Hey! When attempting CMs, such as the breathing techniques would it better to utilize a variety of different techniques, or consistently apply the same CM? For example, using blocking after every control question.

Thank you for the response. I failed a poly about month back telling the whole truth and since then I pretty much figured it was fake. I want to make sure I don't get another false fail, do you have any tips on how I can practice the CMs, which are best to apply etc? I have another polygraph coming up with the USSS, and I would prefer not to fail if I can help it. I read the book, and think it will help significantly. I also read when doing the breathing techniques it is better to pause slightly after each inhalation to get the "rounded" look on the charts. Is this accurate?

SimonBrown wrote on Dec 4^th, 2023 at 10:44pm:


There's not much more I could tell you that's not already included in The Lie Behind the Lie Detector. You should be aware that the specific polygraph technique used by the U.S. Secret Service is the "Law Enforcement Pre-Employment Test." You may wish to familiarize yourself with the administration guide for this technique:

https://antipolygraph.org/documents/ncca-lepet.pdf

I am not aware that any particular countermeasure technique mentioned in The Lie Behind the Lie Detector is more effective than the others, but my personal choice would be mental and breathing countermeasures. As the late Dr. Drew Richardson, who studied polygraphy while assigned to the FBI's Laboratory Division, noted, the respiratory tracings are the only ones that the subject can directly control, so it seems worthwhile to do so, both to exhibit scorable reactions on the "control" questions and to avoid producing such reactions on the relevant questions.

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This is something that the late Doug Williams recommended in his manual, "How to Sting the Polygraph." However, I don't think it's useful advice. There is no need to make any special effort to produce "rounded" tracings on the pneumo channels.

SimonBrown wrote on Dec 7^th, 2023 at 8:26am:


I find it hard to believe that anyone can say that they never did something illegal.  There isn't much to explain here.  I have done many illegal things.  During each control question, I just asked myself about all the times I cheated my taxes, had sex in a public place (random girls from years back that no investigator would ever find), drove drunk, lied on a job application, or other naughty deeds that I did.   

If you are truly a saint who never broke the law, think about something that scares the crap out of you during each control question.  Then relax on the relevant questions which should be easy once you understand that those polygraphers cannot read your mind and are just digging for some sort of confession from you.

At the end, you will be interrogated.  The polygrapher will accuse you of lying and hiding information in hopes to extract one final confession from you.  Don't budge.  Deny everything.  Tell him nothing.  Do this and you will enter the kingdom of polygraph-passing-heaven.

SimonBrown wrote on Dec 7^th, 2023 at 8:26am:


I think that mental arithmetic, whether solving a math problem in one's head or picking an arbitrarily large number and counting backward by 7s as fast as one can, are good choices. They should be done as soon as one knows for sure that the question being asked is a "control" question.

That you have a hard time performing both breathing countermeasures and mental countermeasures at the same time is not necessarily a bad thing. The point of mental countermeasures is to create a mental workload that produces physiological responses.

Research on polygraph countermeasures is limited, so I cannot offer definitive responses to your questions. However, if I were choosing breathing responses, I wouldn't cycle through all of the scoreable breathing reactions. Rather, I would choose one or two of them, and I would avoid the first one mentioned in The Lie Behind the Lie Detector (suppression), as the federal polygraph school has taught (without proof) that this reaction is most commonly seen in deceptive subjects.