Despite all the advice about lie detection going around,
study after study has found that it is very difficult to spot when someone is
lying.
Previous tests involving watching videos of suspects
typically find that both experts and non-experts come in at around 50/50: in
other words you might as well flip a coin.
Now, though, a new study published in Human Communication
Research, has found that a process of active questioning yielded almost perfect
results, with 97.8% of liars successfully detected.
The process of lie detection has nothing to do with supposed
‘tells’ like avoiding eye-contact or sweating, and everything to do with the
way the suspect is questioned.
In the series of studies, participants played a trivia game
in which they were secretly offered a chance to cheat.In one experiment 12%
cheated and in another 44.9% chose to cheat.
Participants were then interviewed using a variety of active
questioning techniques.One group were interrogated using the Reid Technique,
which is employed by many law enforcement professionals in North America.
It involves tactics like presuming the suspect is guilty,
shifting the blame away from the suspect and asking loaded questions like “Did
you plan this or did it just happen?”
This technique was 100% effective with all 33 guilty
participants owning up to their ‘crime’.A second group were interviewed by US
federal agents with substantial experience of interrogation.
They were able to detect 97.8% of people that cheated — in
reality all but two of 89 people.Bear two things in mind, though:
The Reid Techniques’ detractors say that it can lead to
false confessions.
Participants in this study did not have that much to lose by
admitting their guilt. It wasn’t as if they’d murdered their spouses.
Active questioning .. Across the different types of
interrogation, though, the important factor was that the questioning was active
and of the kind used in real interrogations.
Professor Timothy Levine of Michigan State University, who
led the study, said:“This research suggests that effective questioning is
critical to deception detection.”
Asking bad questions can actually make people worse than
chance at lie detection, and you can make honest people appear guilty.
But, fairly minor changes in the questions can really
improve accuracy, even in brief interviews.
This has huge implications for intelligence and law
enforcement.”
Professor Levine believes lies are partly so difficult to
detect because in normal, everyday life we have a presumption of honesty.
“The presumption of honesty is highly adaptive.
It enables efficient communication, and this presumption of
honesty makes sense because most communication is honest most of the time.
However, the presumption of honesty makes humans vulnerable
to occasional deceit.”
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