Lying

"I apologize, my phone died."

"It's not important."

"I am good."

These accusations are totally untrue."

"There was no wrongdoing that the company was aware of."

"You are my love."

We hear anywhere between 10 and 200 lies a day, and we've spent a lot of time in history developing methods to catch them, from medieval torture devices to polygraphs, blood pressure and breathing monitors, voice stress analyzers, eye trackers, infrared brain scanners, and even the 400-pound electroencephalogram. Even though some of these tools have been successful in certain situations, none are thought to be trustworthy enough to be admitted into evidence in court. On a psychological level, we lie in part to create a better image of ourselves, connecting our fantasies to the person we wish we were rather than the person we are.

However, what if the issue is not with the techniques, but the fundamental premise that lying causes physiological changes? What if we took a more direct approach, using communication science to analyze the lies themselves? However, a lot of signals are getting lost while our brain is focused on dreaming. Stories based on imagined experiences are qualitatively distinct from those based on real experiences, according to the literature on reality monitoring. Our conscious mind only controls about 5 percent of our cognitive function, including communication, while the other 95 percent occurs outside of our awareness.

This implies that fabricating a story about something personal requires effort and yields a different linguistic pattern. Four such recurring patterns in the subconscious language of deception have been discovered with the aid of a technology called linguistic text analysis. First, when making false statements, liars make fewer references to themselves. In order to distance themselves from their lies and make them sound more false, they write or speak more about other people, frequently using the third person to say things like, "Absolutely no party took place at this house" or "I didn't host a party here. Second, because they subconsciously feel bad about lying, liars frequently have a negative outlook on life. A liar might, for instance, say, "Sorry, my stupid phone battery died. That thing annoys me. Third, since our brains find it difficult to construct a complex lie, liars typically describe events in layman's terms. Our brains must make complex calculations in order to perform judgment and evaluation.

Aa a famous person once said, I did not have sexual relations with that woman, this person famously insisted. And finally, even though they keep their descriptions brief, liars often pad their lies with longer, more complex sentences that contain extraneous words and irrelevant but factual-sounding details. One president who faced a scandal said, "I can say categorically that this investigation indicates that no one on the White House staff, no one in this administration currently employed was involved in this very bizarre incident. Let's examine some well-known examples using linguistic analysis. Lance Armstrong, a seven-time Tour de France victor, comes to mind.

When comparing an interview from 2005 in which he denied using performance-enhancing drugs to an interview from 2013, in which he acknowledged doing so, his use of personal pronouns rose by almost 3/4. Take note of the contrast between the next two quotes. First: "Okay, so, you know, Jean-Francis so-and-so opens up your sample in a French, in a Parisian laboratory, and he tests it. Then you get a call from a newspaper saying: "We found you to be positive for EPO six times.". "Second: "In all of that, I lost myself. Although I'm sure there would be others who couldn't handle it, I could not, and I was accustomed to having total control over my life. Every result of my life was under my control. "In his denial, Armstrong described a hypothetical circumstance that was entirely centered on someone else, excluding himself from the circumstance. He owns his statements in his admission, going into his own feelings and motives.

However, the use of personal pronouns is only one sign of deception. Let's examine yet another illustration from former senator and U.S. candidate for president John Edwards: "I only know that the baby's apparent father has publicly acknowledged that he is the father. Additionally, I have not participated in any activities of any kind that asked for, approved of, or supported payments of any kind to the woman or the presumed father of the child. In addition to being a fairly wordy way of saying, "The baby isn't mine," Edwards never refers to the other parties by name, only using the pronouns "that baby," "the woman," and "the apparent father. Now, let's hear what he had to say when he later came forward to claim fatherhood: "I am Quinn's father. To give her the love and support she deserves, I will exert every effort. The sentence is succinct and direct, addressing the child's place in her life and addressing his name. How can you use these lie-spotting skills in your life? First, keep in mind that many of the lies we hear on a daily basis are much less serious than these examples, and some are even harmless. Even so, it's important to be alert to telltale signs like sparse self-references, derogatory language, straightforward explanations, and complicated wording. You never know; it might save you from a bad relationship, an overpriced stock, or even a useless product.