Hello,
I just started my career as a Sci-Fi writer (please don't mock me) and, after some chapters, found it could be useful for one of my characters to take a polygraph test.
It takes place in a sort of post-acapolyptic background, so it hasn't to be perfectly accurate in every detail, but still I'd like to it to be realistic and believable.
Right now my biggest concerns are: how many control and irrelevant questions should I add for every relevant one? Are they just scattered along the interrogation or should be placed at regular intervals? How many times can I ask the same question?
Probably I'm going to have some further questions, as they'll come to my mind.
Unfortunately I'm not a big police TV shows fan, but if you can point me toward a show' specific episode which could be a nice example it'll be fine anyway, even if English is not my main language.
Thanks in advance.
You'll find question orders for various polygraph techniques in the "Federal Psychophysiological Detection of Deception Examiner Handbook," which you can download here:
https://antipolygraph.org/documents/federal-polygraph-handbook-02-10-2006.pdf
For video of a "real" polygraph session (rather than a dramatized/fictionalized portrayal of one), see my "Critique of Louis I. Rovner's Polygraph Examination and Testimony in Ohio v. Sharma:"
https://antipolygraph.org/forum/index.php?topic=3662.msg25493#msg25493
And to get a better understanding of polygraphy in general, see our free book, The Lie Behind the Lie Detector:
https://antipolygraph.org/lie-behind-the-lie-detector.pdf
I already downloaded the PDFs yesterday (and some more of them) but didn't know the video.
Thank you.