Tag Archive for Telling The Truth

Comfort and Discomfort In Detecting Deception

by  • March 6, 2013 • 1 Comment

By keeping a "subject" relaxed, we can measure lying more accurately. Instead of creating lying-language through suspicion, we can uncover lying.

By keeping a “subject” relaxed, we can measure lying more accurately. Instead of creating lying-language through suspicion, we can find out which facts create discomfort – it is discomfort body language that helps uncover the truth.

Ex-FBI agent Joe Navarro explain in his book What everybody is saying that nonverbal cues put out by the limbic mind are paramount to detecting deception. He says that it is the displays of comfort versus discomfort that tells body language readers when someone is telling the truth or lying. When people lie they experience discomfort and “guilt knowledge” which leaks through the body through a person’s fear response, but when they tell the truth they “have no worries.” This approach says that a person uses more emphatic gestures with their hands and arms when they tell the truth, but when they lie they tend to freeze up and lock themselves down. If you see half-hazard attempts to describe events using lack of emphasis and gesturing, or in other words, remain uncommitted, than you can be pretty sure their story is fabricated. Truth tellers try their best to set facts straight and will go on at lengths to accomplish this.

The theory says that someone that is guilty carries negative thoughts with them because by nature, people are honest and think that they are good people. When they harbour bad thoughts though, they find it difficult to achieve comfort. The technique to reading lying as outlined states that a person must be read in low stress environments so that it is possible to measure changes from their baseline to catch stress related discomfort. Grilling someone for the truth has been show to produce “false positives”, meaning people who are actually innocent will actually plead guilty. Innocent suspects have been shown to confess to very serious crimes such as murder simply because they were put under very intense pressure. This is why it is important to establish comfort during all interactions, yet use appropriate questions to uncover the truth.

Overlooking someone suspiciously or presenting leading or accusatory questions will create discomfort, however it won’t show you which information presented leads to changes in nonverbal body language. It is by using relaxed and rapport building body language that allows someone to relax leaving only the information or question to be the variable by which all body language is measured. When scientists conduct research they do their best to keep all factors the same except for one. They call this the dependent variable, and it is by definition what is measured, or in other words what is affected during the experiment. The independent variable is what is manipulated in an experiment. When conducting a “lying experiment”, like all experiments, you want to keep all other variables constant so you can measure one variable against another variable.

Therefore, when we want to uncover lies, we should keep our body language neutral and remain calm while working to present information, details, asking for clarification, and so forth to uncover discomfort. This is why torture techniques don’t work to uncover the truth, they just pull information that the suspect believes the interviewer desires so they will stop badgering them. Just by using suspicious body language or leading questions can put someone on edge and influence their nonverbal communication. Saying things like “I don’t believe you” or “I think you are lying” will create anxious body language which can be misconstrued to be the result of actually being dishonest, when in actual fact is likely due to stress from being mislabeled. To body language reader will gain no useful information from creating anxiety. The rule of thumb therefore is to create and maintain comfort at all times, remain neutral in expression and measure signals of discomfort to uncover information that creates stress.

How Mentally Taxing Is Lie Telling?

by  • March 6, 2013 • 0 Comments

BodyLanguageProjectCom - Reptilian Brain (the) Or The Honest BrainIt’s intuitive for most to think that the creation of lies is more difficult than telling the truth. For example, some think that the truth comes ready-made, we simply remove it from a box and present it, whereas lies have to be pieced together and manufactured so appear more difficult to construct. However, only sometimes this is true, other times recalling what really happened proves to be just as difficult. Sometimes the truth requires interpretation and other times the truth is hard to describe such as our opinion and feelings or in other cases is difficult to visualize such as when an event happens quickly. Our minds have built in selective memories making it hard to recall information that has happened in our past, particularly with respect to traumatic or discomforting events. Lies though always involved a deliberate and conscious aim to deliver information that is contrary to the truth, but as we know the truth is only sometimes easy to interpret. Lies can be constructed willy-nilly and can flow just as fast as the mind can imagine things, which, as we know, can happen instantly. This is what makes it only sometimes true that making up lies is more challenging than telling the truth.

Depending on how one puts information together, will depend on how others will interpret it as well. We can’t conceivable relay all events, as necessarily our information is censored for brevity. For example, one might describe a particularly uneventful day by saying that it was “fine” and then listing all the main events. However, what constitutes a main event anyway? Someone else might find something important in your day that you failed to mention, however, this doesn’t mean that the person is lying per se. Our minds are complex and quick, when we come up with simple lies, we can create them as fast as we can spite them out. Only when lies get very complicated do we see effects such as stuttering, pauses, speech errors or corrections. Keep in mind that only sometimes are truths prepackaged, but lies are always prepackaged. The length of time to construct them is just one factor. Quick and dirty lies might be shorter and contain only the main details, but so too might the truth. Thus, prompting for more information can sometimes lead to the method of the lie. It’s much easier to catch broad lies too and ones that fall outside the expertise of the teller precisely because they won’t be able to add relevant information from their experiences. Due to the skills we all naturally posses, we should only expect the telling of lies to be slightly more challenging to tell than the truth.

The Truth Bias

by  • March 6, 2013 • 0 Comments

A review of the literature on lying and truth telling shows us that an average sixty-seven percent accuracy is found when detecting the truth, whereas forty-four percent is found while detecting deception. In other words, people’s accuracy at detecting truths is usually higher than their accuracy at detecting lies! This is what is called the truth bias. Some possible explanations for the truth bias stem from the fact that in everyday encounters we usually deal with honest people. While lying is pervasive, it doesn’t happen nearly as often as does lying. Thus, we expect people to be telling the truth and are therefore better at detecting it.

Another possible reason for our inherent truth bias is because it would be detrimental to act suspiciously while speaking with others just in case they were telling the truth. If our default was to label other people as deceptive, we’d be constantly interrupting others to clarify statements, or our suspicion would have our minds busy fact checking at a later time. Our conversations would be littered with statements such as ‘That can’t be true’ or ‘Really, I can’t see that’ or ‘I’ll believe that when I see it’ which sometimes it is, but usually not. This would be time consuming and counterproductive given the nature of real to life situations, that is that people normally tell the truth. Our social rules also do not permit us to act suspiciously and if we did so would alienate others and prevent us from formulating alliances or friendships. In fact, ignoring the faults of others is the primary reason we allow ourselves to associate with anyone at all. Those with a memory for detail find it hard to ‘let things go’ or ‘ignore subtle unimportant flaws’ which can be detrimental for relationships. The truth bias tells us that letting little ‘white lies’ go, is an integral part of human nature, perhaps even necessary.

Remaining Uncommitted

by  • March 6, 2013 • 0 Comments

When people tell the truth they will usually show extra enthusiasm and commit to their story. Liars often start off the same way, but quickly trail off.

When people tell the truth they will usually show extra enthusiasm and commit to their story. Liars often start off the same way, but quickly trail off.

Liars have been noted to be uncommitted to lies. That is, because they have nothing vested in the lie, they remain less than exuberant in their convictions. In other words, the subconscious mind of liars doesn’t allow them to carry forward with enthusiasm. Instead of smashing a fist against a table and raising a voice saying “I didn’t do it!”, liars will instead make much duller motions and use less commitment to them. It is not as if they want to lie, it is the limbic mind that won’t allow them to.

Liars will motion without emphasis, or describe events by trailing off or use weak statements. They might limit arm and hand movement by clasping them together or locking them down on an armrest with such force they turn their knuckles white. The hands might be put out of sight in pockets or under a table where they can’t be read. Reduced movement can be seen throughout the body, not just in the hands. The entire body including the head, arms, feet, and torso can seem to lock in place. People that are telling the truth spend a lot of time and energy in efforts to make the facts known which comes across in their body language and gesturing. Truth tellers are happy to spend as much time as necessary to get everything right. They will often add more detail than required and go over it again and again if necessary. Not emphasizing is linked to the freeze response where the mind clams the body shut and reduces movement so as to draw less attention to it. What is important in lie detection is to compare cues from a baseline. That is, if someone suddenly drops emphasis then you know they’ve lost interest in the topic or are lying. In either case, it will have provided useful information to the body language reader.

In writing this passage, I had just reviewed a video (see bottom posted on the web of a baseball game in which a player leaped head-over-feet clear over the catcher as he came to homeplate to score a run. The catcher, stuck in a fear response, failed to tag the runner. Baseball has an interesting tradition where it is customary for the runner to body-check the catcher at homeplate as he tries to tag for an out. While the catcher braced and ducked with his elbow up to make the tag, the runner jumped over the catcher landing on home plate. The catcher stuck with his elbow up in defense could only convince his mind to bring his arm just close enough to miss the tag! Because his mind feared the body check, he wasn’t able to follow through with what he intended. While this is an interesting fear based response what follows is even more interesting since it helps us read liars. The catcher, realizing he failed to get the out, quickly turns to pursue the runner. One must ask why he would track the runner down if he made the tag? Obviously he hadn’t! But more important that this, is that we know that he knows that he didn’t make the tag! This means that any nonverbal language following the lack of tag, should he dispute it, is read as lying language. To state his case, the catcher chats with the umpire by raising his arms showing how he made the tag. What is revealing, however, is that the catcher only slightly raises his arms instead of doing it with emphasis. Instead of showing the gesture over and over again, the catcher just raises his arms once as if to make a casual rainbow motion with his arms. When his coach shows up with arms flaying and talking with enthusiasm, the catcher quietly exits! The catcher knows that he can’t make a case and so doesn’t put any effort into trying. The difference between the coach and the catcher, is that the catcher knows he’s lying, while the coach isn’t sure. Once more, the coach isn’t actually lying anyway, since he wasn’t there to feel the contact or lack thereof of the catchers mitt and the runner, he’s just acting out an inherent bias – he’s playing the role he was hired to do. Lack of commitment is an important cue to watch for when detecting lies so be careful to watch for it.

Nervousness And Guilt In Lying

by  • March 6, 2013 • 0 Comments

"Talking out of the side of the mouth" came about because we feel that liars don't speak to us straight; in plain terms.

“Talking out of the side of the mouth” came about because we feel that liars don’t speak to us straight; in plain terms.

One of the most reported cues of deception includes fear and nervousness. These include higher pitch, faster and louder speech, speech errors or stuttering and indirect speech or talking out of ‘the side of the mouth’ or in worse cases, the liar might even sound unpleasant. We might also see blushing of the face, neck or ears, an increase in blink rate, fidgeting, dilation of the pupils or sweating. In theory, the greater the apprehension of getting caught or the greater the stakes, the more evident these fear cues should be. As an increase in the possibility of punishment or with an increase in the severity of punishment we should also find an increase in nervous body language. The studies tell us that people who lie about something they’ve done wrong, termed a ‘transgression’, the more likely they were to show more deceptive cues presumably because they felt guilt more strongly.

We should also be cognoscente about the motivation of the liar. If they aren’t particularly vested in the lie, they might not show nervousness at all. Someone presenting a ‘white lie’ about who they were with the night previous, or their preference for chocolate versus vanilla ice cream, should be expected to show minimal nervousness. More experienced liars show very little nervousness, because, not only are they practiced at lying, they rarely get caught, so have little to worry about effectively destroying the hypothesis that nervousness specifically increases because of lying. Conversely, poor, but frequent liars, get caught so often that the consequences of their lies fail to bother them, so they also lack nervousness. We should also predict that lies told to close friends or family whom the liar cares for, should make them more susceptible to nervous body language. Here we might in fact see lower pitch, softer and slower speech and a downward gaze as they battle their consciousness. The stick in the spokes of this theory though is that sometimes telling the truth can causes guilt just the same as telling a lie, especially when it is known that the truth might hurt someone. Other times, telling the truth causes even more distress because of the shame of revealing possible shortcomings or mistakes to others. Thus, it’s a pretty safe statement to say that liars don’t always feel guilty about their lies and truth tellers don’t always feel good about their honesty. In fact, many liars justify their lies to prevent distress in other people!

Being unable or unwilling to embrace their lies is what makes lie tellers appear less truthful and convincing. So by this theory we should expect a liar to face more negative emotions when lying which truth tellers don’t face which in turn leads to at least faint feelings of discomfort which then leaks out through the body. However, again we find data to the contrary. It has been noted by researchers that liar can have less vested in their claims primarily because they haven’t actually occurred. This is counter what was presented thus far because instead of appearing more emotional, they may in fact appear less emotional. Lest we forget too that liars can present fearful emotions when they lie due to the chances of getting caught! If you haven’t gotten the point by now, you are starting to. The point is that emotions are intertwined with the fear of getting caught, anguish of lying and telling the truth and a myriad of other factors directly and indirectly related to lying.

As we know, when truth tellers speak, they are backed with an accumulation of knowledge, experience and wisdom from an event, whereas a liar is only acting out of his own imagination. This can provide clues to his deception. Therefore, the liar might offer fewer details, present their story with less emotional investment, provide less evidence to stake their claims, act less compellingly, appear less forthcoming, less pleasant and more tense. It is also important to note the motivation or context of the lie as well, as this will provide us with clues to watch for, be it nervousness, fear of getting caught and the guilt or the shame of either lying or not lying as the case may be.

Shifty Eyes

by  • March 5, 2013 • 0 Comments

Eyes that dart are associated with lying. In reality, eyes that shift are a sign of emotional discomfort, which may be due to any stress, not just the stress of lying.

Eyes that dart are associated with lying. In reality, eyes that shift are a sign of emotional discomfort, which may be due to any stress, not just the stress of lying.

Paul Ekman’s research into lying says that people often attribute shifty or darting eyes to liars, however, as a predictor of a lie it actually falls short. Looking away from complicated human faces helps us concentrate and so it doesn’t really tell us much more than that thought is taking place. Human lie detectors may suppose that no thought needs to take place when truth telling, so they eyes need not be diverted. In reality however, the eyes can wander due to a variety of reasons not the least of which are connected to the thought of being mistrusted, labeled a liar, or being punished.

Therefore the stress and nervousness of being put on the spot is enough to cause the eyes to exhibit patterns that seem dishonest. Experienced poker players, wishing to disguise a strong hand, can careful craft misleading “eye tells” fooling other players. For example, wincing at a card that is actually a good card, or using darting eyes when telling the truth, or best yet, producing cues at random, can really confuse opponents. The research also notes that pathological liars are particularly adept at maintaining eye contact even more so then people who are honest. Researchers have theorized that liars want to track the success of their lies and so by watching the face of their victims, they can gauge their effectiveness accordingly and adjust if necessary. Therefore, the real give-away to lying might, in fact be an increase in eye contact rather than a decrease in eye contact. However, as it turns out, even this clue is sometimes misleading as it can be adjusted accordingly as we saw in the poker example above.

Another reason we might see poor eye contact is as an indication of the desire to exit an undesirable situations. At social events or parties, this is especially the case. We might catch eyes moving about the room as the minds of guests wander for more stimulating interactions. So to gauge interest you can note where their eyes wander and how much eye contact they use. Our eyes go to where our minds already are, and of which our bodies want to be. We of course think it to be rude to just up and leave whilst speaking to a fellow guest, however by casting our gaze randomly or specifically to our object of interest we send the same message. While too much eye contact can also be rude and unnatural, so too is extended periods spent looking away, or looking all about the room in a distracted fashion. Eye patterns, therefore, need to be carefully constructed to send the message we intend.

Verbal Language Is Confusing, Body Language Sorts Things Out

by  • March 5, 2013 • 0 Comments

Body language makes the intent of a message much more clear. This 'spear thrower' isn't interested in listening to your viewpoint.

Body language makes the intent of a message much more clear. This ‘spear thrower’ isn’t interested in listening to your viewpoint.

What proportion of communication is affected by the actual words versus how the words are used and the body language that it accompanies it? I don’t know of any real metric by which to calculate this, so it’s really anyone’s guess. Suffice it to say that the vast majority of communication and meaning has nothing at all to do with words. Body language in this case gets lumped in together with other signals such as tone, pitch and word emphasis whilst we subtract the actual words and their meaning. Take the phrase “Would you prefer to lie?” as an example. If I were to emphasize the word “would” it puts the emphasis on “you”, but if I put the emphasis on “lie” it puts emphasis on the action. Confusing things further and not privy to the spelling of “lie”, one wouldn’t know if I was speaking about telling the truth or “lying”, or taking a nap or “laying”. Emphasis is used to add meaning and emotion to our speech by stressing specific words and can completely change the meaning of the sentence. This can also be done by using a higher tone, using longer stressed syllables, or increasing the volume as we speak certain words. Even in the cases above I have used a nonverbal method to emphasis words by using the italics function, a feature of this writing program that arose out of necessity.

Going back to our previous example, we also have homonym’s which are words that share the same spelling and same pronunciation but have different meanings. An example includes the word “bow” which can mean to bend forward, the front of a ship, a weapon which fires an arrow, a ribbon tied in a knot (a bow tie) or to bend outward to the sides (bow-legged). Polysemes are words or phrases with multiple related meanings. For example “bank” can describe a financial institution that handles money or it can be used to describe trust as in “We’re friends, you can bank on me.” Antagonym’s are forms of slang that actually mean their opposite. Examples of antagonyms include “bound” for a direction or heading, or tied up and unable to move, cleave can be to cut apart or seal together, buckle can mean to hold together or to collapse, clip means to attach or cut off, and so on. Other time we use words to mean the opposites. “That skateboard trick was sick” comes across in slang as meaning that it was actually a pretty good trick.

While the myriad of definitions stemming from word-use might confuse you, don’t let it bother you too much because this is the only time it actually matters. In fact, body language is the likely reason our vocabulary is permitted to be so confusing and most of us have at least a rudimentary understanding about how our bodies and verbal language coincide to produce meaning anyway. The point of raising the dysfunction that peppers verbal language is precisely because confusing word meaning plays such a minor role in our lives. When we just don’t get it, in comes body language to sort things out and bring everyone back on to the same page.

What we are looking to accomplish in this book is a higher order reading of nonverbal language to graduate from simple word meaning to get at the hidden ‘script’ that unfolds ‘between the lines’, so to speak!