A question type developed by Cleve Backster that was once thought to identify whether an examinee is fearful the examiner will ask an unreviewed question about an outside issue. In this construct, the examinee’s mistrust would dampen his responses to other test questions, and the symptomatic question could determine whether the lack of responsivity was attributable to the outside issue. Symptomatic questions are widely used, though the trend in the research finds they have no meaningful effect. See: Backster (2001a); Honts, Amato, & Gordon (2000); Krapohl & Ryan (2001); Matte (2001).
