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How can you tell if someone is lying?

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Re: How can you tell if someone is lying?

#71

Post by itronitron »

strogonoff wrote: post #69
parsimo2010 wrote: post #17

Most of us can’t reliably tell when a romantic interest is actively signaling their mutual interest. If we can’t get cooperative activities right, most of us don’t have a chance to spot a liar through nonverbal cues. The fact is that random effects are huge when dealing with people. Is that person you’re interrogating not showing emotion because they’re a psychopath, or because they were taught not to display emotion…

There’s an interesting take[0] on defensive mechanisms societies have apparently evolved in order to detect a psychopath in their midst in daily life without having to know that person for a long time. [0] https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2016/05/05/dares-costly-signals-a... on dares and costly signals, also discussing The Psychopath Code by late Pieter Hintjens.

interesting, you should submit this as a top level post

Re: How can you tell if someone is lying?

#72

Post by XorNot »

gizmo686 wrote: post #67
jmcgough wrote: post #26

I played a ton of Among Us in 2020, which is a game where you have to figure out which of your friends are lying. I quickly learned that going off "well they're acting pretty guilty" was an easy way to lose. A friend of mine would immediately jump to accuse me whenever I cast suspicion on them, even if they were innocent. Way better to rely on actual evidence and not hunches, even more so when it comes to giving some…

There is something of a meta-game there that doesn't exist in "real" cases like criminal investigations. Since everyone knows that they will be guilty some of the time, a reasonably strategy is to act guilty all of the time.

Except this comes in in real life all the time: "you don't need a lawyer here, you're not guilty..." - yes you do. You always need a lawyer. You always should plead the 5th if it applies. No, you should never be talking to law enforcement without a lawyer. No you should not let law enforcement "take a look around" without a warrant.

Real life is full of things you absolutely should do which are sold up and down through media as "looking guilty".

Re: How can you tell if someone is lying?

#73

Post by dredmorbius »

roenxi wrote: post #25

The article seems to have avoided mentioning the easy way of detecting a lie - go and collect some evidence then compare it to what the person is saying. Incentives count as weak evidence for detecting lies. While not foolproof, it is much more effective than looking for verbal cues. Detecting lies by assessing someone's demeanour is a symptom. The average person seem to have this unshakeable belief that they are psy…

The notion that behavioural tics can betray lying (or truth-telling) is also part of the kayfabye / stage dressing of truth-determination and vetting.

If you have a set of props (polygraph, truth-teller, various actual or fabricated observations, etc.) that you can present as a plausible basis for claiming someone is lying, then you can apply more severe psychological pressure, possibly getting them to break and confess, though often also simply forcing a false confession, a very real hazard.

(See various accounts suggesting that friendly-demeanor interrogation is far more useful.)

In the account I detailed in an earlier comment on this thread, I'd ... let slip to people who I thought might feed back my counterpart ... that I was in touch with some people who were incredibly good at hacking online information, and dug for (and revealed) a few details I'd turned up ... which actually were based on reverse-engineering a database structure and assessing the contents. (One ... glorious personal weakness of the adversary revealed some critical information I'd been looking for, in particular.) I suspect that message did find its way back, as my adversary was caught entirely unawares.

The net effects weren't entirely unlike a YouTube video on an "amazing mind reader" (actually warning of data surveillance and privacy ... on behalf of a bank): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7pYHN9iC9I

And the CIA's Crypto AG operation, in which a firm allegedly selling products to encrypt Telex communications had been back-doored for decades. The easiest way to decrypt or hack information is to have it in plaintext in the first place.

(Other than seeking justice in my own case, I've not made further use of the data I obtained. Though the information had proved tremendously useful, the experience was also a powerful cautionary tale as well.)

Re: How can you tell if someone is lying?

#74

Post by runawaybottle »

Best liar ever if you want to see how good some people’s poker face can be:

Prison escapee convinces cop he is actually a jogger: https://youtu.be/vBrnBmUmVzI

Liars of this type probably have been practicing in real situations where their lies got them something.

I think most of us (non nefarious people) don’t have to deal with lies of real significance. I’ve lied at stand-up, and I’m sure people know it. It’s a polite request for dignified forgiveness.

The only real lie that can happen in your life is with a spouse/partner, since that is a calamity in relative terms (betrayal). Kids/Teens will lie about a lot of things, but that should be expected (immaturity). Your company has to lie to you (business).

If for whatever reason you are dealing with major lies of any other kind, then you are probably dealing with a criminal.

So yeah, we should be bad at spotting serious liars since we have no business being around them (e.g your business is crime).

Re: How can you tell if someone is lying?

#75

Post by dredmorbius »

aidenn0 wrote: post #7

Any time I talk to someone about this evidence it's always "yeah, most people suck at telling liars, but I'm good at it." Lake Wobegon effect for people reading.

There's also the very strong confirmation bias.

We're all very good at detecting the liars we detect.

(This is the fundamental diagnostics fallacy. Absent some known ground truth, identifying hard-to-detect, hard-to-confirm phenomena is, well, hard.)

(This then gets coupled to the treatment fallacy, post hoc ergo prompter. I did A, B was cured, therefore A cured B.)

Re: How can you tell if someone is lying?

#76

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

parsimo2010 wrote: post #55
roenxi wrote: post #25

The article seems to have avoided mentioning the easy way of detecting a lie - go and collect some evidence then compare it to what the person is saying. Incentives count as weak evidence for detecting lies. While not foolproof, it is much more effective than looking for verbal cues. Detecting lies by assessing someone's demeanour is a symptom. The average person seem to have this unshakeable belief that they are psy…

Because that’s going beyond the idea of nonverbal cues. It’s easier to tell is someone is lying about a murder when you found the murder weapon with their fingerprints on it. If you have evidence you don’t really need to worry about spotting the lies.

Finger prints on a weapon does not prove guilt.

Perhaps you made a sandwich with that knife earlier in the day.

Perhaps you own the gun, and therefore of course it has your prints on it. That doesn't mean you fired the lethal shot.

Re: How can you tell if someone is lying?

#77

Post by neolog »

Godel_unicode wrote: post #57
dwighttk wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lake Woebegon effect is such a terrible name. It is very easily possible that every student in a small town is above average compared to e.g. the national average.

I have to question whether you're trying to prove GPs point, as this is hilariously incorrect. Unless you're using very unlikely values for easy and/or small.

I think you're right but I had to think about it and might not have noticed. How did you have that ready to go?

Re: How can you tell if someone is lying?

#78

Post by Clewza313 »

Godel_unicode wrote: post #59
easton wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Among Us is the most recent version of those games, and it made me realize how good my friends were at gaslighting me.

What if I told you that playing a low-stakes game and real life are not the same thing?

Most real life lies are also pretty low stakes. "Oh, I'd love to come to Aunt Mabel's party but I can't." "We should totally do lunch sometime."

Re: How can you tell if someone is lying?

#79

Post by eyelidlessness »

dataflow wrote: post #36
roenxi wrote: post #25

The article seems to have avoided mentioning the easy way of detecting a lie - go and collect some evidence then compare it to what the person is saying. Incentives count as weak evidence for detecting lies. While not foolproof, it is much more effective than looking for verbal cues. Detecting lies by assessing someone's demeanour is a symptom. The average person seem to have this unshakeable belief that they are psy…

> go and collect some evidence then compare it to what the person is saying It's so much easier said than done though. Think about an example that might come up in daily life. Say, someone says they're busy/absent/whatever at X time, but then you spot them at that time, very clearly to the contrary. Did they lie to you? Sure looks that way. But it could also be that their schedule just changed. How can you possibly t…

> Say, someone says they're busy/absent/whatever at X time, but then you spot them at that time, very clearly to the contrary. Did they lie to you? Sure looks that way. But it could also be that their schedule just changed.

Maybe they were just busy with the thing you spotted them doing? I’ve been “caught” a zillion times doing a thing by myself because I was booked on my own calendar and didn’t have time for anyone else

Re: How can you tell if someone is lying?

#80

Post by LocalPCGuy »

airstrike wrote: post #18
themgt wrote: post #12

This was good, and I mostly agree that using verbal strategies that amount to digging into/reviewing the details of what a person is claiming is the best way to detect liars. The TSA thing at the end seems like a bit of a derail though: But, Mann says, without knowing how many would-be terrorists slipped through security undetected, the success of such a program cannot be measured. And, in fact, in 2015 the acting he…

IIRC their 95% failure includes failing to spot explosives and the like in their scanners

I went through a screening with a "robot" - in quotes because it was literally a breadboard with a bunch of wires sticking out of it, a battery and a squarish box. Didn't even have to open the bag to show the agents what it was, went right through the scanner with no comment. And I was nervous as hell cause I was sure I was going to have to explain it, maybe even show that it worked. But nope, not a peep.
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