Setting aside any ethical concerns, whether we realize it or not, lying on some scale is something what we do on a daily basis.
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But what goes on in your brain when you willfully deceive someone? And how can you spot when someone is lying to your face?
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⚫What happens in your brain?
1) The frontal lobe is activated: This is involved in suppressing or inhibiting the truth.
2) The limbic system is activated: This is involved in the increased anxiety from the deception.
3) The temporal lobe: This is associated with memory encoding and retrieval, it is involved in checking whether the mental imagery is correct.
4) When someone tells the truth, an alternate cognitive process occurs: Fewer brain areas are active in the frontal and limbic system as they are not inhibiting truth or becoming anxious.
⚫Studies have shown that compulsive liars have up to 26% more white matter in their prefrontal cortex, so they are better at making connections between thoughts not connected in reality. E.g. "me" and "a fighter pilot".
⚫A lie detector (polygraph) measures the activity in the limbic system - the anxiety felt by the subject.
A lie detector can therefore be fooled if a subject is unusually calm or anxious during the test. A lie detectors accuracy has been quoted between 50% and 90%, due to this their use Is restricted in court proceedings.
⚫The movement and lying:
The movement of someone's eyes can tell you what part of the brain they are accessing. You can try and tell if someone is constructing made up information or genuinely recalling what happened by which way they look:
⚫Up and left: Indicates visually constructed imagines (a purple buffalo)
⚫To the left: Indicates auditory constructed sounds (the highest sound of a pitch possible)
⚫Down and left: Indicates feeling, smell or taste (Can you remember the smell of campfire?)
• Up and right: Visually remembered images (Which colour was the first house you lived in?)
• To the right: Auditory remembered sounds (What does your mother's voice sounds like?)
⚫Down and right: Internal dialogue (As they talk to themselves)
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This is the most common model but is not the same with everyone. Before relying on it, do some groundwork to see which way people took when creating or remembering information.
⚫Daily dose of lying
Most people lie once or twice a day - almost as often as they snack from the refrigerator or brush their teeth.
