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How to Tell if Someone is Lying |
Humans lie. And ever since Adam said "What Apple?" humans without omniscient means to look inside each others' heads have been searching for easier clues. Technology joined the fray measuring physiological changes that indicated stress. But the tech assumes liars experience stress when telling untruths ---and this is not always the case. People may feel stress in those situations but for other reasons as well. Truth serums, in the form of barbituates like sodium pentothal, were believed to rewire the brain making it impossible to lie. But the subjects were usually so sedated it made it impossible for them to speak as well.
The latest technological advances discovered blood flows differently in the brain when someone is lying. Areas associated with cognitive control, like the amygdala and thalamas linked to the inner editor, have been implicated in fMRI research. But there's an easier way to ferret out the truth, it simply requires a special type of question.
Say someone claims they've been in the library all day studying so there is no way they could have been part of that wild block party that broke the back windshield of your mint condition 1977 Gremlin. What would you ask them to find out the truth? Here's the secret...
"Ah, ok. Must have been a lot of wild stuff going on, I heard someone pulled the fire alarm in the library too, did they have to evacuate everybody?"
Now, if he asks what the heck you are talking about, chances are he was in the library. If he incorporates your lie to add further substantiation to his story, you got him. Try it out, you may discover some interesting things.
KarasuTengu blogs about topics on psychology, science, culture and other oddities.
http://karasutengu.blogspot.com/
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