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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

#91

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

I think I see a very obvious problem with this: in the experiment they ran, the interviewer seems to be leading the interviewee in how to remember an episode. Which means there is no way to make sure the interviewer is not (consciously or not) planting those very same "rich details" that purportedly make the difference between a lie and a truth, into the interviewee's narration.

So I don't see that they're avoiding a "Clever Hans" situation at all. They could be leading their interviewees on, providing subtle clues to the ones that are telling the truth, but not to the ones that are lying.

And even if this was double-blinded, there's still no way to ensure the interviewer doesn't interact in a different way with different interviewees, therefore messing up the results of any experiment pretty badly.

Re: How to detect lies with a storytelling technique

#92

Post by danso »

iamsohungry wrote: post #62
caminante wrote: post #20

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."

Huh? I'm not disputing that institutions carefully use the passive voice to clean their prose of negative connotations...but the two examples you mention are not "lies"

1. I've seen the "bags are subject to search" phrase many times, including the public library. I cannot remember the last time my bag was searched, even at the airport when the search is differentiated from the usual scan. So that phrase is definitely not a cover-up for "We will"

2. Again, not a lie. And I don't mean in the "not technically a lie". There are many cases where there is a shootout involving police and the cause of the suspect's death is ultimately determined as suicide. So the "A shooting involving..." phrase is perfectly acceptable in a breaking news update when no determination has yet been made.

Re: How to detect lies with a storytelling technique

#93

Post by [deleted] »

Rubu wrote: post #19
at-fates-hands wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes. I used to be a bouncer in my college town and you'd be surprised at what lengths kids will go to pass off their fake ID's as real. they'll memorize everything on the ID, including where the city is located - "So Flagstaff, is that North or South of Phoenix? I can never remember?" I would ask for all the information on the ID if I thought they looked young. Then once the person was confident they had passed…

Why use an ID from a different city in the first place? I'd say keep everything except for the year the same and there'd be no problem.

[deleted]

Re: How to detect lies with a storytelling technique

#95

Post by dbbolton »

agumonkey wrote: post #70
dbbolton wrote: post #54

This method sort of reminds me of one of the opening scenes from Das Leben der Anderen (which is a great movie): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkRxvEjprBM

I remembered those tricks but not the movie it came from. How true is this though ? even innocent people cracks down under pressure even if they rebel against injustice at first. The amount of "intelligence" and organization to protect whatever dogma a government wants to protects scared me. Noticed the check mark when the student asked for a little humanity.

>How true is this though ?

Which part?

Honestly, I don't know how effective monitoring affect is per se but as a wild guess I'd say it's at least as accurate as a polygraph/coin flip.

However, I think there is more weight in the idea that a story that is repeated verbatim like that is more likely to be fabricated or at least neglecting some of the truth (which is the takeaway I got from the article).

Sleep deprivation appears to be a pretty popular "enhanced interrogation technique": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_deprivation#Interrogatio...

But just like every other form of torture its efficacy is highly questionable (e.g. the inherent possibility of false confessions). I think sleep deprivation is particularly problematic because while it does seem to almost universally deplete the victim's willpower/resistance, it also causes a profound detriment to memory and other cognitive function-- meaning it is completely useless in cases where the victim isn't talking because they don't remember the information rather than because they just don't want to cooperate.

See "Educing Information, Interrogation: Science and Art, Foundations for the Future": https://fas.org/irp/dni/educing.pdf

Re: How to detect lies with a storytelling technique

#96

Post by hugh4 »

fnordfnordfnord wrote: post #79
simonh wrote: 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?

No, but if my security guards keep turning away actual elephants at the border and I find no actual elephants nearby then I can conclude that my anti-elephant security works.

Re: How to detect lies with a storytelling technique

#97

Post by hugh4 »

mrestko wrote: post #6
Theodores wrote: post #2

Nothing new here, this interviewing technique by storytelling has been standard procedure for a long time with the British Police. One simple variation is to recall the story from the beginning, then recall from the end and see what doesn't match up.

I used a variation of this trick when I was a resident assistant in college. We had the unfortunate job of busting drinking parties in the dorms and part of our responsibility was to collect ID numbers or social security numbers if the person claimed to not have their IDs. People would quite happily rattle-off a fake SSN. But if you wait 60 seconds and come back to them and ask for the number in reverse, it's essenti…

Whenever I give a fake phone number (which I do quite often when inspecting real estate) I always confidently reel off the number I had fifteen years ago. It still trips easily off the tongue.

I hope the poor sucker who has that number now doesn't get too many follow up calls.

Re: How to detect lies with a storytelling technique

#98

Post by pbhjpbhj »

throw7 wrote: post #51

Well, at an airport security check I got interviewed before boarding and the guy asked me how I got here. I thought it was a weird question to ask and I answered I got here by airplane (I was in a foreign country visiting). He was totally non-plussed by the answer and said, "No, how did you get _here_?"... I was actually confused by the way he said it and he added, "What did you do this morning to get _HERE_?". I sai…

Probably the point of the question was to be confusing: it strikes me that if you give the brain something to work on - parsing and responding to a confusing question - it could make responding with false information more difficult.

Imagine you were trying to remember the details of a false passport and an alibi for what you'd be doing - you get a weird question and your brain is then suddenly blank when you try to present your false identity.

Seems plausible?

Re: How to detect lies with a storytelling technique

#99

Post by betenoire »

jacquesm wrote: post #85
betenoire wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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.

Yes. I would add that it can be very hard to keep the story straight over the course of a couple weeks EVEN IF IT'S TRUE. That's what I was trying to say.

Re: How to detect lies with a storytelling technique

#100

Post by CamperBob2 »

pdeuchler wrote: post #71
simonh wrote: 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.

This is one hell of a post hoc ergo propter hoc, I'll give you that at least

What's wrong with it? He's not making the usual "tiger-proof rock" argument used to refer to the TSA, after all. The TSA doesn't, as a rule, catch people who were actually planning to cause trouble. They either catch people who didn't know/care how much toothpaste they were allowed to smuggle onboard, or they catch idiots who forgot they were carrying a .50 caliber Desert Eagle in their shaving kit. This is a different argument altogether.
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