Normally, if one has made no disqualifying admission(s) and has not received a post-test interrogation, it would suggest that one has either passed, or, at worst, one's polygraph charts have been interpreted as being inconclusive. It seems that if the charts are scored as deceptive, federal polygraphers may have a strong incentive to conduct a post-test interrogation seeking admissions to support their interpretation of the charts. In 1999, polygraph expert Dr. Drew C. Richardson of the FBI Laboratory Division wrote to the lab director, Dr. Donald Kerr:
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So, it would seem to be a good sign if you did not receive a post-test interrogation. However, I'm not sure how the results of an earlier polygraph examination might alter this general rule. What did your polygrapher conclude regarding your first polygraph interrogation?

Mr. Maschke, in his recent answer, raises a very interesting notion: polygraph examiners being positively rated (presumably awarded as well) for the number of admissions and confessions following deceptive polygraph results. I think this activity should be examined in light of the following:

1. Even they (organized polygraphy) will wishfully suggest that their technique is 90 per cent accurate (10 per cent inaccurate). It would appear that if the practice Mr. Maschke referred to does take place, that this community is knowingly placing an incentive to obtain confessions from people that they know are innocent (the 10 per cent inaccurate conclusions). And what if the "test," as serious academics (Iacono, etc.) have suggested, may have a false positive rate approaching 50 per cent: does this performance evaluation lead to wholesale slaughter? By the way, have you seen the American Polygraph Association or any of its members provide a list of the 10 per cent of their respective exams that represent error, or is it only the other guy who commits this error (perpetual shell game)? This error clearly would amount to hundreds, if not thousands of exams conducted annually across the nation.

2. Another serious problem is that polygraphers are taught to do things during the pre-test interview (before the "in-test" polygraph exam/data collection), which allow them to spin their themes, etc., during a post-test interrogation of a subsequently found-to-be-deceptive examinee. The aforementioned incentive plus this practice of "setting up an interrogation" before the exam is even given clearly confounds the procedure, producing a condition which amounts to not only bias, but unethical (known and accepted in advance) bias into the overall conduct of the exam.

3. Polygraphers are fond of referring to themselves as forensic psychophysiologists. Besides not meeting the requirements of being a generalist (psychophysiologist) before attempting to become a specialist (forensic psychophysiologist), I believe that they fail miserably in any association with the word forensic. Can you imagine a situation in which a chemist/toxicologist was rewarded for detecting and identifying drugs in routine urine screens? Not only would this individual and his evaluators find themselves being administratively and civilly (perhaps criminally) liable for this biased incentive/outcome, but there would exist great righteous indignation on the part of courts, clients requesting urine testing programs, and the forensic science community as a whole. Such incredible bias would never be tolerated. Why has it been (perhaps currently is) tolerated with regard to polygraphy? Forensic scientists are not advocates of anything but the truth. They are not partisans representing either the prosecution or the defense or the plaintiff or the defendant or the government or the employee being administratively investigated. If polygraphers want to be considered as serious diagnosticians and not simply former criminal investigators, they need to understand their role and proper perspective. And so does the forensic science community. Wake up, Forensic Science!

I too was subjected to a post-polygraph interrogation. It was after my 3rd inconclusive polygraph test for a security clearance. I was told that it was an interview for a potential job, all standard procedure they said. When I got there, it was me and the govt guy. I asked them what the job was, and was not told anything specific, then he started grilling me. The interviewer was very antagonistic. Finally I told him that this interview was over, and that I didn't appreciate the way they operated. I had to take 2 more polygraph tests after that, then it was over, for a while. I got smart though and got a new job.