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Fail One - Fail All - by Nathan Gordon

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I was recently asked to give my professional opinion
concerning the position by some polygraph examiners
utilizing the MGQT technique, who maintain that if a
subject fails any relevant question in the test format, he
automatically fails every relevant question in the test
("Fail One - Fail All").

The MGQT technique is actually the Reid Technique, where
the re-creators decided to use Backster type exclusive
control/comparison questions, rather than the Reid
inclusive control/comparison questions.

The Reid and MGQT formats ask four relevant questions
dealing with different issues, hence, different emotional
weights. Typically these relevant questions are asked in
positions 3, 5, 8 and 9, where question 3 is the second
strongest relevant question, 5 is the strongest relevant
question, 8 is an evidence connecting question, or third
strongest relevant question, and question 9 deals with
knowledge.

Those who take the position, "Fail One - Fail All,"
attempt to justify it with Backster's Anti-Climatic
Dampening Concept, combined with his theory of
Psychological Set.

Psychological Set is described as the pin pointing or
focusing of the mind on those questions in a polygraph
format that hold the greatest threat to the examinee's
immediate general well being, as perceived by the examinee
himself.

The deceptive examinee is most threatened by getting
caught in their lie concerning the issue to be resolved
and psychologically set to the relevant questions.

The examinee's psychological set to their greatest threat
actually dampens their ability to react to lesser threats.
For example, imagine a mother sleeping in her living room
with her newborn baby. They live across the street from a
high school. The school lets out along with all kinds of
screaming and commotion yet the mother remains sound
asleep. An hour later the baby lets out a soft sound, and
the mother is immediately awakened. Her psychological set
on her greatest concern, the welfare of her baby,
dampened her ability to be affected by the earlier noises
from the school children.

"Fail One - Fail All," logic takes the position that the
threat of one relevant question can have an anti-climatic
dampening effect on other relevant questions, and
therefore deceptive reactions to one relevant question,
may be dampening the examinee's ability to react to lesser
threatening relevant questions.

The fault in this reasoning is when these examiners do not
consider the emotional weight of the varying relevant
questions, and reason that a secondary relevant question,
such as "Do you know for sure who stole that money?" can
dampen a deceptive examinee's ability to react to a direct
involvement question, such as, "Did you steal that money?"

Reid, in his text, "Truth and Deception," specifically
discusses this issue:

"The relevant test questions used in any examination
should be confined to a single case investigation. The
polygraph technique is not effective for simultaneous
testing regarding two or more unrelated occurrences.
Moreover, there is a severe limitation as to the issues
that may be explored even in regard to a single incident.
The psychological explanation for this is the fact that
between one incident (or issue) and another incident (or
issue), a subject who is lying as to both may have so
much greater concern for the one than for the other that
there will be very little or perhaps no physiological
reaction when questioned about the other incident (or
issue).

In consequence, there would be the risk of reporting him
as telling the truth about the other incident (or issue)
when in fact he had lied about both of them. For
instance, assume that a subject committed three
robberies. In one he obtained only $5.00 at gunpoint,
without physically harming the victim; in another he
obtained $5.00 after having hit the victim on the head
with a pistol; in the third one he killed the victim. If
the subject is examined at the same time regarding all
three robberies, the one in which the victim was killed
would in all probability be of greatest concern to him.

During a polygraph examination, his much greater concern
over being detected for a robbery involving the killing
would probably mask out the response he otherwise may
have given to questions regarding one of the other
robberies if he had been tested about that one alone.
In other words, the examiner would be misled into
reporting the subject's deception as to only one of the
robberies whereas he was in fact responsible for all
three. The same explanation would hold with respect to
multiple issues in a single occurrence situation. For
instance, in a murder case the killer may give specific
reactions to the questions regarding his killing of the
victim and the taking of the money, and yet give no
significant reaction when asked, "Do you know who killed
____?" This may seem inconsistent in that if he did kill
the victim it appears he should also respond to the
"know who" question. As a matter of fact, however,
during the test the "know who" question is generally much
less disturbing to the actual killer than the question as
to whether he, himself, did the killing.

Nevertheless, the "know who" question is a necessary one
in the test series because the subject, though innocent
himself, may know who did the killing, or have some
suspicion as to who did it, and his response to the "know
who" question, along with the lack of response (or lesser
response) to the "kill" question will serve to eliminate
him as the killer." (pages 26 - 27)

Reid, in his wisdom, recognized the psychological
theories later postulated by Backster, and used them in
his technique to his advantage to ascertain whether a
subject was truthful or deceptive. He did this, not with
the faulty logic, "Fail One - Fail All," but in
recognizing that an innocent subject who may have
suspicions or possible knowledge of who committed the
crime would react significantly stronger to this
secondary relevant question than the direct involvement
question, thus allowing him to be properly identified
as "truthful."

As you have also just read, Reid also used significantly
stronger reactions to the "Did you" question, than to the
"know who" question, to confirm a subject's guilt. Since
all of the relevant questions were about the same crime,
he recognized the weight of the "Did You..?" question
would have the ability to dampen the lesser threatening
"know who" question for the perpetrator.

Backster actually designed a format, utilizing and
expanding this concept where he compares the subject's
reactions to "Do you suspect anyone in particular of doing
this crime?" considered a control/comparative question,
with "Do you know for sure who did this crime?" to help
assess a subject's truthfulness.

The understanding of Psychological Set and Anti-Climatic
Dampening is even more important when dealing with an
employment environment where a theft has taken place and
there are multiple suspects where everyone knows everyone,
and therefore every innocent suspect has suspicions about
who may have actually committed the crime. This suspicion,
leads the innocent suspect, as Reid reports, to
psychologically set on the "know who" question.

We practice an "art" where every professional examiner
recognizes that getting deceptive charts from the
perpetrator is not a major problem or concern. In fact,
the actual "art" in our profession is getting the innocent
examinee to generate "truthful" charts. "Fail One - Fail
All" does not assist in that outcome. In fact, it hinders
it, creating an increase in False-Positive results! It
comes from illogical reasoning, and a lack of
understanding of the very principles of the "art" we
practice.

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