Psychological examination, including a polygraph examination, is a very emotionally intense and energy-consuming event for the person being interviewed, so you need to get as much sleep as possible the night before the examination. During the day before the study, you should refrain from drinking alcohol and doing drugs, as well as from taking medications that are not prescribed by your doctor and are not carried out on an ongoing basis. In case of insomnia at night before the study, it is better to refrain from sleeping pills, since during the study there is a high probability of psychological reactions differing from normal ones, which can be interpreted by the specialist as a drug counteraction to the test.
Also, immediately before the study, one should refrain from using both sedative and tonic drugs, despite a high feeling of excitement or anxiety. The psychological examination procedure is a significant stress for the body, therefore, at the most crucial moment of the study, psychotropic substances can play a cruel joke on the body of the person being interviewed, from an inadequate emotional reaction to the expert’s questions to a complete loss of strength, which at best will lead to a repeated verification procedure. If you usually drink tea or coffee in the morning, then in the morning before the test you need to drink your favorite tonic drink as usual, in the traditional volume of consumption, without any frills or restrictions. The same recommendations apply to tobacco smoking. You should neither give up your habits nor smoke half a pack of cigarettes before the test, otherwise the result of the examination may be unexpected for the interviewee himself.
It should be borne in mind that a psychological examination is also a long-term event that lasts at least three hours, therefore, before the study, it is advisable to eat quite a hearty meal so as not to be distracted by the feeling of hunger. It is also recommended to take drinking water with you to the examination, preferably non-carbonated and without dyes and other chemical additives, so that when agitated, the person under examination can quench their thirst, but the drink consumed does not cause undesirable reactions in the digestive system. As a rule, a bottle of drinking water with a volume of 0.5 liters is sufficient for the examination procedure. In order to exclude the use of psychoactive drugs during a psychological examination, it is necessary to bring a bottle with an intact factory seal and open the bottle in the presence of the expert, otherwise the latter will not allow drinking from the brought container.
If during the examination it is planned to conduct a check using a contact polygraph, then you should carefully consider the selection of your clothes. A comfortable temperature (21 ± 3 °C) is maintained at the examination premises. Do not wear tight clothing or shoes, especially corsets or tight bras that interfere with free breathing, as well as various slimming products for body shaping. Taking into account the fact that modern respiratory and blood pressure sensors are quite sensitive, therefore worn over clothes, when choosing the wardrobe before a polygraph test, one should not give preference to fluffy and thick sweaters, worn over underwear or a naked body, so that during the time of the examination nothing would cause a feeling of embarrassment in yourself or the polygraph examiner. The clothes and shoes chosen should be comfortable enough to be wearable for a long time during the psychological examination.
Before a psychological examination, the interviewee must know the purpose of the study and the questions that the customer of the examination wants to put for resolution. Before the study itself, it is not recommended to search the Internet for information about the research procedure, since psychological examination is significantly different from how a polygraph test is shown in films, TV shows or Internet commercials, in addition, many videos with "harmful" advice have been published on the Internet , ranging from "helpful" for the polygraph examiner and ending with recommendations on "how to fool the polygraph". A polygraph is a biomedical device that registers the psychophysiological reactions of the interviewed person to stress, therefore, only a low-skilled polygraph examiner can be “deceived”, especially when the latter does not have a higher education in the field of psychology. The rules of corporate ethics prohibit forensic experts from sharing the secrets of their profession in media publications, especially on the Internet. As a rule, recommendations on “how to pass a polygraph test” are shared either by persons who have gained some experience of going through a polygraph test (which is not necessarily directly their personal experience), or who are not in demand in the professional environment due to their low qualifications (beginners or unpromising); those specialists are only looking for any opportunity to earn. In any case, advice from incompetent people not only cannot help to pass a psychological examination quickly and efficiently, but can also push the specialist to reasonably establishing the fact of intentional opposition to the verification procedure, which in most cases can be equivalent to admitting one’s own guilt in the investigated event.
In cases of psychological examination of minor children, the customer of the study is recommended to first familiarize himself with the requirements for the preparation of the child from the expert, especially when the minor subject of the examination is a victim of violence.
You can order a special psychological study, including examination with the polygraph at the Forensic expert kollegium at: Minsk, Zhukovskaga St., 11A, 4th floor
or by phone +375 (17) 317 04 71; +375 (17) 317 04 72; +375 (17) 317 04 73; +375 (17) 317 04 74; +375 (17) 317 04 76; ; +375 (29) 109 60 11; +375 (29) 397 31 71; +375 (44) 588 60 11
© K.Dadzkou
