How to Catch a Liar: An Analysis of Dr. Phil’s Tips
A few days ago we posted this video of Dr. Phil giving some tips on “how to catch a liar”. In this blog post, we outline some of the tips he gave and debunk fact from fiction.
You have to give Dr. Phil some credit because some of the information he presents is in fact, true. One point that he makes early on in the video is that there is little or no research to support the idea that eye contact (or lack of) has anything to do with deception. This is true.
Back in September of last year, we talked to deception expert Dr. Mark Frank who stated that eye contact (or lack of) is “one of the most misunderstood aspects of deception”. According to Dr. Frank, there have been over 30 studies that have studied eye gaze and its correlation to deception and most of them showed no evidence of a linkage between the two. In fact, other studies have investigated this as well. The complete blog article can be found here.
Dr. Phil also touches on “baselining” someone- or noticing deviations from normal behavior. Dr. Matsumoto agrees that baselining an individual is extremely important- but not as easy as some people think. The quickest and most accurate way to establish a baseline has a lot to do with the context and exact situation you are in. Is it a dinner party with close friends or an interrogation at a police station? Depending on the scenario, the quickest way to establish a baseline will differ drastically.
In addition to these tips, Dr. Phil suggests the following: that liars are over emphatic, don’t use contractions, don’t use personal pronouns, repeat themselves frequently and are too rehearsed. While these tips could be useful in certain situations, they are not always a guarantee that someone is lying. Each situation and each person is different. What’s important to keep in mind is that there is no Pinnochio response when it comes to telling lies.
The cues to deception occur in verbal and nonverbal channels such as verbal style, voice, gestures, verbal content and facial expressions of emotions. Still in all, because the face is the most important signal system we have, we believe (and the research bears this out) that microexpressions and subtle expressions are the key to helping people evaluate truthfulness.
Thus, learning how to rea facial expressions of emotion as well as micro and subtle expressions is one of the most important step in learning how to detect deception in others.
People With Severe Depression Have Difficultly Recognizing Disgust
A recent article entitled “Recognition of Disgusted Facial Expression in Severe Depression” published in the The British Journal of Psychiatry investigated the ability of individuals suffering from severe depression and their ability to recognize certain facial expressions of emotion.
The study which was conducted by researchers Katie Douglas and Professor Richard Porter of the University of Otago in New Zealand, asked 68 individuals suffering from severe depression to participate in a facial expression recognition study.The individuals were shown a total of 96 faces expressing 5 different emotions: anger, sadness, fear, disgust and happiness. They also were shown a series of neutral facial expressions. Their ability to label these expressions were compared to the ability of a control group comprised of 50 healthy individuals
According to the abstract of the study, “A negative interpretation bias was observed in the depression group: neutral faces were more likely to be interpreted as sad and less likely to be interpreted as happy, compared with controls. The depression group also displayed a specific deficit in the recognition of facial expressions of disgust, compared with controls”.
In sum, the researchers found that the healthy control group was much better at recognizing facial expressions of disgust compared to the severely depressed individuals.
Professor Porter suggests in an article written by the University of Otago that there may be various reasons as to why individuals suffering from depression have difficulty recognizing disgust. He suggests that it is possible that the ability to recognize disgust may be correlated with dopamine dysfunction. Dopamine is a chemical in the brain that had many functions. Dopamine plays important roles in behavior and cognition, voluntary movement, motivation, punishment and reward.
Professor Porter also suggests that when individuals are severely depressed, their ability to process emotions is affected, perhaps affecting their ability to recognize certain emotions.
Douglas and Porter’s findings are both interesting and informative. Their study was funded by the Tertiary Education Commission’s Top Achiever Doctoral Scholarship.
How to Catch a Liar: Dr. Phil
Dr. Phil was on “The Early Show” late April, giving viewers tips on how to “catch a liar”. In the video, which can be seen below, he gives specific tips and advice on how to detect deception.
Just how accurate was he? Were the tips he gave factual and informative? Give us your opinion and we’ll weigh in on the comments section of the blog.
Lie to Me Season 2 Episode 18 “Headlock”
For us, this episode of Lie to Me was very disappointing. It went a bit too far in inaccurately depicting the life of a deception expert and microexpressions scientist.
If one was to watch the show purely for the drama factor, “Headlock” may not have been too bad. But for actual scientists and researchers working in this field, we cringe at the false depiction of the work we do and are appalled by Lightman’s lack of integrity in the show.
We come to find out within this episode that Lightman apparently has a contract with the FBI within the show. We can relate to this as Dr. Matsumoto is a frequent guest instructor at the FBI National Academy.
However, Lightman’s conduct and decisions, especially within this show are insulting to say the least. He tells Reynolds to delay the results of DNA evidence and doesn’t seem to care when Torres tells him she deliberately cut him out of fight footage she received from law enforcement. While Lightman does come clean at the end, his behavior is both appalling and ridiculous, and totally glamorized for television drama. As a contractor of the FBI, Lightman should be doing whatever he can to work with law enforcement, not against them.
In addition, the show barely goes into how Lightman is able to decipher deception from truth, with little information on the science behind his decisions. Lightman also conducts his own interrogations and investigations, which absolutely does not occur in real life.
It’s frustrating to watch a show that has such potential week after week portray what little information they present inaccurately.
What does everyone else think?
Police Lie Detection Accuracy: The Effect of Lie Scenario
This study, conducted by the late Dr. Maureen O’Sullivan of the University of San Francisco and Dr. Mark Frank of the University of Buffalo, et. al. focused on the ability of police officers to detect lies. In particular, these researchers focused on the effect of the lie scenario- whether officers were more accurate when detecting lies in high stakes or low stakes situations.
The average accuracy rate for an individual to detect truths from lies is around 53%, which is essentially is no better than chance. However, there are some individuals that demonstrate the ability to detect lies at a much higher accuracy rate than others.
In the Wizards Project conducted by Dr. Maureen O’Sullivan and Dr. Paul Ekman, the researchers tested over 20,000 individuals in their ability to detect lies. Of these, only around 50 individuals had an accuracy rate of 80% or higher. These individuals were subsequently dubbed “truth wizards”. Surprisingly in the study, truth wizards came from all walks of life and did not necessarily from a law enforcement background. Eyes for Lies, one of the truth wizards discovered through the wizards project, writes a popular blog which attracts hundreds of followers from around the world.
In the Police Lie Detection Accuracy study published in the Journal of Law and Human Behavior, Dr. O’Sullivan and Dr. Frank investigated across 23 studies involving 31 different police groups in eight countries. Officers who were tested with lie detection scenarios using high stakes lies were “significantly more accurate than law enforcement officials tested with low stakes lies”.
The study differentiates high stakes lies from low stakes lies in the following way: “In high stakes lies, the liars are lying about something important to them such as a strongly held opinion, a personally highly stressful event, whether they committed a serious crime, or whether they are actually emotionally aroused at the present moment (as opposed to recalling an emotional event)”.
Lie to Me: What Expression is This?
We often see different expressions in Lie to Me but don’t often get an explanation as to what expression it is, leaving the viewer to interpret the expression how they want.
This particular expression what seen in this past Monday’s episode of Lie to Me, “Bullet Bump” when the governor is questioned by Lightman. Many people think that this is an expression of shame- especially since the real-life examples shown afterward are of famous men who were unfaithful- Eliot Spitzer, John Edwards and Bill Clinton (all who were curiously politicians as well).
However, Dr. Matsumoto thinks this is an expression of control, where a person is trying to control their emotions and hide how they are truly feeling. Remember, there is no universal facial expression of shame, although judging by these images, it is easy to assume there is.
Here are some of the expressions for those that can’t watch the clip:
Lie to Me Season 2 Episode 17 “Bullet Bump”
This episode begins with a bang, literally, when a suspicious man in a denim jacket is arrested for an assassination attempt that goes wrong and kills an innocent woman.
The very beginning of the episode shows that learning how to detect dangerous faces, especially in a crowd, is an extremely useful and beneficial tool to have. Although Lightman states that there is no such face as an “assassin’s face”, Dr. Matsumoto and his team have collected data from various law enforcement agencies around the world to determine that there are faces the are consistent with pre-meditated assault and a loss of impulse control. However, in addition to these 2 faces of deadly intent, there may be additional dangerous faces that are not known. Therefore, Dr. Matsumoto and his team are constantly conducting research in this area.
Loker, Torres and Reynolds go to the jail where the suspect in the shooting is being held. After reading him for a few moments, Torres concludes that he’s telling the truth when he says he didn’t try to kill the governor. This plot twist then leads to Lightman and Foster questioning the governor’s campaign manager whom they deem suspicious.
As the plot thickens, Torres sees a subtle sign of surprise in the suspected gunman after showing him the murder weapon. Although it was great that she caught this subtle expression, Torres shouldn’t have automatically assumed that he was surprised because he didn’t know the weapon. He could have been surprised for a number of different reasons. The most important point about seeing a micro or subtle expression is that you don’t jump to a conclusion right away, but ask more questions because there’s more to the story than being told.
Lightman and Torres begin to dig a little deeper, questioning the governor’s wife. The campaign manager turns up dead and Emily, Lightman’s daughter, seems to have some feelings for Loker. By the end of the episode, Lightman and his crew find out that the governor’s wife was behind all the murders and he apologizes to Loker for punching him.
Overall not a bad episode but be careful of interpreting any micro or subtle expressions as an automatic sign of deception.
An Expression of “Surprise” by a Furry Friend
Its Monday and some of you may need some comic relief today.
For you, we’ve found this video of a furry friend making an “expression” of surprise.
Hope you enjoy!
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