anom wrote on Oct 27
th, 2007 at 1:28am:
1. For the countermeasure tongue bite....Is there a certain way to do it other then do it for 8-20 seconds? After a control question do you slowly bite down on your tongue increasing in pressure to cause moderate pain hold it there for a few seconds and then slowly release the pressure before the next question is asked?
The tongue-biting technique mentioned in
The Lie Behind the Lie Detector was described in a research study. There may be viable alternate approaches (a possible example being to press the tongue against the sharp end of a toothpick broken off between the teeth), but we make no recommendation regarding such.
Quote:2. Naturally, blood pressure and nervousness should increase on the control questions because you know you are about to do a countermeasure like the tongue bite and even though the polygrapher may not notice, the fact that you are being watched should cause an increase in blood pressure and nervousness. Will that cause too much of an increase? However, by doing a countermeasure on the stim test for the number picked this might actually convince the polygrapher that you really are a "screamer".
It may well be possible to react too strongly to a control question. I understand there is a maxim among polygraphers that "if a reaction looks too good to be true, it probably is." That's a vague and amorphous criterion, however. The fact remains that no polygrapher has ever demonstrated any ability to reliably detect the kinds of countermeasures described in
TLBTLD. Anxiety associated with anticipation of performing countermeasures seems unlikely to produce "too much" of an increase.
Quote:3. Last time, after making small admissions on the pre test the polygrapher would then begin the question with "Besides what you have told me........." and then would select a few of those from the pre test and would ask that on the actual test. Are those control questions?
Not necessarily. Don't assume that because a question is prefaced with "Besides what you have told me..." that it is a control question. A relevant question could also be so prefaced, for example, "Besides what you told me, did you ever use an illegal drug?" To recognize control questions, one needs to understand the rationale for them (simplistic as it may be).