Monday, November 4, 2013

Deception Detection I

I have been studying Body language and Deception Detection (Are you lying?) for about 2 years now.

I thought I would share some tips on Detecting lies.

Ok, so let’s get started...

Basically, deception detection is the art of knowing when the truth is not spoken, or detecting any way of un-truthful communication. The world we live in is full of ways to communicate, like: Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, MySpace, Mxit, Whatsapp, Viber, SMS, Skype, Email, Meetings, Parties, etc etc etc

Communication is all around us and there are 3 main categories of communication.

1. Text (actual letters and language, like what you are reading now.)
{
2. Verbal (This is mainly tone of voice, and accent)
3. Visual (This is body language, Lip reading, etc)
}
Numbers 2 and 3 together are actually categories of body language (non-text), but I will split them for this post.

If you are asking someone a question, like: "What is your name?" (Assuming that the person is standing in front of you) only 7% of the total amount of information conveyed, is contained in the actual words "what is your name".
The other 93% of communication is the tone of voice and body posture etc. Have you ever wondered why some people misunderstand your text messages? Well, now you know. That's why calling them is a better option for sharing important information.

Anyway, for a lie to be successful there must be a person telling the lie and someone believing the lie. There are a lot of reasons why people lie. By far the most common reason is to make oneself look better (or not worse). It is human nature to protect the "image" you are revealing to other people. Sadly, a lot of people lie to protect that "image".

Let me just say something about this "image". It does not refer to physical appearance, like a big nose or skew eyes. It has to do with what people think of you. Do they like your personality and your reputation and things as such.

It is very easy to lie. Nobody has to teach you how to lie. You are born with the ability to lie. But here is something you did not know: Nobody wants to lie. This might be a strange thing to think about. People actually feel bad when they lie. This means that they know the truth, because why would someone feel bad if the victim of his lie does not suspect him of lying? Most of the things people say throughout the day is truth. The human brain recognizes a pattern of behavior when the truth is spoken. As soon as a lie is told, the brain picks up on this and your body acts differently than the pattern that it is used to. The skill of deception detection is to analyze different patterns of behavior, and to detect deviations from these patterns, when it is suspected that a lie is being told.

I will be giving some hints as to what to look for to identify universal behavior. But first, a few rules.

1. Notice: I used the word "universal" in the sentence above, which means means: It does not apply to every person you come in contact with.
So it's important to NEVER JUMP TO CONCLUSIONS!!!

2. As I said, your brain has a pattern of reaction and speech in truthful conditions. But this is different for each person. So, you first have to establish something called a baseline. This is the "Normal" way a person behaves.

Wait!!!! This post is getting way too long. The next post will be full of fun ways to find out if someone is lying. There are more than 37 ways to ensure that you get the truth out of your "victim".

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