You will find the techniques described in the article used when you are traveling into Israel. I've gone through this many many times, and am still often taken aback by the weird questions I sometimes get asked by their officers. Still, the whole process is rather smooth and I've never been detained or even treated unfairly.
Better and worse ways to spot a liar
21–30 of 152 posts
Re: Better and worse ways to spot a liar
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why single out rape trials specifically?
Rape is interesting in this regard because it is an especially severe crime that might be very hard to proof. Murder has a body and a weapon, but rape might be indistinguishable from consensual sex, when you just look at hard physical evidence (medical examination, text messages, ...). If you want to give justice to most rape victims, you have to decide who is lying, and who is saying the truth.
Rape is also a crime where people incorrectly judge what a real victim acts like, and are likely to assume actual victims are lying.
Re: Better and worse ways to spot a liar
#23> Ironically, liars turn out to be better lie detectors. What is ironic about that? If I understand how to lie to other humans, why is it anything but expected that I would be able to recognize that skill in other people?
If you as a liar are good at detecting liars, then wouldn't it be logical that you could detect honesty as well, being the opposite?
Well then take the opposite. What about honest people, do they recognize honest people better? I don't know, just asking, wondering. It could even be that honest people recognize honesty better than liars, while at the same time liars are better lie detectors.
Then there has to be a middle group I guess - what are they?
Re: Better and worse ways to spot a liar
#24Spotting petty liars is the least of one's problem. As normal people expose more information in the Internet, it becomes increasingly difficult to be a liar, almost impossible.
Still, the 'big lies' are just getting stronger and these techniques are useless on them. How many political identities can be dismantled by 'surprise'?
Re: Better and worse ways to spot a liar
#25> Ironically, liars turn out to be better lie detectors. What is ironic about that? If I understand how to lie to other humans, why is it anything but expected that I would be able to recognize that skill in other people?
If you as a liar are good at detecting liars, then wouldn't it be logical that you could detect honesty as well, being the opposite? Well then take the opposite. What about honest people, do they recognize honest people better? I don't know, just asking, wondering. It could even be that honest people recognize honesty better than liars, while at the same time liars are better lie detectors. Then there has to be a mid…
Presumably, liars don't lie all the time, so they do both lying and honesty enough to be able to tell the difference.
I also don't really know, but it sounds plausible :)
Re: Better and worse ways to spot a liar
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
After a bit of searching it's probably this study: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wizards_Project#Synopsis Granhag, Pär; Strömwall, Leid (2004). The Detection of Deception in Forensic Contexts.
No, that's from 11 years ago. The actual paper was linked lower down: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10180932
I'm talking about the "study, just 50 out of 20,000 people managed to make a correct judgement with more than 80% accuracy" which was asked by the grandparent post, not the paper by the people interviewed in the article.
Re: Better and worse ways to spot a liar
#27You will find the techniques described in the article used when you are traveling into Israel. I've gone through this many many times, and am still often taken aback by the weird questions I sometimes get asked by their officers. Still, the whole process is rather smooth and I've never been detained or even treated unfairly.
I once vacationed in Colombia and upon return to the States (I'm American) was questioned by two 'tough guys' upon entry. I was with my brother and they both asked us 3-4 rapid-fire simple, unopen questions, repeating the questions in virtually the same ways about 3 different times in just a few minutes. Our only thought in the moment was they must have been simpletons or simply bad at their job.
- Why were you there? - Vacation. - How long were you there? - 2 weeks. - Who did you go with? - Him (points to brother)
Treating people like idiots, and while asking dumb questions, doesn't seem to be the best way to spot a liar. I'm glad the science of it is improving.
Re: Better and worse ways to spot a liar
#28You will find the techniques described in the article used when you are traveling into Israel. I've gone through this many many times, and am still often taken aback by the weird questions I sometimes get asked by their officers. Still, the whole process is rather smooth and I've never been detained or even treated unfairly.
The way I see it there are at least two possible ways to "fight" against this, that is if you're on the liar's side.
The first one is to offer to whoever is questioning you a "local maximum" victory, i.e. to pretend to hide a smaller lie compared to the bigger one you're supposed to be hiding. In the case you mentioned, you could pretend to be "covering up" the fact that you've been cheating on your SO, hence all the non-concordances related to your past locations. When the guys questioning you finally realize that you're lying on something, they'd think you had been doing so out of fear of not being seen as an unfaithful spouse, when in reality you want to blow things up (just to give an example). The downside to this strategy is that this fails when the "admission criteria" is 0 and 1, you're either a liar, which means you're out, or not, which means you're in. The one mitigating factor is that almost everybody lies all the time.
The second strategy is to be so good at this as to believe in your lies/stories you're telling. This is a little sociopath bordering on schizophrenic, but I've seen some people doing it almost to perfection (granted, the stakes were not very high). The one weak point of this is that you have to know exactly when and how to push the on/off switch.
Re: Better and worse ways to spot a liar
#29But they tested it with fake liars, who, in my humble opinion, are less likely to exhibit emotions, and more likely to be too lazy to come up with good details on the fly for back stories.
Maybe it is just me that is sweatier and wilier when stressed.
Re: Better and worse ways to spot a liar
#30Not sure if trying to "trap" the liar is always the right way to go. Once I had to work with a freelance web master and we were trying to cancel his contract and make him transfer the domain name to us (an association I was working for). I confronted him by asking politely for a written copy of his contract because I thought he was lying about the length of the contract. He was insulted and claimed there was a verbal…
Pointing out a lie does little when it can't be punished with consequences; you were relying on the freelancer's conscience for a favourable outcome.
Border agents have the law, manpower, firepower, and territory on their side and are ready to use it at a moment's notice.