Re: Poly test

[underlyingtruth]

If you'll review TLBTLD, Chapter 3 explains Control Questions.  Page 140 provides Tips for Identifying Control Questions.

[As explained in Chapter 3, probable-lie "control" questions are concerned with behavior that the polygrapher secretly assumes most people in society—even those who will be selected for hiring or granted a high level security clearance, etc.—will not be able to deny with 100% truthfulness. Ask yourself the following question when interpreting each of the examiner's questions as strictly as possible: "Will the polygrapher assume that even a very honest person would have a hard time answering this question 100% truth-fully?"][/

sup]
"Have you ever drunk alcohol and drove?" is not a very good control question because it is too specific and you would answer "yes" which is absolutely true.

"Have you ever committed a crime for which you have not been caught?" Here, the scope of the term "crime" is not clearly defined. Technically speaking, jaywalking, public urination, underage drinking, and unauthorized downloading of copyrighted music from the Internet are illegal. This is a "control" question.

You are expected to "lie" to this question by saying "No, I have never committed a crime and not been caught."  You want your reaction to a CQ to be as high as possible.

[retcopper]

Someone:

If you lie during the exam I hope you fail and you probably will,  especially if you listen to underminingtruth. He posted here a few times and thinks that qualifies him to give out advise about polygraphy.

[Onesimus]

Someone:

If you lie during the exam I hope you fail and you probably will

Are you suggesting he won't be given a PLCQT?  Alternatively, are you suggesting that the examiner of a PLCQT expects the applicant to be truthful on the probable-lie question?  It seems to me your advice is backwards if he is going to take a PLCQT.  Unless he lies during the exam on the probable-lie questions (or artificially inflates his response), he will likely not pass.

[underlyingtruth]

Someone:

If you lie during the exam I hope you fail and you probably will,  especially if you listen to underminingtruth. He posted here a few times and thinks that qualifies him to give out advise about polygraphy.

I may be new to posting, but I have been reading this site for a long time.  I have taken over 15 polygraphs with various results over the past 10 years.  Once I started using CMs, I have passed every one of them.

Please tell me, Rectumtopper, who do YOU think is qualified to give advice about taking a polygraph?  Someone who has successfully fooled the machine repeatedly, or someone who likes to lie about its workings, their expertise, and lacks an attention to detail?

I've never advocated lying, that's a polygraphers job, because you know good and well that if someone is 100% truthful, you'll manipulate them into lying about the control questions.  

[George W. Maschke]

I will be testing for a PD in Texas in a couple of weeks. I have read TLBTLD and I am confused about one part. The CM's are supposed to be used during the control questions. Are the control questions based around questions that they expect you to lie about?

Yes. That's the idea behind a probable-lie control question.

I know they are broad questions that cover your whole life, but if a question like "have you ever drunk alcohol and drove"? Not saying I make a habit of drinking and driving, but I have had a beer or two after a round of golf and drove home. Never driven drunk (according to the legal limit) do they expect you to say no?

Correct. You're expected to answer no. If you answer "yes," the polygrapher will make a show of being deeply concerned, interrogate you about it, and then rephrase the question to "Other than what you told me, did you ever drive while under the influence of alcohol?" At this point, your denial is still expected to be less than completely truthful.

Or have you ever lied to you mother? Do they expect you to say no?

Most people could make some admissions to that question. As in the previous example, the polygrapher would move to exclude any admissions and preface this question with, "Other than what you told me..."

And then they compare the relavent question reading to the control question?

Correct.

I'd like to correct a point made my underlyingtruth, who wrote, among other things, "You want your reaction to a CQ to be as high as possible." This is incorrect. You want your reactions to the "control" questions to be stronger than your reactions to relevant questions, not as strong or high "as possible." Unusually strong reactions to "control" questions may be taken as an indication of countermeasure use. There is a maxim amongst polygraphers that if a reaction looks to good to be true, it probably is.

[retcopper]

underminingtruth:

Gee.  I was going to  call you Tom Terrifc but my post went over your  head but George got it.  

By the way what do you do for a living? Take polygrah exams? You say you have taken so many I don't see how u have time for anyyhing else.

[underlyingtruth]

I'd like to correct a point made my underlyingtruth, who wrote, among other things, "You want your reaction to a CQ to be as high as possible." This is incorrect. You want your reactions to the "control" questions to be stronger than your reactions to relevant questions, not as strong or high "as possible." Unusually strong reactions to "control" questions may be taken as an indication of countermeasure use. There is a maxim amongst polygraphers that if a reaction looks to good to be true, it probably is.

I said "high as possible" in my haste, but you bring up an intresting point.  I've always given the CQs everything I could without showing that I was doing something physical.  I've never been told that my reaction was abnormal.  

[underlyingtruth]

underlyingtruth:

By the way what do you do for a living? Take polygrah exams? You say you have taken so many I don't see how u have time for anyyhing else.

Rectumtopper:

You have an awful lot of posts, but I never read one where you actually contribute a thoughtful rebutle.  You know only how to attack and insult people.  

[someone]

Thanks for everyones feedback, I didn't say I was going to lie nor did I say I was going to use CM's. My concern is the lack of truthfullness of the machine and what it can do. I don't have any issues that I need to worry about, I have had a successful 20 years in the Military and my shit is wired tight and I made it to the top of the elisted ranks. But, if this machine is determining my future, I want all the information I can get. Unlike civilians, we plan before taking on the unknowns and jumping into the shit.   George thanks for your service, and like most government jobs, they can't get or keep the best canidates. I have seen a lot of talent walk out the door in the last twenty years.

[cesium_133]

I want to extend someone's (the poster ) question to a slightly more advanced level:

I have taken follygraphs, er, polygraphs before.  I endeavour to tell the truth- not out of some loyalty to the interrogator, but just because I feel it makes me better than he and HIS lies are.  This includes answering the CQ's honestly, both pre-test and in-test.

Scenario: he reviews the CQ's with you pre-test: lied to your mother, driven drunk, taken something from the office, etc.  You 'fess up to everything with a general response:

"Yes, sure, I have done that.  Everyone has, I guess."  You keep it open-ended, as open as the interrogator does, and continue to do so as he tries to confine your responses.

"How many times did you lie to your mother?" "A fair number of times." "More than 10 (20, 50, 75) times?" "If you count every white lie, probably >100 times. I dunno, but a bunch." And so on.

Question: if you "just say yes" to all the CQ's, admit to all the trite little peccadilloes, would that not in the end foul up the polygrapher?  Even if he's really looking at the CQ's juxtaposed to the relevants for levels of BFB, isn't that going to give him pause based on (1) your obviously abnormal response pattern and (2) your unfailing candidness?  Which leads to...

Question 2: What if you employed CM's- say, mental math- while answering these CQ's honestly?  I have never seen this scenario discussed on here, and I would like to very much.

The conclusion I reach is that if you did as in #2, you'd create a situation where you would be admitting to that which the polygrapher expects and wants you to lie about... which everyone has supposedly done... and setting the machine off (as in a lie) in your truthful admissions thereto.  Would the polygrapher be confounded, think that he has someone with a confidence problem in the chair who otherwise is Christ-pure, what?

I picture myself as the interrogator, thinking:

"Dang, this guy is admitting to every venial sin I throw at him, even to leaving skid marks in his drawers    I can't pin him down.  And yet this machine is saying he's lying, that he never did any of these things [aside: that's the effects of the CM's].  His R traces are relatively normal... wow.  I guess he passes; his CQ traces -are- of greater amplitude... but I have walking anti-matter here."

I know you want to get a greater response to the CQ's; is this, the idea I have posited, just another, novel way to do so?

George and the other vets, your comments are welcome and requested...

[Marty]

Question: if you "just say yes" to all the CQ's, admit to all the trite little peccadilloes, would that not in the end foul up the polygrapher?

Interesting question and one I once wonderer about. It has been addressed by Matte in his book "Forensic Psychophysiology using the Polygraph." He states that on rare occasions he was unable to coax a lie on a control question and that he simply scored the poly as if the examinee answered "NO" instead of "YES" to the control, believing that it still produced as usable a reaction. He does not explain why he believes that.

A polygrapher on polyplace suggested that an informed examinee let the examiner "guide" the examinee to a "NO" on the controls.

[underlyingtruth]

That IS quite interesting.  I never would have thought to combine those two ideas.
I once tried answering yes to all the CQ's... we went round and round for nearly two hours until (in frustration) the polygrapher told me that if I couldn't think of anymore specific examples (so that he could say "other than what you told me") then I had to answer "No."  
During the test, I changed my answer to "yes" again.    He was VERY upset with me.    I explained that I thought of another example.   He said I was being uncooperative and if I changed my answer again, we'd just have to continue another day - at my expense   - after I had time to think about all my examples.  

[cesium_133]

My second test, I p-o'ed the interrogator.  I knew too much, told him too much about his work, and that threw everything out of whack.  He thought I was being a smart ass.  And the guy I had was no hack polygrapher in their community, say no more...

I passed, though... but I would never go against what the polygrapher told me to do.  I think they would just fail you... the next time, I clammed up and did much better.  I didn't bait him or anything, did as George suggests in here and in TLBTLD, and all was ok...

[underlyingtruth]

We've had a few discussions about being overly honest on the CQ's, but I couldn't find any discussion about blatantly lying on CQ's.  I wonder how the results would be affected if someone went as far as to make up stories (about lying to your mother or whatever the CQ might be).  Would that be an effective CM?

[cesium_133]

I wonder how the results would be affected if someone went as far as to make up stories (about lying to your mother or whatever the CQ might be).

You suggest creating the provocation of a CQ based upon an untruth that you "admit" to.  Pretty deep  

I think it could work.  Your false tale would probably have to be of a minor peccadillo, though, and somehow you would have to tailor it so that it would hard to absorb by a broad-sweep control question.  If you could do that...

You would have likely created a new CM technique.  Lying within lying; a fib answered by a fib, both of which the interrogator perceives as truth.  Lies stacked upon and within each other, like an iterated integral.

I like it.  If anyone can pull it off, you would in effect have had the polygrapher feed you your own CM.  That would be funny...