Here’s a glaring red flag to look for when you’re detecting big little lies.
The key to spotting a liar is in the details of a person’s story, research published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour suggests.
If a person’s account includes details — the who, what, where, when and why — it’s likely they are telling the truth.
Researchers conducted nine experiments in which 1,445 people were tasked with determining if actors were telling stories — via handwritten statements, video transcripts, video interviews or live interviews — that were true or false.
One experiment saw an actor playing a student who had stolen a test but was lying about it. Another followed a student wandering around campus and recounting details of their whereabouts.
Researchers determined that lies can be best detected from simply following the details in a person’s story. Getty Images/iStockphoto
Participants were split into two groups.
One cohort had to determine truth from lies by using their intuition or relying on factors such as body language, clocking things like sweating or fidgeting, according to ScienceAlert.
The other group was told to call true or false by focusing on the details of each mock scenario — including descriptions of people, places, objects, actions, events and timing — and nothing else.
That group was also told to home in on “the degree to which the message seemed complete, concrete, striking or rich in details,” according to the study.
Participants in that second group correctly named a story as real or a lie “with 59% to 79% accuracy,” researchers from the University of Amsterdam said.
The researchers conducted nine studies with 1,445 people. Getty Images“Participants performed at the chance level when they made intuitive judgements, free to use any possible cue,” the researchers wrote. “But when instructed to rely only on the best available cue (detailedness), they were consistently able to discriminate lies from truths.”
“Our findings challenge the notion that people lack the potential to detect deception,” they continued. “The simplicity and accuracy of the use-the-best heuristic provides a promising new avenue for deception research.”
Intuition and attention to detail could trump lie detector tests in some cases, because having too many variables to determine if someone is lying can often cloud someone’s judgement, the researchers determined.
A separate study found that some scientists have found just 75% accuracy when using lie detector tests, proof for why polygraphs are not always a reliable source, Psychology Today reported.
