A polygraph examination is a longer and more deliberate process than most people expect. Almost everything that determines whether the result is worth anything happens before the instrument is switched on.
1. The first call
You tell us what you are trying to settle. We tell you whether a polygraph can settle it. This conversation is free and carries no obligation, and a meaningful proportion of them end with us saying that an examination will not help — because the question is about feelings rather than events, because it covers too long a period, or because what is really needed is a lawyer rather than an examiner.
If we do think an examination will help, we agree the single issue it will address and quote you a fee.
2. Agreeing the questions
We draft the relevant questions and send them to you in advance. You will see every question, word for word, before the day of the appointment. This is a requirement of the technique rather than a courtesy: a question the examinee does not fully understand produces a physiological reaction that means nothing at all.
Where two people are involved — a couple, for instance — we agree the wording with both. Where an attorney or agency has instructed the examination, we agree it with them.
3. Arriving
Come to the room at the time you have been given. Bring photo identification. Bring any court order or written direction if there is one. Eat and sleep normally beforehand, and take your prescribed medication exactly as you usually do — skipping a dose to “get a clearer result” achieves the opposite.
Avoid alcohol for twenty-four hours before the appointment. We will not examine anyone who appears intoxicated or in withdrawal, because the recording is not valid in either state.
4. The pre-test interview
This is the longest part of the appointment, often an hour or more. The examiner explains the instrument and what each sensor records, takes a medical history, and goes through every question again in the room. Nothing is asked during the test that has not been discussed here first.
It is also where the examiner establishes that you understand the questions the same way they do. Two people can read the same sentence and mean different things by it, and finding that out during the test rather than before it wastes the appointment.
5. The examination
Sensors are attached: two pneumograph tubes across the chest and abdomen for breathing, finger plates for sweat gland activity, a blood pressure cuff for cardiovascular activity, and usually a movement sensor in the seat. You sit still and answer the agreed questions. The same list is run several times, in a different order, so the examiner has repeated data to compare rather than a single pass.
Data collection usually takes thirty to fifty minutes.
6. Analysis and result
The examiner scores the charts, comparing your reactions across the different question types within your own examination. This is why generalised anxiety does not defeat a polygraph — an anxious person reacts to everything, and that pattern is visible.
The examiner discusses the outcome with you before you leave. The written report follows the same day or the next working day. Where an attorney or agency instructed the examination, the report goes to them.
What the result can and cannot do
A result addresses one question about one period. It is not a character assessment, it is not a determination of guilt, and it does not by itself resolve a dispute — people have to do that part.
In a Georgia court, a polygraph result is admissible only where both parties expressly stipulated, before the examination, that it would be admitted whatever it showed (State v. Chambers, 240 Ga. 76 (1977)). Without that prior agreement the result is not evidence, however favourable it is. It may still be very useful outside the courtroom — in negotiation, in a proffer, or in a family’s own decision-making — and that is usually why people take one.