10 Things You Need to Know
- Good, concerned, truthful people are expected to be nervous.
- A person’s pulse can be over 100 beats per minute, but if that person listens carefully and answers accurately, the polygraph result will be truthful.
- A polygraph is not a nervous detector – it is a lie detector. The lines on the graph are never supposed to be flat and smooth. In fact, the polygraph lines must move up and down in order for statements to be interpreted as truthful. The person who is most nervous about every answer being perfect is often the person who looks most truthful on his polygraph. An examiner can see a person’s state of mind. Liars do not worry about everything being perfect.
- Many people do not seem to have nerves, or conscience, or guilt when they lie. That makes no difference to detecting a lie with a polygraph.
- You can pass a polygraph test if you listen carefully to every word of the questions, each time the list of questions is asked, and if you try to answer every question in a completely accurate way. In football, the fundamentals are blocking and tackling. If you ignore them and concentrate on touchdowns, there will never be a touchdown. In polygraph the fundamentals are proving that you are carefully answering word for word, and proving that “no” means absolutely never, ever, not even a little. Ignore the fundamentals on even one question and there will be doubt that you really mean what you say. If there is any doubt, we will not endorse a person’s truthfulness.
- Too many people listen to half of a question, and then answer what they think the question should have been, not what was actually asked. If anywhere in a person’s polygraph there is doubt the person is answering every question word for word, we cannot put our reputation behind the person’s truthfulness.
- Too many people are loose with the truth. They think it doesn’t count if they did it only a little while, or a long time ago, or if they had a good reason for doing it. They think they can still be truthful when they say they never did it. When taking a polygraph, it is necessary for everyone to be very meticulous. “No” is not the truth unless it is 100% a fact. Because so many people twist the truth, an examiner has to be extremely careful that every answer is an exact fact. If you were asked a really extreme question like, “Were you ever caught doing something wrong?”, you should remember an unusually broad question like that would even include having to stay after school because you were caught talking in class. Polygraph examiners have to ask extra questions to find out if the person taking the test understands only an exact fact is the truth.
- Polygraph is better at detecting there is lie among the questions on the test than determining which individual question is a lie. “You failed the test” is more accurate than which question caused you to fail.
- Each question on your polygraph will be a test. The purpose of every question, the real reason you are taking the test, is to prove you mean exactly what you say.
- Your examination will take between 1 and 2 hours. This amount of time includes a pre-test preparation to ensure you are absolutely certain of your answers to every question that will be asked on the exam, before the examination starts.