Had my polygraph today. All I can say is that I wasn't impressed with the rigor. My colleagues had warned me not to ask questions or the test would take longer or have to be re-done. So I waited until he said we were done and had told me I passed before laying into the technical questions. A lot of my questions got answered with phrases like, "Well that was a different kind of chart," or, "We have a different test for that sort of thing." He was very forthcoming with how the actual sensors worked and produced the lines on the chart, but beyond that it all got a little wonky. At at least two points I caught the operator flat-out lying to me. I should hook him up to the damn machine.

As far as I could tell, the polygraph compared three sets of answers: answers that were obviously the truth "Are you currently in New Mexico?", answers where I was instructed to lie, and answers to the questions they actually wanted to know. If the charts for the answers to the questions of interest more closely resemble the known true answers, then it is assumed that I am telling the truth, etc.

The only problem was that, for the intentionally dishonest answers, I was instructed not to just lie—but to really concentrate on the fact that I was lying. The whole process seemed very unrealistic to me; I could sense myself reacting to the lie because I was asked to fixate on it. At one point I answered too quickly (and I'm guessing it didn't register), so he instructed me to be more focused on the lie so that the result would be better. Buh? Of course when I really focused on the fact that I was lying, it showed up great on the chart. But I had my reservations as to whether or not someone who was able to remain calm under pressure and didn't get worked up about the fact that they were lying would return a positive result. My questions along these lines were all deflected.

In the end, I think it was a waste of my time and your money. If polygraph examinations are making this country safer, it's only from [terrorists|spies|sex offenders|unlucky innocent people} who are also really bad liars.