I should say up front that, as others have said, polygraph is all superstition and subjective interpretation when it is being used seriously. Usually, it's just a prop to scare people with in an interrogation. The following comments are what the "true believers" of polygraph usually believe, and is probably a key part in how an examiner judges a polygraph exam, but you can never really rule out the possibility of an exam being a simple scare tactic or cover for subjective opinion. With that risk and the fact that this is all disproved junk science, YMMV.
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Any question that can be trivially checked such as "Do you live in Chicago?" is not one of the "control questions". Questions like that are part of the theater for the benefit of the person being tested. Like the waving needles, it makes the test look more complicated and "scientific" (really: "it's complicated" and therefor "magic" in the sense of Clarke's 3rd Law).
The article has an actual example of a typical control question: “Have you ever lied to anyone who trusted you?”. Unfortunately, their explanation that "...an innocent person telling the truth will have a stronger reaction to the control questions..." misses the point entirely.
Control questions are always about a "little white lie" that the examiner assumes is something that everybody does. The important thing to understand about the real "control questions" is the assumption that you will lie when you answer those questions. In the question from the article, the assumption is that of course you have lied to someone who trusted you, but you will say "no" out of fear.
The "theory" is then to look for a difference (ANY difference, not just a "stronger reaction") in the polygraph output for that question when compared to most of the rest of the questions. This is then used as a reference to see if something similar happens on a real interrogation question.
Want to mess with the test? Don't lie on the control questions. Admit to the "little white lies" they assume are said by everybody. This will usually do two things: 1) it will invalidate the test, and 2) it will piss off the examiner. Obviously, the utility of forcing these results will depends on why you're taking the test.
If instead you want to do the opposite and "pass" the test without suspicion, remember you're being recorded from the moment the sensors are put on. Make sure their machine records regular (small standard deviation) data except for when you give the expected lie. If they see the expected "change" on the correct "little white lie" (control) questions, and not much anywhere else, that should be seen as a "pass".
Or even better, don't perpetuate this nonsense and refuse to take any polygraph tests.
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Any question that can be trivially checked such as "Do you live in Chicago?" is not one of the "control questions". Questions like that are part of the theater for the benefit of the person being tested. Like the waving needles, it makes the test look more complicated and "scientific" (really: "it's complicated" and therefor "magic" in the sense of Clarke's 3rd Law).
The article has an actual example of a typical control question: “Have you ever lied to anyone who trusted you?”. Unfortunately, their explanation that "...an innocent person telling the truth will have a stronger reaction to the control questions..." misses the point entirely.
Control questions are always about a "little white lie" that the examiner assumes is something that everybody does. The important thing to understand about the real "control questions" is the assumption that you will lie when you answer those questions. In the question from the article, the assumption is that of course you have lied to someone who trusted you, but you will say "no" out of fear.
The "theory" is then to look for a difference (ANY difference, not just a "stronger reaction") in the polygraph output for that question when compared to most of the rest of the questions. This is then used as a reference to see if something similar happens on a real interrogation question.
Want to mess with the test? Don't lie on the control questions. Admit to the "little white lies" they assume are said by everybody. This will usually do two things: 1) it will invalidate the test, and 2) it will piss off the examiner. Obviously, the utility of forcing these results will depends on why you're taking the test.
If instead you want to do the opposite and "pass" the test without suspicion, remember you're being recorded from the moment the sensors are put on. Make sure their machine records regular (small standard deviation) data except for when you give the expected lie. If they see the expected "change" on the correct "little white lie" (control) questions, and not much anywhere else, that should be seen as a "pass".
Or even better, don't perpetuate this nonsense and refuse to take any polygraph tests.