New behavioral signs of deception

Lecture



Further studies conducted over the past two years have confirmed and expanded the results regarding the importance of facial expressions and voice in identifying fraud. Evaluating the facial expressions of female students nurses at the time of the image or truth, we found differences between the two types of smiles. When the students actually enjoyed it, their faces had smiles more felt (see Figure 5A, press), and when they lied, they had so-called smile-masks on their faces (in addition to smiling lips, signs of sadness were seen [Figure 3A] , fear [Figure 3B], anger [Figure 3B and Figure 4] or aversion) [243] .
The existence of various types of smiles was also confirmed by studies of children and adults conducted in America and other countries in a variety of circumstances, not limited to situations involving falsehood. We found that with sincere smiles, the sensations of people and the processes occurring in their brains are different from those of all other smiles. The best sign of the sincerity of a smile caused by the feeling of pleasure is the participation in it not only of the lips, but also of the muscles located around the eyes [244] .
However, wrinkles in the form of "spider legs" at the outer corners of the eyes do not always indicate the sincerity of a smile. "Spider legs" are a reliable sign of the sincerity of a smile only if the person is not very pleased and smiles slightly. With a wide smile, the lips are strongly stretched, which in itself leads to the appearance of "spider legs", and then you need to pay attention to the eyebrows. In the case of sincere pleasure, the muscles of the eyes are involved in the smile, and then the eyebrows drop a little. This is a subtle sign, but, as we found out, people can notice it without any special training [245] .
We also found that during the lie, the timbre of the students' voices was getting higher. It is assumed that the timbre of the voice of a person enjoying a pleasant and quiet scene should not be raised. However, such a change in timbre indicates emotional arousal and is not in itself a sign of deception. In addition, not all lied girls had voice and mimic signs of deception at the same time. Nevertheless, when using both sources of information, the results of the lie determination turned out to be better: “the record level is 86%. But this means that nevertheless there were 14% of erroneous judgments, even based on two signs such as facial expressions and voice, we considered that those who spoke the truth were lying, and those who were lying were telling the truth. Thus, while these signs are true for most people, it cannot be said that they apply to everyone. I do not think that someday we will get a set of behavioral signs that will be equally true for all people. Some people are naturally prone to acting, and they are difficult to catch in a lie, others are so peculiar that signs of a lie that are true for others do not apply to them.
In the new, not yet completed work, Dr. Mark Frank and I discovered the first evidence of my thought that some people are naturally artistic and are excellent liars, and some cannot lie and fail to deceive anyone. Dr. Frank and I set up an experiment in which participants could lie or tell the truth according to two scenarios. In the first scenario, they could imitate theft, taking $ 50 from the portfolio. If they managed to convince the “investigator” that they did not take the money, they could keep the money. In the second scenario, they had to express their opinion on some pressing issue, such as abortion or the death penalty, and they could tell the truth or lie. Frank found that those who had lied successfully in the first situation, had just as successfully lied to the second, and those who were easily caught for the insincerity of the opinion expressed were just as easily found in the situation of theft [246] .
Many of the arguments cited in the previous chapters suggest the seemingly obvious idea that the success of each particular lie depends much more on the nature of the lie than on the abilities of the liar himself. But, most likely, both of these factors play a certain role. Some people lie so skillfully or so ineptly that the situation and the specifics of a particular lie does not matter; anyway, the first will manage to deceive, and the second will be convicted of lying. However, the majority does not fall into the extreme categories, and for such people the success of a lie depends on who they lie to, what they lie and what is at stake.

Comments


To leave a comment
If you have any suggestion, idea, thanks or comment, feel free to write. We really value feedback and are glad to hear your opinion.
To reply

Psychology of lies

Terms: Psychology of lies