!  I'm so dense that I am unable to read people's minds and determine whether or not they are lying.  But I'm not so dense as to believe that a person's (or machine's) ability to detect lies can not be verified through scientifically repeatable testing.

I stumbled across this website after watching a Dr. Phil show where Dr. Phil used polygraph results to implicitly conclude that a father was molesting his daughter.  After seeing the show I was curious about the claims of the polygrapher that studies show that polygraph results were 90% accurate.  I had no idea.  (dense you know)

My entire goal here is to find such a study.  In fact, all the studies that I have come across have concluded that polygraphy is nothing more than an interrogation. The instrumentation is superfluous.

I have never been polygraphed, nor am I aware of anyone who has.  I have no bone to pick.  You, LBCB, (or anyone else for that matter) has had ample opportunity to present credible scientific evidence validating polygraphic lie detection.  You haven't.  My search ends.  Adieu.

What are your thoughts about using R/I on the informed exmainee?  Do you think PLCQT is still more reliable in that situation? Or are you not allowed to use anything but PLCQT where you work?, something else?

Hello guys!

I've been meaning to come back here but my DSL was down.   

Anyway...

Boy has this thread grown!

I'm happy to report that I took and passed my polygraph!  I could not have asked for a better examiner.   He is top notch in the polygraph community.  I'm sure some of you polygraphers on this site know him. (He knows you!)  I was completely forthcoming with him about coming to this site, and others. 

George, we discussed you and your book.  He said it was an "interesting read."  I haven’t read it but I may check it out later…

My examiner already knew when he asked me if I had researched the internet re: the polygraph, because later in the exam he showed me printouts of MY posts!!  But, it was ALL GOOD because I hadn't posted anything negative or incriminating.   

He admitted being suspicious about knowing I had been here but after we talked he "vindicated" me.  Because I was so forthcoming and had just passed an extremely extensive background investigation, he told me that he didn’t believe I was trying to hide anything or that my intention was to be deception or beat the box.  He even reworded questions for me that I told him I wasn’t comfortable answering with certainty.  He also admitted that the polygraph exam is not 100% but because he’s being doing it longer than I’ve been alive (almost 30 years) he knows how to weed out bad candidates for the test.  He gave the box a 95-98% accuracy rating. 

Because I'm such a knowledge junkie, the examiner taking the time to explain to me the polygraph process in GREAT AND LENGTHY DETAIL, caused me to fear the process less and less.  He explained to me how the test works, each part of the machine itself, and how he’s spent almost 30 years reading examinees’ body language, handwriting, voice tension, facial expressions, etc. (also that’s been trained significantly in all of the above).   

He SHOWED me my results after the test and how I reacted to each question.  The responses measured and how there are recorded is quite amazing.  I remembered one question that reeved me up (because I realized I forgot to tell him something during our conversation before the test...but it was okay because it was information I had already disclosed in my application, during the oral board, and with my background investigator) and I could see, ON THE CHART, how I spiked!!!!!!!

Ironically, when asked about countermeasures, I didn't spike at all, but I did spike on other questions.  He explained to me that what "saved" me was that all of my charts were different.  The only thing that was consistent was me showing no response to the countermeasures line of questioning. 

After experiencing this process, my conclusion is that someone has to be psychotic to successfully "beat the box" with a veteran examiner!!

LieBabyCryBaby is right about the process being "an art" and "2 fold" (the science of the machine itself and the examiner's role).  He is also right about the possibility that ignorance, in this case, is a better guarantee to passing than knowing about the test.   
Another officer told someone told him not to look up the polygraph on the internet for the same reason.  He passed his as well.  If ever in a position to do so, I will certainly caution anyone interested in becoming a police officer for an agency that does polygraph, to NOT research the exam until after he/she takes it!!
For those of you thinking you WANT to employ countermeasures in order to get hired as a police officer because you DO have something to hide, please choose another profession!  I don’t want you getting me killed! And, for those of you who have bought into the notion that you HAVE to employ countermeasures because telling the truth will cause you to fail, DON’T DO IT!   

My overall opinion about the polygraph is that although the science is not 100% accurate, the interrogation aspect of it IS 100% effective. If you are being completely honest, regardless if it’s pre-employment, criminal interrogation, or whatever, you’re screwed if you’re a liar and you’re more than likely okay if you’re trustworthy.   

By the way, I got my start date!!!  I’m an official rookie that is now academy bound!!!!  

In closing, I'd like to THANK LieBabyCryBaby for his candid replies and everyone else who stayed on topic.

congrats on passing so that you may now pursue your career ambitions

LieBabyCryBaby wrote on Jan 12^th, 2007 at 3:29pm:


Thank you for the well wishes.  I'm glad I trusted my instincts to just be honest and didn't play into the fear I caused myself as a result of surfing the net!  Whether or not this site is more damaging that helpful is not a determination I'm comfortable making.  So far, I've experienced both the positive & negative ripple effects this site can potentially have upon a reader...

Art in polygraph, as I am talking about, has to do with conducting the entire process with precision, finesse, and expertise. I'm not talking about being creative here. Creative art is something entirely different. The polygraph process IS scientific, in that there are certain scientific principles involved, and the data being monitored, measured and compared is certainly scientific data. However, there is also an "art" involved, and that is the art of interview/interrogation, as well as the art--or perhaps a better word would be skill--with which the polygrapher conducts the entire process, from greeting the examinee to writing good reports.

Don't assume that I don't know the weaknesses and limitations of the polygraph PROCESS. Because there are elements of skill, insight and, yes, intuition (oooh, there's a word that will definitely get a backlash from the anti- people) involved, the science can be affected by an examiner lacking in these elements. Also, I am well aware that innocent people may be hurt--as some of you claim to be--by a poorly conducted polygraph. But where YOU say it is "junk science," I would say it is simply a poorly conducted scientific process.

The problems with the polygraph, which I readily admit, are the following:

Polygraphers and examinees are of widely varying personalities, among other difficult-to-control factors such as education level, experience, expectations, etc.

Polygraphers vary in skill, i.e., "artistic ability."

The questions used on an exam, and the emphasis placed on each question by both the polygrapher and the examinee, vary. And I believe that in many cases an examinee can be oversensitized to particular questions, especially when he/she reads information found on this website and from other sources that tell the examinee that only certain issues (relevant issues) matter to the examiner.

And finally, the human mind and body are in a constant state of flux, which can create many other uncontrollable variables.

I admit all of these as weaknesses of the polygraph. Yet I can still be an advocate of the polygraph IF it is conducted by an "artful" and "scientific" examiner. Certified schools and quality control prorams are in place to try to minimize these weaknesses in the polygraph process, and I think these things work for the most part. If the conditions are right--which I believe they usually are because I have seen this through experience--the polygraph works almost all of the time.

You see, I understand all of these things because of my experience, not simply because I read some questionable lab study or obtain some secondhand knowledge from inexperienced sources. The polygraph works. Yes, it does. But without the "art" the science is questionable. But then you might say this about many other more scientific processes. If the person conducting the process isn't sufficiently skilled, and the conditions of the tools and the subject are not optimal, many scientific processes will fail or at least be hindered.