We naturally detect lies all the time. It can be a drop in our partner's voice that alerts us to the fact that they are hiding their feelings. The eyes of a child return to the drawer containing the present they are not allowed to open. Or the incredible story told by a colleague trying to explain why the company's petty cash went missing.

However, we often cannot see through the lies. why? Researchers have been trying to answer this question for more than a century, but liars still slip through our hands. But the latest research may help shed light on where we went wrong.

Recent notable research is Associate Professor Timothy Luke and colleagues at the University of Gothenburg.they saw Research published in the past 5 years Fifty international experts in lie detection analyzed how to tell when someone is lying.

But first they needed to determine exactly what a lie was. We might use the word “lie” to refer to someone who says they look good in clothes they don't know whether they fit, a partner who seems to be trying to hide an affair, or a murderer who claims to be innocent. yeah. But are they comparable? Surely some lies carry more weight than others? Luke likes to distinguish between “white” lies and what he calls deception.

“The structure of deception is more complex than many people think,” he says. “There may be a variety of psychological processes underlying it. We're not talking about the same thing. Even superficial things like the length and type of communication are important.”

Whether you're texting a lie or telling someone a lie to their face, Luke says the core of deception is a deliberate attempt to mislead another person. But determining what is a lie is another thing. Detecting it is another thing entirely. Is there really a surefire clue to someone else's deception?

Can you spot a liar just by looking at their eyes?

A common belief is that people who lie are reluctant to meet the gaze of others. Still, in the Gothenburg study, 82 percent of experts agreed that people who lie are less likely to avoid eye contact or look away than people who tell the truth.

“Empirical research on deception detection is vast,” he says. Per Anders Grand Hug, professor of psychology at the University of Gothenburg and one of the co-authors of the study. “But the one issue most experts agree on is that gaze aversion is not a diagnostic clue for deception.”

Similarly, 70% of experts agreed that liars appear no more nervous than truth tellers. This may be surprising since nervousness and gaze aversion are two of her four main behaviors that a liar exhibits.

Other traditional indicators include that liars continually change their posture, touch their body frequently, and offer explanations that are less plausible, logical, or consistent than they would be if they were telling the truth. There are things to do.

These beliefs are also based on shaky empirical evidence. The researchers investigated deception and fidgeting (body movements), how long subjects took to answer questions (response latency), and whether subjects' explanations were consistent, meaningful, and easily expressed ( found that the relationship between fluency and fluency was not clear. cut. Some experts said liars do these things more, some less, and others said there was no difference.

read more:

words are important

Professor Aldert FreiThe University of Portsmouth expert on the psychology of deception, who was not involved in the Gothenburg study, said the most widespread misconception about deception was “the idea that nonverbal lie detection works”. ing.

He suggests that people who try to use nonverbal lie detection methods, even if those methods include polygraphs, video analysis, taking brain “fingerprints” using neuroimaging equipment, or using audio Even if it involves technologies such as change exploration, it means we need to proceed with caution. Pitch – These are all controversial areas in deception detection research.

is that so Any What is an effective way to spot a liar? According to Luke, he has one promising lead. It's the lack of detail. About 72% of experts agreed that people who lie provide less detailed information than people who tell the truth.

Vrij agreed, saying that instead of looking at how people behave, find out what they say. He said there are several linguistic indicators, such as the number of details or “complexity” that appear in the subjects' statements.

…

Despite problems associated with purported behavioral cues, such as gaze aversion, many practitioners are reluctant to replace them with more useful cues based on what the suspect says. , says Vrij. Old myths and methods slowly disappear.

“The most annoying thing is the assumptions that come from the TV programs that lead the general public.” [and] “Experts believe they can catch individual liars.” Professor Amina Memon He is a professor at the University of London, a leading expert on lie detection and interrogation, and one of the co-authors of the Gothenburg study.

Police who have a hunch about a suspect based on a typical profile of a liar may use coercive tactics such as getting innocent people to confess to crimes they did not commit. For this reason, Memon advocates interviewing with a neutral, fact-finding approach, rather than guessing whether someone is lying.

But behind all this lies a bigger problem. Perhaps the reason we haven't found universal clues to deception is because they simply don't exist.

Over the past century, researchers have almost exclusively adopted what is known as the non-theoretical approach. This means they are looking for the “laws” of deception, the clues that everyone shows. But perhaps the reason this kind of one-size-fits-all approach doesn't work is simply because everyone lies differently.

Poker players apply this logic when looking for other players' “tells,” actions that indicate whether that person is bluffing or not. Tellurium varies from person to person, so some people may scratch their nose when their hands are not feeling well, others may cough more, and others may seem calmer than usual.

Even if you throw these three people into a research setting, a theoretical approach will not work. These differences appear to be just noise.

Signs of lying

If we want to understand the cues, Luke argues, researchers need to take an “ideographic” approach and focus on what makes each individual unique. This involves creating a personal profile of how each person lies about the same types of things and in similar situations.

“Testing the same people under different conditions (a so-called 'repeated measures' experimental design) is the best approach,” Memon says.

An example of this approach was published in a 2022 paper. Dr. Sophie van der Zee and co-author, who has developed the first deception model specifically tailored to the individual.

…

It remains to be seen how researchers will overcome the logical hurdles, but it seems clear that the science of lie detection is changing. It's time to move away from what Luke calls “crude averages.” “People are a little too fascinated by cool tricks to spot someone's lies,” he says.

Importantly, researchers studying deception have repeatedly found that evidence from controlled environments shows that most people are bad at detecting lies. is. Liars are able to escape detection in part because they know and exploit stereotypes.

Our confirmation bias can also make us overconfident. We remember a disproportionate amount of the times when we caught a liar, and we don't notice the times when we didn't lie at all.

Even if we succeed, Luke is not convinced that the clues we think we used are really the keys we used to unlock the truth.

“Remember the last time you caught someone in a lie? How did you know?” he asks. “It probably wasn't because they were looking up and left. They probably had some kind of evidence, like receipts, text messages, witnesses. These are things that make people wonder if someone is offering the truth. That’s how we tend to actually judge whether or not.”

Even in the absence of concrete external evidence, it may be possible to assess situational factors. “In the real world, we can often understand to some extent why people would want to lie,” Luke says.

When someone we know is lying, we can better guess from subtle cues such as their gaze because we know them well. In these situations, Luke says it's best to read the situation better than the other person and try to understand their motives.

The key message is that behavioral cues to deception may exist, but they are likely to be highly personal. “It's better to trust your own detective work and check what people say against the evidence,” says Luke.

Fixed cues won't work. In fact, it can make it even harder to spot a liar. And what if no evidence is found? Luke's advice is simple. “Proceed with caution.”

read more: