Lying Makes The Brain Work Harder 364
Ant writes "This Wired News article says it seems to take more brain effort to tell a lie than to tell the truth according to functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans. Lying caused activity in the frontal part of the brain -- the medial inferior and pre-central areas, as well as the hippocampus and middle temporal regions and the limbic areas. Some of these are involved in emotional responses. During a truthful response, the fMRI showed activation of parts of the brain's frontal lobe, temporal lobe and cingulate gyrus."
Thinking (Score:4, Interesting)
Pretty simple concept IMHO.
Univerersally applied? (Score:3, Interesting)
That is, if someone wants me to recall a fact from highschool biology, I can probably work hard to remember it. However, I could probably work a lot easier and just make something up.
This sort of thing has happened to me before. My parents once gave my sister and I a math problem, some multiplication of two large numbers. Much to my chagrin, my sister came up an answer the fastest, to which my parents replied "Wow! That's right!" I worked so quickly to try to come up with the right answer, and I fumed about her getting it right until I realized that she had just made up a number...my parents really didn't know the answer either, but by acting confidently like they did, I couldn't see the lies until a minute later.
I'm quite certain that my brain was working a lot harder to do the multiplication than my sister's, which had only to pull a reasonable-sounding number from thin air.
Re:Thinking (Score:5, Interesting)
And where the problems will arise are with those people who can lie. After all a lie is only a lie if the person telling the lie thinks it is. When the person thinks they are telling the truth then the lie is not a lie anymore. Its all relative!
Where I see serious problems with this is when people use it to test for terrorists. They will only catch those people who cannot lie. Those that can lie will pass through with flying colors and bomb everything. Great, I can see the excuses now, "But he was telling the truth..."
I wish there would be a little less technology and more reliance on common sense!
Re:No shit (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd be interested... (Score:5, Interesting)
It could be quite pertinent to find out if this were ever to be used seriously as a truth detection mechanism, as it could trip up in some situations, such as for instance a man who's just killed his wife, sitting in his car thinking to himself all the things he did today not killing his wife, essentially fabricating a story or lying to himself. When brought in for a lie detector test you really wouldn't want it showing that a murderer could indeed lie about comitting such an act without any sign showing that he was indeed lying. Of course, this method would be quite useless for questions which the subject hasn't had ample time to manufacture the truth for.
So.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Since it takes more "brain power" to lie then does that mean that smart people are better liars?
Nik
One reason lying works the brain harder (Score:3, Interesting)
"Liars have alot to remember."
-- an unknown but astute source
Re:Thinking (Score:3, Interesting)
Compulsive liars? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I'd be interested... (Score:5, Interesting)
When the subject is asked questions about the story, the subject will honestly answer with what s/he believes to be the truth.
"Yes, sir, there were definitely Iraqis among the 9-11 terrorists!"
Re:Then you must... (Score:5, Interesting)
Telling the truth is hard (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem lies in editing. For any complex situation, there are several truths that can be said, some relevant, and some not. You have to decide what your questioner really wants to know and think about that stuff.
You also have to turn that stuff into a coherent sentence. In my case, my mind generally works in a very fuzzy way. I don't really categorize things until someone asks me a question, so It is hard to untangle the fuzz and put it in a nice, complete package.
The final problem with telling the truth is the spin. You have to describe things in such a way that you look good and can't get trapped. Like the old "does this dress make me look fat?"-type questions, or pretty much anything you say to your boss.
With lies, these problems kind of solve themselves. When you make up a lie, you build in the spin and story from the start.
I'm not so sure... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Then you must... (Score:4, Interesting)
Your second paragraph is questionable, though. The machine detection does not measure believeability of the lies, rather it measures physical responses. Being intelligent is useless if you start shaking when you tell the lies. I am not saying that there are no people who could escape detection, but it's a different issue altogether.
Re:Then you must... (Score:2, Interesting)
The key here is to associate the lie with an insignificant past event. For example, the conversation was like this:
boss: blah, blah, blah, and why didn't you turn up to work. You could be fired for not attending work.
me: *fake suprise* What do you mean? We spoke of this last week at the meeting we had at the coffee shop (the meeting at the coffee shop actually happened).
boss will then remember the insignificant event, and because it was not significant, it will not be clear in his mind. His mind will then begin to fill in the blanks and if you are good, you will be able to insert the lie.
This is the tricky part as you have to remember exactly what happened at the meeting, as you are recollecting what happened like "We ordered the coffees, then you asked me how my weekend was. Then after that I asked you if I could have the day off, you agreed. You said that you were going to write it down when we got back to the office"
At this point, something will click and he will suddenly remember.
That is why a liar needs a good memory.
Re:Err, of course? (Score:2, Interesting)
In this case, people who recite the Nicene Creed, which was the second link in the parent post, are in fact, reciting a lie. They are saying "I believe" to each of the statements, when they don't really believe.
This is actually a pretty deep statement by the parent. I doubt he meant it that way, since the first link implies that all people who believe that which they do not see are idiots, but sometimes you can get a good kernel of corn out of a turd.
No way! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Then you must... (Score:4, Interesting)
In the UK you have to tell the appropriate authorities if you dig up human remains and the police got interested because this bog was only a few hundred yards from a house where a woman had mysteriously disappeared about 20 years before. The police had always suspected the husband, but he had always claimed innocence.
The police went back to him and told him that they had found remains and the guy cracked. He confessed to them how he had killed his wife and dumped her body in the bog.
Several months later, the archaeologist got his results back from the lab proving that the skeleton was Iron Age.
Ooops.
As a corollary to lying and brian measurements... (Score:3, Interesting)
They strapped a suspect in a chair and showed them a carefully laid out sequence of images on a TV screen, some benign images (like bowls of ice cream or a beachball) but some are details about the crime (if murder, show police photos of the corpse, or show some evidence left behind like a scarf or jewelry that the victim didn't own, or possible accomplises already linked to the crime). While this went on, the scientists measured brain activity and they could tell when a suspect "remembers" pictures, the parts of the brain fire off and the scientists can see it. When the suspects brain indicates it remembers and it's on a crime photo, they can reasonably presume the suspect had something to do with it.
Of course this has limitations, like what if the suspect was under the influence of something, or the materials about the crime aren't effective enough, but it's much harder to fool your brain.
Re:On the contrary (Score:3, Interesting)
Partying used to be such an adventure.
only for beginners (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Then you must... (Score:2, Interesting)
Several months later, the archaeologist got his results back from the lab proving that the skeleton was Iron Age.
While this is an amusing story, I have my doubts. It took several months to get the results back? I'm no archaeologist, but this reeks of urban legend. Really, what kind of test takes several months? Wouldn't the police have done their own analysis? Did they look at dental records or anything? Wow, the more I think of this, the more ridiculous it seems.
Re:Err, of course? (Score:1, Interesting)
- there are things you absorb from your environment, by indirectly witnessing their effects (Gender roles)
- there are things you manipulate or exaggerate ("my friend" did that, not me!)
- there are things you entirely fabricate (it was space aliens! i swear)
- there are things you have witnessed (your honor, i saw the front of the larger vehicle come towards the smaller vehicle from the side opposite my vantage point, after which the larger vehicle halted, and the smaller vehicle moved suddenly and briefly toward me)
- there are things you have witnessed but fill in the assumed details (the larger vehicle hit the smaller vehicle)
(confused about the difference between the last two? read heinlein's stranger in a strange land, and pay attention to the fair witnesses)
All of these require varying amounts of brainpower, depending on your preparedness and trained ability to lie, and perhaps your trained ability to
Re:On the contrary (Score:5, Interesting)
You don't actually have to believe it. You just have to have previously constructed the memory in your mind. People react differently when remembering things than they do when creatively "making something up." A common tell is when people glance up and to the left while speaking. This is a common indicator of creative thought. A good liar will have rehearsed or fantasized a lie in their head. When asked about it, they remember what they rehearsed, rather than creating it on the spot. Especially talented liars base their lies upon a true experience to prevent details from tripping them up. This way they do not have to think up anything on the fly.
I'd be very curious to see what is shown in these scans when a well trained professional is put to the test. I suspect they are just detecting how creative thought differs from memory retrieval and that classic lying techniques will fool this new method as well.
Re:Then you must... (Score:4, Interesting)
just enough details to be believable
I mentioned this in another post, but it bears repeating. A well trained liar does not make up a story from scratch with a certain level of detail. This is a good way to get caught as an unexpected question about a detail may indicate that you are lying. It is best to base your story on a previous experience, even one unrelated to the story. Ideally you should base it on something similar to what you want the interrogator to believe. If you want to lie and say you did not shoot someone when you did, talk about a night two weeks previous to the night in question but with the differences you want to incorporate rehearsed in your mind. By blending a real experience with fiction, inconsequential details are just memories of that real experience, and do not require any creativity. When you say you were at home with a good book, you can easily describe what you were reading about, wearing, eating, etc.
Another voice saying "Duh" (Score:2, Interesting)
The Science Channel had a good program recently about the stages humans have to go through in order to learn how to lie. A big part of it is the ability to model what other people know and what is detectable as differences in reality.
For instance, in the show, children age 3 and under couldn't fathom that anyone had information they didn't, and also couldn't understand that others didn't know everything they do. So when they lie, they make up information about things they know nothing about, and assume you know nothing about, either. One example is, you play Guess Which Hand? and they just show you which hand the object is in because they know which it is, and think therefore that you automatically know that which hand it is, also.
Clearly, a lot more of the brain is absolutely going to be involved in lying than in truth-telling. That is, if you're actually trying to deceive someone and aren't just being sarcastic:
--You have to recall events as they were, so you're doing exactly the work there that you would if telling the straight truth.
--In addition, you're modeling the physical characteristics of events and whether they could fit with what the other person has and will experience during the time period affected by the lie.
--And on top of that, the emotive portions are going to be relied on for modeling the emotive characteristics of those you're lying to so you can figure out A) are they buying it? B)if suspicious, how far might they go to unravel the deception?
I'm sure really bad liars use less of their brain to make their lies, and are thus less succesful.
How many times has someone lied to you, and your reaction was, "They lied to me" AND "They think I'm stupid!" It isn't so much they think you're stupid, it's that it's very hard for people to lie successfully to people who are smarter than they are.