4 ms·
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 d
by parsimo2010 6y ago
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? Is someone not looking a cop in the eye because they are lying, or because staring someone in the eye is perceived as defiance in many cultures and they don’t want to anger the cop? We’ll probably never be perfectly accurate at spotting lies. A bunch of biometric measurements might help, but current polygraph techniques can allegedly be beaten with training. If trained polygraph techs with special equipment can be beat I don’t know what rules of thumb we’re ever going to give to the general public that will work.
If you know someone really well, you might have a decent chance of knowing when they are acting unusual. Such is the case with parents and teenagers, but suspicion often gets the best of the parents and they misinterpret the cues that they spotted.
A good method would seem to be to catch someone on a logical contradiction, but that has issues when someone is under emotional distress. And emotional distress tends to appear often when someone is innocent but is afraid the evidence points towards them. The family cat may have knocked over Mom’s favorite vase, but the child is less interested in the truth and more interested in avoiding a spanking- so they embellish whatever story they had (in a misguided attempt to make it more believable), which introduces contradictions that the mom notices. The kid technically lied with the embellishments but was innocent of breaking a vase, and gets spanked when they didn’t deserve it. Then imagine the kid’s emotional distress being even higher the next time something happens.
I’m sure that there are a lot of learned people out there that study lying, but I agree with the article’s main theme that most of us can’t reliably tell when our why someone is lying, and we’re overconfident in our abilities.
- clouddrover 6y ago> current polygraph techniques can allegedly be beaten with training No training is needed because polygraphs don't work. Polygraph testing is about as worthwhile as astrology: https://www.apa.org/research/action/polygraph https://www.apa.org/research/action/polygraph https://www.salon.com/2000/03/02/polygraph/ https://www.salon.com/2000/03/02/polygraph/ And inadmissible in court in many places: http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/MurUEJL/2000/6.html http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/MurUEJL/2000/6.html > if trained polygraph techs with special equipment There are no trained polygraph techs. They are, at best, con artists.
- gameswithgo 6y agoThat your post has been downvoted is disheartening. Your reply was factually correct, cited, and reasonably polite. Perhaps instead of saying "at best" they are con artists, it would have been more polite to say at worst, they are con artists. Probably many earnestly believe in what they are doing, and are just wrong.
- seppin 6y agoOne thing to add: > And inadmissible in court in many places: I'm not aware of any place that accepts polygraphs in a court.
- clouddrover 6y agoThen I'll quote the article: "In the United States of America, (where polygraph testing is a growth industry) the admissibility of lie detector test results is determined by courts and legislators on a State by State basis. In the Federal legal system, test results are inadmissible as substantive evidence. Whilst some States have allowed test results in criminal trials, States such as such as California have prohibited the admission of such evidence unless all parties consent to its admission."
- seppin 6y agoHas anyone been convicted on a pollygraph alone? If so, that's a scandal.
- judge2020 6y ago> It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.
- anon_tor_12345 6y agoTo be precise: a lot of people (even on hn, especially on hn) are personally and practically invested in authoritarian practices being legitimate.
- savanaly 6y agoIt gets even hazier, frankly, when you realize that not every statement you make can be firmly categorized as a truth or lie. Due to cognitive dissonance our lies to others can soon become lies to ourselves, and where do you draw the line between wholly believing in a lie to yourself and being flat-out mistaken?
- wespiser_2018 6y agoThis is another good point: you can be interrogating (or interviewing) a suspect under investigation, use a withholding technique and successfully catch them in a lie, only to have them lying for a completely unrelated reason to the original inquiry. From what I've gathered, the best lies under interrogation are the ones with the most components of the truth and minimal superfluous information. The police will do everything to get you to talk and keep talking, which is why legal representation is so key.
- strogonoff 6y agoThere’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-and-psychopaths/ 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.
- itronitron 6y agointeresting, you should submit this as a top level post
- aaron_m04 6y agoWhat? The zeromq guy died?
- socksy 6y agoYes. He was diagnosed with lung cancer and chose euthanasia. http://hintjens.com/blog:115 http://hintjens.com/blog:115 and https://twitter.com/hintjens/status/783254242052206592 https://twitter.com/hintjens/status/783254242052206592
- airhead969 6y agoThe people who study lying the most are the ones who counter it for a living: police, interrogators, investigators, and business people.