Political Facts or Deceptive Opinions?

It’s no surprise that deception and politics are intertwined, but are you the person to disentangle them? The Pew Research Center has issued that very challenge, though in the somewhat lighthearted context of an online quiz. This challenges readers to classify given statements as “factual” or simply “opinions,” but it’s harder than you would think!…

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Biases of Expectation

If you expect someone to be guilty, does that make them more likely to be? As discussed last week, many implicit biases complicate the process of determining guilt or detecting deception during an interview process. In a comprehensive trio of 2008 studies, a team of psychologists from the University of Aberdeen, United Kingdom found that…

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Nonverbal vs. Verbal Deception Detection?

Is deception detection easier when we have verbal cues? Could it even be harder? A lot of sensory input goes into our ability to detect deception, but it is hard to tease out the role of verbal and nonverbal cues. We train you to look for both, but a new study seeks to break down…

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Lie Detection in the Media

Learning how to read people extends beyond one on one conversation into the realm of politics and media studies. A recent study published in Science has sought to analyze the ways in which such false stories get promoted and circulated throughout social media. While many news commentators have pointed to the role of automated bots…

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