How to catch a liar (it's harder than you think)
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
ABC Listen. Podcasts, radio, news, music and more. Tammy Shipley believed someone was out to hurt her. I thought someone was after me and I wanted to just be safe. She's put under 24-hour surveillance.
I tried to get in contact multiple times.
And then something strange happens. She just drank and drank and had something like 20 litres of pure water.
Ambulance emergency. I've got a woman unconscious.
So every now and then, at the start or end of an interview, I will ask the person I'm speaking to how they got interested in their line of work. Sometimes the answers are interesting, sometimes they're not. Rebecca Wilcoxon's answer for how she got into studying lie detection has to be one of the funniest I have ever heard. Especially because the story starts straightforward enough.
When I was younger, my uncle Peter, he worked for ASIO. And he was this really cool guy that spoke multiple languages and looked like a spy. I think that's why I got really interested in forensics. And then it takes a turn. And I once, many years ago, was in a relationship with someone who really lied a lot. So I... I think that played into it because I once figured out a way to tell if he was lying and it worked for quite a bit.
What was your way? How did you work that out? What was it? What was the method?
So, yeah, he used to lie for just reasons unknown. He was just one of these people that lied a fair bit. Anyway, there was one time he told me some story and I knew it wasn't true. I can't remember what exactly it was, but I had hard evidence that it wasn't true and And I said to him, I know that you're lying because I've figured out a way to tell when you're lying.
What inspired Rebecca to study lie detection?
And he goes, oh, is that right? And I said, yes, it is. And he said, well, what is it? I said, you do something with your face. I'm not going to tell you, but you do something with your face when you're lying to me. So for quite some time after that, when every now and then when he's saying something, he'd hold his face really still.
Oh, my God. So you kind of set him up either way.
I did. So that worked for quite some time. Oh, that's so funny.
So were you making it up the first time around when you said it?
Yes, I was. I was making it up. It's just that I had hard evidence. And, yeah, I was just being nasty and said it to him. But then... Yeah, every now and then he'd be telling me something to hold his face really still and go, you're lying.
Rebecca, that is amazing. I'm obsessed with that. All the women of the world and the men of the world can use this now to like catch their partners out.
That's when I knew I wanted to study psychology, I think.
I love it. That's probably the best origin story I've ever heard. So thank you.
You're welcome.
Dr. Rebecca Wilcoxon is no longer a jilted girlfriend. She is a lecturer in forensic and social psychology at CQ University. And as you probably already worked out, today we are talking about lie detection. And it turns out most of us think we're pretty good at spotting when someone is lying. And most of us are dead wrong.
Your lie detection ability, it approximates chance. Judging lies via non-verbal behaviour is, has, will be connected to wrongful convictions.
So is there anything that does work? And can lying show up on brain scans?
I can give you a lie detector, let's say, that has 99% accuracy in the lab, but unless I can tell you that we are actually measuring lying with full validity, there is always going to be a way for somebody to cheat that.
From ABC Radio National, this is All in the Mind. I'm Sana Khadar. And today it's our fourth and last episode in Forensic, our special series about the psychological tools used to crack crimes. What works, what doesn't, and where things go wrong. And today, the lies we've been told about lie detection.
What are some key beliefs that people kind of have about their ability to tell when someone is lying? Because, you know, there is a lot that's said out there about body language and eye contact. What are some of the beliefs that people have that might not be entirely correct?
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–2:02
2
What inspired Rebecca to study lie detection?
2:02–15:57
3
What misconceptions do people have about detecting lies?
15:57–24:23
4
How do body language cues mislead us in lie detection?
24:23–35:02
5
What methods are used in lie detection research?
35:02–35:10