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How to detect lies with a storytelling technique

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Re: How to detect lies with a storytelling technique

#81
post #72

Wonder if there's a dataset for this. Maybe run a simple n-gram over the interviews and see if certain phrases show up more often for truth tellers vs liars. If you're in the poker world, you know that physical tells _are_ a thing but only to reaffirm your read and should not be the entire basis of whether you bet/call/fold (ala Casino Royale). Because it's so hard to place your entire reasoning because, "he's coveri…

That'd be great! Does anyone know if the data is available online?

Re: How to detect lies with a storytelling technique

#82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is easily ascribed to the fact that the liar is either making the story up as they go or are repeating a rehearsed lie. A truthful person can jump around easily because they are recounting distinct memories. Alternatively, the liar's experienced, good at his craft, and more capable of jumping around.

The best liars use the exhonerative voice to avoid telling a story about themselves at all: "Bags are subject to search" means "We will search your bags". "A shooting involving Tacoma County Police left two suspects dead" means "Tacoma County Police shot two suspects."

[deleted]

Re: How to detect lies with a storytelling technique

#83
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you catch X people trying to blow up a plane and no planes get blown up, that's fairly good evidence that your method of catching people trying to blow up planes has been 100% successful. So far.

Want to buy an elephant whistle?

The difference is that there are many groups who have publicly declared their intent to blow up Israeli airliners, so it's not as if you're defending against a non-existent threat.

Re: How to detect lies with a storytelling technique

#84

Sounds to me like some of these people just aren't good liars.

Yeah, I know right? I'm sure I read on HN some time earlier that CIA agents / undercover would always make sure their lie is actually as close to the truth as possible -- if it comes down to it. (last resort type thing).

I could do this easy peasy, and then ask me to do it backwards and I'll stare at you and go "No idea, I'd have to think about it... generally don't think backwards".

The key in any case, is always... don't give them rope. Patience.

Re: How to detect lies with a storytelling technique

#85

That's a nice write-up but I think that experienced and well prepared liars would be able to beat that. The best way I've found to detect lies is that truth is 'internally consistent' and lies never are, all you need to do is to focus on any inconsistencies not matter how small and then to apply pressure on them, they'll fracture the story much like a crystal with a flaw in it.

Considering that 'truth' is really our best recollection of past events, why do you say that truth is internally consistent? I mean, maybe it is, but it's not a given.

Truth is grounded in verifiable facts. You can be mistaken about facts, so that's easy enough to fix. Liars can't change their story because once they do the whole thing starts coming down, they can only keep so much of the fabricated universe in their head.

That's mostly my interpretation of it, I've met only very few people that were lying outright during the course of many DDs but when they do that's how they all - so far, and of course there could be undetected ones that made it through somehow though I highly doubt that - fell down.

From what I've seen it is very hard to keep the story straight over the course of a couple of weeks if it isn't true.

Re: How to detect lies with a storytelling technique

#86
post #55
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you measure it it has been effective when the successful liar passes the test and is not defined as such?

If you catch X people trying to blow up a plane and no planes get blown up, that's fairly good evidence that your method of catching people trying to blow up planes has been 100% successful. So far.

Or maybe the people trying to blow up planes are just as bad at blowing up planes as you are at catching them.

Re: How to detect lies with a storytelling technique

#87
post #53

It's interesting that a low occurrence of unique words in a story can be an indication of a lie. Does that position people speaking a secondary language in an unavoidable place of distrust? Beyond body language, it's just more difficult to tell if someone's story lacks richness because they're not telling the truth, or they're simply not comfortable with the language and have a small vocabulary to draw upon.

I think ideally you'd compare the story you're investigating with other, provably-truthful stories told by the secondary-language speaker. That way word reuse could be a relative value rather than an absolute one.

Re: How to detect lies with a storytelling technique

#88
post #55
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you measure it it has been effective when the successful liar passes the test and is not defined as such?

If you catch X people trying to blow up a plane and no planes get blown up, that's fairly good evidence that your method of catching people trying to blow up planes has been 100% successful. So far.

Do you know that you have a banana in your ear?

Re: How to detect lies with a storytelling technique

#89
post #8

Read a book on this and this seems to corroborate much of what I read. One of the most interesting and simple techniques discussed was the order in which people recounted their stories. The example given is an employee who is consistently late for work. If you ask them to recount why they are late one day, a liar will tell you the story linearly: "I woke up, ate breakfast, hopped in the car, was on my way, minding my…

> This is easily ascribed to the fact that the liar is either making the story up as they go or are repeating a rehearsed lie. A truthful person can jump around easily because they are recounting distinct memories. Alternatively, the liar's experienced, good at his craft, and more capable of jumping around.

Or the person is telling the truth and still deliberated about how to tell the story. I would probably do that.
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