Practicing Polygraph: Best Practice Guide

A polygraph test provides useful information in many scenarios and can be a crucial component of a criminal investigation, even a required step for security screenings. No matter the purpose, daily practitioners must embrace a more personalized approach to testing to achieve the most credible results.

Author Tuvya T. Amsel, PhD, has conducted tens of thousands of interviews and tests while working with law enforcement agencies and both small businesses and megacorporations across the globe, providing him with several decades’ worth of knowledge. In this invaluable handbook, he explains how to deal with the practical issues and problems that polygraph examiners encounter on a regular basis and offers solutions to each that promote assessment accuracy. Topics covered range from resolving chart anomalies and contradictory responses to conducting confirmatory testing. He addresses contaminating factors, procedures for testing foreigners, and best practices for examiners traveling abroad to perform assessments.

Aside from possessing basic procedural and statistical knowledge, the best examiners must be prepared to deal with unique situations—in the end, the tests are conducted on human beings who have a great deal at stake. Approaching each as an individual with a custom-designed test will ensure more accurate results—and produce effective outcomes.