# Should the WS take a Polygraph?



## COguy (Dec 1, 2011)

Was posting this in a reply but thought it would be a good general thread for anyone considering this. It's not a knock on poly's or anything like that, just some basic info so you can make a better decision on if it's worth the cost.

*****WARNING - READ THIS FIRST BEFORE READING BELOW*******
READING THIS POST WILL MAKE YOU INELIGIBLE TO TAKE AN ACCURATE POLYGRAPH TEST FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE. DO NOT READ IT IF YOU WANT TO TAKE A POLYGRAPH TEST, OR NEED TO FOR WORK, OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT. UNLESS YOU WANT TO BE INTENTIONALLY DECEPTIVE. NO I AM NOT KIDDING
*****WARNING******

Polygraphs depend on two things: The belief that the polygraph is accurate, and the lack of knowledge of how the test works from the subject.

If you know how a polygraph works, the results are not accurate.

With the information age today, anyone with half a brain can Google all they need to know about polygraphs and essentially "beat" the tests. So take this into consideration before deciding. If you're spouse is one of those people who researches the hell out of stuff on the internet, expect that the results will be skewed.

Polygraphs are not like you see on TV or movies. You can not walk up to one and ask one question and get a "truthful/deceptive" reading. The polygraph machines themselves play a very small role in the testing. They read baseline information about your body. Sweat, blood pressure, pulse. Cues about how nervous a person is asked during the questions.

The real "science" is not the machines, polygraph tests work on basic human emotional principles.

First, they set up the polygraph to make you believe that it works. Because the more that the subject believes the polygraph works, the better the results. They've done studies where they tell the subjects before hand polygraphs aren't that accurate, and then ones where they tell the subjects they are 100% accurate, guess which ones had the best results?

So they'll start by "calibrating" the machine. This is essentially some magic track/illusion where they "dial in" the machine. A good example is that the tester will have the subject pick a random card out of the deck. The tester will ask questions like "is it a diamond? is it a face card?" etc etc until he determines the actual card. When the tester determines what he believes the card to be and the subject reveals that it is the same as the card he picked, he gets super nervous that the machine knows all and can't be fooled. Of course it's all a big ruse, as the random card was pre-selected and is not random at all. Often this is enough to get people to admit all sorts of crap before they actually take the test, or get them to admit things during the test instead of trying to be deceptive.

Once the subject thinks the polygraph is a mind reader, they go into the baseline questions. These are questions like "is my sweater blue?" "where were you last night?" These questions are done just to get a general gauge of how nervous the person is. It's basically a baseline reading of where they are at. These results are used to compare how nervous the subject is during later questions that will be used to predict deceptiveness.

After that, the tester asks control questions (or irrelevant questions). These are questions that 99% of the population would answer yes to, or which the tester already knows. "Have you ever had sexual fantasies about another woman?" "Have you ever thought about cheating?" "Did you kiss Miranda on the night of September 1st?" "Did you sleep with Stephanie 3 months ago?" "How many times did you sleep with Alexis?" 

Then after the control questions, they ask the relevant questions. "Other than Miranda, did you sleep with any other sexual partners?" "After you confessed to your wife, did you meet with Jessica?" These are the questions that you really want to know the answer to and want to know if the subject lied.

The entire premise of the polygraph test hinges on some basic emotional principles. It's why the skill of the polygrapher and the belief that it is accurate, along with the ignorance of the subject, is so important.

The basic principle is that, people who are telling the truth, will be more nervous about the irrelevant or control questions, and be less nervous about questions the relevant questions. Subjects who are going to be deceptive on relevant questions, or are hiding information, will be much more nervous about those questions then the control questions.

I'll provide two examples: Tim and Bob. Tim admitted to having sex with Katrina and after he confessed, was 100% honest with his wife. Bob admitted to having sex with Aleah, but never mentioned sex with Tonya.

When Tim gets asked his control questions, he is going to start getting nervous. "Have you ever had sexual fantasies about other women?" "Have you thought about sex with women besides your wife and Katrina". Now Tim is thinking, "OMG!! They're going to find out about all these people I've thought about in my head! They're probing all these details about my relationship with Katrina! What are they going to know??" The needles are raising as his body starts to get nervous... When the tester starts asking more relevant questions "Have you had sex with other women besides Katrina?" "Have you cheated since you confessed" His body relaxes, of course he hasn't! These questions are a relief to him, yes he's thought about other women, but he never slept with them! And of course he hasn't cheated since he confessed! The needles slow down as he calms.

Bob is the opposite. When the tester asks Bob about his cheating with the partner they know about, he isn't that nervous, "Yeah of course I had sex with her, I already told my wife, why is he even asking me this?" The needles are calm, Bob is just answering stuff the partner already knows. Then the tester starts asking Bob the relevant questions, "Have you slept with anyone after confessing?" The needles start to rise again, Bob is worried of what they are going to find out! He can either be truthful now, or lie and have the polygrapher find out! He starts to freak out about the questions, and the needles start to rise.

After the test, the polygrapher looks at the questions and compares them to the baseline. If the subject was getting more nervous compared to baseline at the control questions, the tester was being truthful about what he knew. If the subject was more nervous at the relevant questions, he was being deceptive. Inconclusive results come from when the subject is so nervous, it's hard to compare the responses. Extreme calmness usually indicates deceptiveness or knowledge of the test, because everyone has secrets they don't want to be known.

If it appears he was being deceptive, the tester will go back and let them know, "It's clear you were being deceptive, we can keep on going with the test and drag this out, or you can just come clean and start being honest. You will feel a lot more relief if you walk out of here telling the truth."

Hopefully they talk, if not, they can keep going and try to pin it down, but may just end up concluding that they were being deceptive but not really getting specific answers as to what happened.

So the real question is, how do you "beat" the test? Well, if you know how the test works, it will either provide incorrect or falsely deceptive readings. If you know that the control questions are irrelevant, you will not be nervous by them, and it will indicate deceptiveness (even if you are telling the truth). Or, you can force your body to stress out during the control questions, and calm during the relevant questions. This can be done by biting your tongue, psyching yourself up, putting a tack in your shoe and stepping on it, etc. Therefore, if you know how the test works, the results will not be accurate. Reading this post makes you ineligible to take a polygraph test now, and a quick google of "polygraph test" will produce the same results. So if your spouse takes about 10-15 minutes of time to research it, your test will basically be worthless.

If you want more info, you can read the wikipedia article, which has a ton of info on it: Polygraph - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


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## COguy (Dec 1, 2011)

Also wanted to point out again, a lot of the validity of the test, assuming you end up doing one, is the information that will be supplied willingly before or during the test, because of the assumption that it will come out anyway.


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## brokenbloke (Feb 21, 2012)

Your examples of control questions are ridiculous. On a test determining one's varacity concerning infidelity testers won't ask questions that deal with that topic. Also, the notion that it is easy to control your emotions through a variety of meathods, such as ones you mentions, is simply untrue. Moreover, those attempts to control emotions usually skew the results so ridiculously it becomes extremely obvious the test taker is trying to skew the results, which itself is an admission that the subject it trying to be deceitful. An no, knowing what you now have told us will not make any test we do invalid. 

You are correct that alot of it depends on the polygrapher, however. But a decent polygrapher will know all these "tricks." Having your emotions spike to astronomical levels because you step on a tack will just blatently show that the subject is trying some of the tricks they found off of wikipedia. It's not as easy as those simple techniques you describe. Controlling your emotions etc skillfully enough is like controlling your breathing during your breathing while using a sniper rifle. On the face of it "controlling your breathing" sounds simple, straight-forward, and easy to do, just control your breathing. But go grab a rifle and put yourself in an actual war zone and see if its so simple. That's why it takes a hell of alot of training. Same with the beating the polygraph techniques. It sounds simple to flex your sphincter or count backwards or step on a tack etc but these mostly just influence the results abnormally such that the polygrapher knows your trying to trick it. In those cases where one can successfully control their emotions to beat it, again, it's very difficult and takes a ton of training.


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## brokenbloke (Feb 21, 2012)

From a study:

"Do the tests work? Depends how you define work. Probably the most comprehensive look at polygraph accuracy is a 2003 report from the National Academy of Sciences. After examining 57 polygraph studies the NAS concluded: "In populations of examinees such as those represented in the polygraph research literature, untrained in countermeasures, specific-incident polygraph tests can discriminate lying from truth telling at rates well above chance, though well below perfection." Their analysis of the 30 most recent polygraph data sets showed an overall accuracy of 85 percent, and an analysis of seven field studies involving specific incidents showed a median accuracy of 89 percent."

The counter-measures they mention are not the tack-in-foot kind, as those just skew the results in such an unexpected, weird way that the polygrapher will know the subject it trying to cheat. It takes alot more training to actually have the results endorse your veracity while you are lieing.


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## COguy (Dec 1, 2011)

I'm not giving a poly, I'm showing the basics of how they work.

That it's not a mind-reader, it works on basic principles that rely on psychological principles, not science, and are subjective and prone to error depending on the tester. It doesn't mean they don't work, just that in today's society, with all the information available instantly, they shouldn't be relied on as conclusive proof.

Yes, knowing what I said does make the test invalid, as you are likely to not be nervous about control questions, thus any test you take would appear to be deceitful, unless you willfully try to be deceptive about it. Which is why almost any polygraph test you take has a questionnaire beforehand which asks if you have ever taken a poly before and seeks to gain information about what you know.

Knowing that the success rate is, at best, 80-85% (with ranges from 60-95%), is enough to render the test invalid. As success rates are proportional to the subjects belief that the tests are extremely accurate. That being said, if the test is 85% accurate, 1-2 people per 10 is going to be falsely accused of cheating when they aren't.


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## lordmayhem (Feb 7, 2011)

I've taken two polygraph tests. One in the military with regards to security clearances. The US government requires polygraph testing for some of the higher security clearances.

The second was when I was in the process of becoming a police officer. The polygraph is a requirement for anyone going into law enforcement. Obviously, I never failed. 

The original ones was with the paper and the moving needle. The latest ones simply have you hooked up to a computer, but even then you still have the band around your chest, some leads, and the leads on your fingertips.


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## brokenbloke (Feb 21, 2012)

lordmayhem said:


> I've taken two polygraph tests. One in the military with regards to security clearances. The US government requires polygraph testing for some of the higher security clearances.
> 
> The second was when I was in the process of becoming a police officer. The polygraph is a requirement for anyone going into law enforcement. Obviously, I never failed.
> 
> The original ones was with the paper and the moving needle. The latest ones simply have you hooked up to a computer, but even then you still have the band around your chest, some leads, and the leads on your fingertips.


what kind of questions did they ask you, for baseline, control etc? What was your impression?


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## Locard (May 26, 2011)

UMMMM.....would you care to compare the accuracy of polygraphs to eye witness testimony? You woulnd't if you knew what your were talking about.....


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## Eli-Zor (Nov 14, 2010)

A Polygraph is one of a set of tools available in fighting an affair, used correctly it is very effective.

Far to may folk try make out that a ploy does not work , the timing, the questions, and the professionalism of the tester all add up to this being a successful mechanism to help the BS know the truth to some key questions.

Importantly it often helps scare a wayward into revealing more prior to the test.

No one should discount this an option 
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## COguy (Dec 1, 2011)

Eli-Zor said:


> A Polygraph is one of a set of tools available in fighting an affair, used correctly it is very effective.
> 
> Far to may folk try make out that a ploy does not work , the timing, the questions, and the professionalism of the tester all add up to this being a successful mechanism to help the BS know the truth to some key questions.
> 
> ...


I hope this isn't how the post came off.

I think more of what I am trying to say is that blind faith should not be placed on the poly. Like any other tool, it is merely that. There are no 100% reliable methods for getting information.

What I would caution against is people desperately looking for information, and then blindly putting all of their trust and hope into poly results. If the behavior indicates otherwise, or there is still suspicion to believe someone is lying, it shouldn't be ignored because of a poly test. Likewise, if someone is adamant about their truthfulness, and makes their life an open book, they shouldn't be immediately crucified.

There's a reason poly's aren't submissible evidence for criminal cases.


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