Detecting deception: methods and applications

¶ … detecting deception and analyzing truthfulness. In a world where most average people find it quite difficult to distinguish truths from lies, law enforcement officials must train themselves to better detect the psychological and physical clues associated with lying. This ultimately means using combined strategies to find red flags and then drill suspects on issues that may signify deception. Relying solely on tests may not be as reliable as taking a more holistic approach to detecting deception.

The complex nature of understanding truthfulness and deception has to be broken down into smaller concepts, so that law enforcement officials can effectively use their skills to detect deception. There is no single, fool proof way to catch some one in a lie. In fact, every person has their own different cues and idiosyncrasies they do when they lie. It is the job of law enforcement officials to understand the most common cues and be able to recognize them in order to try to call out a suspect's lie and flush out the truth. The psychological act of lying is a very complex process, making it crucial for law enforcement officials to understand the psychological processes and clues that go along with the person's lies. What makes the situation even more complicated is the idea that "most individuals, irrespective of professional background, are poor at distinguishing truths from lies" (Cooper et al., 2009, p 308). These are often made even more complex in the varied number of situations in which people actually tell lies and their motivations behind them (Adelson, 2004). Thus, the purpose of this current discussion is to uncover some of the more effective strategies used for detecting deception in a wide number of circumstances.

One of the first methods for improving the evaluation of truthfulness is the idea of "unlearning bad habits" in order to retrain the brain to be more aware of when someone is telling a lie (Cooper et al., 2009, p 310). As previously stated, most individuals cannot really tell a lie from a truth with any sort of real and reliable accuracy. As such, it is crucial to begin to understand what bad habits lead to such confusion in order to rectify them to become more aware of deception. This includes first and foremost immersing oneself in the research about truth evaluation to dispel any commonly held myths. It is then crucial to look into the empirical research and current discourse to re-educate the self on what is proving to be more reliable methods for detecting deception. More evidence-based knowledge provides strength in one's assumptions and can help increase one's ability to detect a truth from a lie because the knowledge comes from real evidence and not hearsay. Thus, "at the very least, individuals should learn about what causes people to lie or tell the truth and the typography of truths and lies" (Cooper et al., 2009, p 313). Analyzing case studies and empirical research can also suggest how to identify the types of lies being told and what common characteristics they may come with. There is a wealth of information on behavioral cues to deception that investigators should have access to because it helps them easily catch these clues during the interviewing process (Matsumoto et al., 2011).

There are also standardized tests that can help measure deception as well. According to the Association for Psychological Science, there are two commonly used standardized tests. The first is the Control Question Test, where both control and test questions are asked and then their psychological measures are compared against baseline responses. Thus, "if the physiological response to the control question is greater than the response to the relevant question, it would be said that the individual is telling the truth" (Preston, 2002). There is also the Guilty Knowledge Test, which is a multiple choice test that also measures potential controls against deceptive responses. However, there are common problems with such tests, because the research suggests they are often biased against individuals actually telling the truth. They should only be used in a collaborative strategy, and not necessarily on their own without other strategies.

In today's high-tech world, we now have the aid of technology to improve our ability to detect deception and evaluate truthfulness. One of the first pieces of technology that came out in the Twentieth Century and has continued to become more widely available to the public is the lie detector test. This is a device that uses analysis of the stress levels in individuals' voices in order to measure changes that could signify the presence of a lie (Matsumoto et al., 2011). Lie detector tests are very reliable, but they cannot tell with absolute certainty if someone is lying or telling the truth. They merely measure changes in the stress level as a way to signify when someone might be lying about something or a certain topic. They are currently admissible in court as evidence, but have to be done with the help of a highly trained professional, who has worked to improve the skill of interpreting the changes in voice stress levels in order to make calculated assumptions about whether there might be deception present or not (Cooper et al., 2009). This technology is not new, but advances in how it is used continue to develop. For example, the text suggests that "not only has the technology evolved to allow for measures to be taken covertly at a distance, recent research suggests that there may be reliable thermal changes when a person is being deceptive" (Cooper et al., 2009, p 306).