Polygraph tests are common practices during an investigation and judicial process. In lay terms, it can be referred to as a ‘lie detector test.
They’re various reasons why you may find yourself undergoing a polygraph examination, and we’re here to help guide you through passing it convincingly.
Some acclaimed professionals are in charge of organizing polygraph examinations and analyzing the results obtained. These sets of people are referred to as Polygraph Examiners, and they’re scattered across different cities in the U.S.
Oklahoma Judicial Process Servers (OJPS) is a body that houses process servers, private investigators, and polygraph examiners in Oklahoma. The body helps with Oklahoma Statewide Private Investigation and polygraph examination OKC division while also providing the best polygraph examiners Oklahoma.
Finding a polygraph examiner near you isn’t stressful. A simple Google search of ‘Polygraph examiner OKC or polygraph examiner Oklahoma city’ will bring you useful information. Dr. Tinsley Keefe’s Keefe Private Investigation (KPI) is a renowned center for polygraph Examination Oklahoma City and other investigative needs.
With all this information, you shouldn’t find it hard to get a polygraph examination done in Oklahoma City. However, what’s more, important than getting it done is passing the examination. The subsequent paragraphs contain all you need to know about the polygraph examination and how to pass it.
Passing A Polygraph Examination
To pass a polygraph examination, you must understand the principle upon which the machine works and the parameters they consider to get the data that yields results upon interpretation.
The machine generates its data by detecting and measuring changes in certain vital signs of the body, which includes:
- Heartbeat — The arm cuff of the polygraph machine is the one in charge of monitoring your heart rate. It picks and records the sudden rise and drops off your heartbeat each time you answer a question. An increased heartbeat will likely be recorded as a point of lying, and a normal or reduced one will be a point of truth.
- Blood pressure — Like the heart rate, it’s also believed that the blood pressure tends to go up naturally when you tell a lie. Hence, an increase also indicates lies.
- Perspiration — An electrode is placed at your fingertips to measure your perspiration rate. A high rate of perspiration is also judged to be a sign of not telling the truth.
- Breathing — When the heartbeat increases, the manner of breathing changes also. Paced breathing and sometimes periodic seizure in breathing are signs the polygraph’s tube around the chest checks for. If they occur, the authenticity of your statements will also be a high doubt.
Generally, when someone tells a lie, these vital signs rise significantly. It’s upon this principle that the polygraph examination is based, to draw inferences. However, it’s not as direct as just measuring the change in your vital signs to conclude whether or not you’ve lied.
It takes a gradual process of getting the baseline of these vital signs (i.e., when you’re telling the truth) and how they do when you tell a lie. It’s these two data that’ll be contrasted to determine whether you pass the lie test or you fail.
To get these two data, polygraph examiners ask a series of questions that can be categorized under two distinct categories which are:
- The Control Questions
- The Relevant Questions
- Control Questions — These sets of questions are not related to the case. They’re asked to get the baseline of your vital signs while also tricking you into lying to get the signature of your lies.
These questions are basic and far from the case being investigated. It may include ‘Have you ever broken any law before,’ ‘Has telling a lie put you out of any danger,’ ‘Did you ever deliberately go to an appointment late’ etc.
- Relevant Questions — These sets of questions are peculiar to the case. They’re questions asking about your direct involvement in the issues being investigated.
The type of case determines the kind of question you can be asked. For example, in a theft/murder case, you can be asked, “Where were you when the incident happened? “In a Drug-related case, you may be asked, “Have you ever bought or used an illicit drug before?” etc.
The polygrapher grades your examination by comparing the rate of your vital signs (physiological responses) during the control questions with that of the relevant questions.
If that of your control questions were higher than the relevant questions, then you passed. Otherwise, it means you failed the polygraph examination.
To understand better, you only fail your polygraph test if your answers to relevant questions are more of a lie than that of control questions.
This phenomenon gives you the liberty to beat the polygraph and pass the exam even when you’re lying. Here is how:
Try to remain as calm as possible and keep vital signs normal when answering relevant questions. However, when it comes to control questions, ensure you increase your heart rate, blood pressure, rate of sweat, and breathing.
They are proven ways to achieve any of the two scenarios above, which are:
- Live Your Dream In That Moment — When you’re answering a relevant question, you can think of things that make you happy. Things that bring you calmness — the serenity of the beach, karaoke with friends, whatever they’ll make you smile and leave you calm.
- Harbor Scary Thoughts —Thinking about what can leave you extremely tense, petrified, and scared can help you increase your heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing, which is needed when answering control questions. Doing this can help you manipulate whatever the polygraph will record, aiding you to pass the examination.
- Subtly Induce Pain — Inducing pain is another trick to get your vital signs up when answering control questions.
However, you must be doing it in a way the examiner won’t notice. You can bite down your tongue, press down on sharp objects in your shoes, etc.
Pain triggers the same physiological response as lying; hence it’s an excellent trick to pass.
- Increase Perspiration — Increasing your sweating rate is another means of having greater recording for your vital signs during control questions. You could start trying to solve complex math divisions in your head, using the long division method or any other sweat-inducing trick you know.
The goal of all these tricks is to ensure that you produce stronger responses (i.e., greater vital signs recordings) while answering control questions than when answering the relevant question.
Most people question the scientific validity of polygraph examination because it can be easily manipulated, as demonstrated.
Hence, the campaign against anti-lie detectors never stops getting stronger. The Federal legislation also prohibits private employers from using the test. But if for any reason you have a cause to take the examination, we just showed you how to pass.
