The study, "Early versus Late Disclosure of Evidence: Effects on Verbal Cues to Deception, Confessions, and Lie Catchers' Accuracy" by Jordan and colleagues attempts to pinpoint the elements of coerced confessions among other aspects in subterfuge. The dilemma with this study is that all attempts to make it seem as organic and realistic as possible in order to capture genuine human responses were not well executed, such as the mock interrogation room. No parts of the study design were strong or compelling enough to elicit aspects of human behavior that could provide a consistency or organic quality of response. Furthermore, the researchers often fall into the trap of creating research designs which are too complex to provide real use.
Lie Detection: Recent Research and Examination
The study, "Early vs. Late Disclosure of Evidence: Effects on Verbal
Cues to Deception, Confessions, and Lie Catchers' Accuracy" by Jordan and colleagues attempts to pinpoint the elements of coerced confessions among other aspects in subterfuge. The dilemma with this study is that all attempts to make it seem as organic and realistic as possible in order to capture genuine human responses were not well executed, such as the mock interrogation room. No parts of the study design were strong or compelling enough to elicit aspects of human behavior that could provide a consistency or organic quality of response. Furthermore, the researchers often fall into the trap of creating research designs which are too complex to provide real use.
A researcher who doesn't make the mistake of creating an overly-complex research design is Dr. Richard Wiseman. His experiments use simple, straightforward methods to attempt to find trends in human behavior and human perception of lying. For example, the BBC allowed Wiseman to conduct research on their show: he interviewed breakfast anchorman Chris Hollins about his family vacation of choice: in one segment Hollins is lying (talking about Wales); in the other segment he is telling the truth (talking about France) (BBC, 2007). Viewers were asked to vote about which answer was correct and there was generally a 50-50 split in the votes, a fact which corresponds with other consistent findings of Wiseman on lying, namely that most people are very poor at spotting liars (BBC, 2007). According to Wiseman, the average lay person thinks that liars fidget with their hands a lot and generally avoid eye contact; this is apparently not the case at all (Amos, 2002). Wiseman has found that because liars are working so hard to present the semblance of truth, they will work hard to maintain eye contact and sit still; rather, Wiseman stresses the important of looking for pauses in speech, short sentences and errors (Amos, 2002).
At the same time, there's still a great deal about lying and deception that researchers don't quite understand. A study published in the journal Emotion in 2008 involves around 60 Northeastern University students fill out a computerized form which required that they place their grade point average. Subsequently, the students were hooked up to a machine which measured their nervous system, and interviewed one on one. The interviewer discussed the students' grades with them and researchers found that students actually become more relaxed when lying about their grades, a type of relaxation that occurs during meditation or in a positive social encounter (Carey, 2008). Researchers explained that some students even lied to the extent that they added .6 point to their grade point average, and became more comfortable when they did so, something that would surprise researchers. The researchers in this study explained this phenomenon as being a result of the fact that these were more like "exaggerations" than outright lies, and represented goals that the students were aspiring to. Likewise, later research studies demonstrated that many of the students actually did reach the grade-point-average goals that they had outlined in their "exaggerations/lies" making a stronger case for the fact that these mistruths should not exactly be treated as such, but should be viewed more correctly as exaggerations and desired aspirations.
However, such a treatment just mitigates the dishonesty. Viewing these students' lies in this fashion just softens the disturbing results that the researchers found. It's entirely possible that lying makes people feel more relaxed; some people might even enjoy lying. It's also possible that an individual's biological reaction to lying might be entirely dependent on what he or she is lying about. For example, lying about things related to careers goals might be easier than lying about one's fears, phobias or personal life. In this sense, the research study is far too one dimensional to not take these issues into account.
This study marks one of the major flaws that is being conducted in research nowadays about lying. Many researchers too readily place a positive spin on lying when they attempt to interpret the "white lies" that people tell multiple times a day in social interaction. University of Massachusetts psychologist Robert Feldman, who studies lies and the act of lying particularly in seemingly innocuous social interactions, has found that people use lies as a tool to make social interaction simpler, easier and more pleasant for all involved. Feldman among others views it as a useful tool, at least socially. This issue is something that indeed needs more exploration as experiments where the opposite is done -- where people aren't allowed to tell white lies in social interaction. This would more readily expose the motivating factors that lead people to tell lies and more likely shed light on what people are afraid of, as exhibited by the lies they tell.
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