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Lying Makes The Brain Work Harder
Ant writes "This Wired News article says it seems to take more brain effort to tell a lie than to tell the truth according to functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans. Lying caused activity in the frontal part of the brain -- the medial inferior and pre-central areas, as well as the hippocampus and middle temporal regions and the limbic areas. Some of these are involved in emotional responses. During a truthful response, the fMRI showed activation of parts of the brain's frontal lobe, temporal lobe and cingulate gyrus."
It seems like it'd require more effort to fabricate something than to recite truthful memories. I wonder if these lies were cooked up ahead of time, and if so, how well learned they were when they were recited?
noting that it has been documented that some people can fool a polygraph using various techniques.... Using fMRI as a lie detector is expensive, but it may be worthwhile in some cases -- such as trying to question a terrorism suspect
Yes, terrorists aren't trained at lying, only FBI agents are.
I don't need a MRI to tell me that lying is harder than telling the truth. When you lie, you need to invent a story and make it convincing. The fear of getting caught kicks in, as does the guilt of lying: the mind starts racing. Perhaps it would be interesting to see how the MRIs of habitual liars differ from "normal" liars. Does the absence of fear and guilt change the amount of work done by the brain, or do lawyers and such work just as hard as we do?
Quid festinatio swallonis est aetherfuga inonusti?
Africus aut Europaeus?
You mean that having to create a fiction that's close enough to the truth to be believable and memorable (so you don't forget the lies you tell!), yet far enough off to achieve the desired effect (be it avoiding trouble, personal gain, whatever) is more difficult than simply recounting a fact?
Good to see it confirmed, I guess, and I do believe in pure research for research's sake, but even I am moved to say "well, duh!".
It's official. Most of you are morons.
This makes a lot of sense. Not only because as the first poster says does the person have to think, but they're not just thinking up information, they also must connect that information with a logical and sensical situation. So, if I were to lie to my teacher about my math homework, the truth would take little to no activity (didn't do it), a nonsensical lie would take a little thinking (the moon is green), but a logical lie requires an entire story to back it up (well, my dog was hungry cause he didn't have dinner so he decided to eat it, and...). Makes sense to me.
- dshaw
The solution is to think of your lies in advance in considerable detail and regurgitate them when needed. Only when a question is unexpected can this method work and if you actually need to lie to a serious question then you probably should have realized it was a likely question like "What were you doing the night of the murder?"
Keep your lies consistent too.
Well, it's not that simple actually. Thinking "harder" does not necessarily cause more brain activity in any kind of linear relation. Rather, what you see in the case of lying is specific activity in the areas of the brain that are involved in the regulation of the emotional response, including ones (such as the amygdala) involved in fear and planning (prefrontal cortex). Lying lights up these areas because the liar fears being found out, which involves a kind of "planning" and an emotional response following from it. Could be useful for lie detection, if you get the scanner down to a manageable size :)
----- One learns to itch where one can scratch.
I wonder how accurate a "lie detector" made using this would compare to, say, a more standard polygraph test.
Also, I wonder what differences would be observed if you tested somebody who is more used to lying in a convincing manner, such as a a politician or undercover cop.
"A lie must be made with great effort, it's a thing of beauty and precious like a rare diamond. Do not waste lies when truth will do." Anonymous
"Silence is often the best thing to say." Bene Gesserit Axiom
Polygraphs attempt to measure a physiological response to lying. This line of research is attempting to measure brain activity, which is a whole level "above" a physical reaction. Right now their are a plethora of flaws with measuring physiological reactions (I really enjoyed the book http://antipolygraph.org/lie-behind-the-lie-detect or.pdf)
Alhtough this research is still in its earliest stages, it is definetly promising. Although, this eventually (in a very long time) evolving into near mind reading does scare me.
Hmm... So, liars work out their brain more. And thus get progressively smarter?
Keep your lies consistent too.
I thought this reminded me of something, along with a quick Google search here it is:
(Bashir tells the story of the boy who cried "Wolf")
Bashir: If you lie all the time, no one is going to believe you, even when you're telling the truth.
Garak: Are you sure that's the point, Doctor?
Bashir: Of course. What else would it be?
Garak: That you should never tell the same lie twice.
Are you local? There's nothing for you here!
I'm a psych student with a rather twisted professors, he was mentioning recently the horrible innaccuracies of polygraph (conventional lie detectors) machines, that for every reading you get of a person lying, there is a 90% chance that they were infact not lying. In other words, if you polygraph someone, and it reads that they were lying, it's FAR more accurate that they were infact NOT lying, simply because of how often the machine is wrong. Psychologists around the world abhor the polygraph machine, anyone can train themselves to answer a question anyway they chose if they so wish (however such training isn't openly taught, but it doesn't take long to figure out how to do it, especcially with an education in psychology).
Once you know how to beat a lie detector you could apply it to this machine too and, with the same probability of success, beat this fMRI just as easily as a polygraph.
My theory on how to beat a polygraph?
What color is the sky? Green x1000
Mr. Smith, What color is the sky? "Green"
Repeated repetition is a simple and effective way of creating a mental connection between two thoughts (classical conditioning) whether that connection is false or true is irrelevant, however, a polygraph, and this fMRI are scanning for the person having above average thinking, in other words, preparing an answer, if you have the answer stored, right or wrong, you don't need to prepare it, you can spit it out and the machine will read it as true. If you realize how horribly ineffective this makes the polygraph, you'll realize why it's totally useless, and why scanning for the preparation of an unorthodox answer, is as equally, totally useless. It also means that if your not focusing solely on the questions being asked, your not worrying about your kids, or your job or your homework, it's going to screw with the answers even more.
Both of these systems are equally flawed. Personally I think we're better off with having an Emperor give the whole thumbs up campaign to divine truth and lie.
It doesn't take a lot to say "I am lying"
Keep in mind that when you lie, your brain will be more active, weighing the impact the deception might/would have regarding other memories and any possible future situations involved with those memories.
I'm going to go out on a limb and attempt some sort of comparison...
when you tell the truth, it's almost like the answer is cached, no thought is really required other than recalling that direct memory which holds the data.
when you attempt to deceive, the answer is no longer cached; the brain must actively retrieve the data and then worry about dependencies, children, etc.
It's no surprise that to lie or deceive requires more brain power than simply reciting truth.
Duh.
The real reason is because people are making the lie up at the time of the test. If you convince yourself the lie is the truth before hand the results are probably different. As george said in sienfeld, "its only a lie if you belive it is a lie"
"A good friend will bail you out of jail. A true friend will be sitting next to you saying, 'damn....that was fun!'"
All that can be true when you tell the truth too. For instance, imagine your wife asking "Are you cheating on me?"
You're starting with the assumption that the truth can't hurt, and that assumption seems quite obviously false.
It seems likely that recall of action versus observation would have at least as much impact as lying versus truth-telling. To be good science, the study would have to be repeated with just the people who fired the gun or with just the people who watched someone fire the gun: It must vary only one variable at a time.