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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?
The reason they're seeing so much more activity is because a person who's lying is actively thinking, rather than just "regurgitating" information.
Pretty simple concept IMHO.
"No honey I'm not lying to you, just practicing for my MENSA exam tomorrow"
http://www.commaecho.com
That would be correct, I have done several studies on this, since I am a doctor and all. Definatly more brain activity occurs when you lie. For that groudbreaking information I ask a mere $25 from each and everyone of you via Paypal... since I am a doctor and all...
A BBC News article on the same topic:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4051211.stm
Sauer
They can't tell if we're lying, MRIs are notoriously unreliable when faced with tinfoil hats.
Now I know why sometimes I feel like the hardest working man on the planet.
You can't handle the truth.
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.
No it's not, at least not in my experience. Polygraphs that I've seen measure respiration, heartbeat, blood pressure, and sweat. The goal is to measure your physical tension, with the idea that you tense up when you lie. I won't vouch for its accuracy (in my experience, pretty low), but I've never seen one which measures anything about the brain directly.
... to why I am to gosh darn smart !
- I run a 40-yard dash in 2 seconds
- I compleded college by the age of 18
- I have climbed the Everest - naked
- I became Mr Universe AND Miss Universe, in the same year
I wonder if this study can be universally applied of if it only applies to personal experiences.
That is, if someone wants me to recall a fact from highschool biology, I can probably work hard to remember it. However, I could probably work a lot easier and just make something up.
This sort of thing has happened to me before. My parents once gave my sister and I a math problem, some multiplication of two large numbers. Much to my chagrin, my sister came up an answer the fastest, to which my parents replied "Wow! That's right!" I worked so quickly to try to come up with the right answer, and I fumed about her getting it right until I realized that she had just made up a number...my parents really didn't know the answer either, but by acting confidently like they did, I couldn't see the lies until a minute later.
I'm quite certain that my brain was working a lot harder to do the multiplication than my sister's, which had only to pull a reasonable-sounding number from thin air.
The lie-detector episode that ends with Beavis arrested as the "Hippie Ripper". "When asked how a teenage boy could have committed the brutal murders over twenty years ago, a police spokeswoman said, quote, "He's very clever.""
Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
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?
Those Microsoft brains must be working really hard... just look at the Slashdot advertisements that are running with this story.
t _336x260_25k_v3.gif
MS's "Get the Facts"
http://m3.doubleclick.net/790463/mrs03111_VeriTes
Oh the irony!
Maybe that content-based advertising system really does work!
Hmm...my wife is always tired and exhausted from "working so hard". This may explain a few things...
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
I got laid today...
whew. I'm pooped.
Yes! I listen to NYC Speedcore and do math at 3AM. I suggest you try it too.
however a Premeditated lie can be stored and recalled just as truth is, and will be even more dangerous with an mri backing it up as truth.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
It could be quite pertinent to find out if this were ever to be used seriously as a truth detection mechanism, as it could trip up in some situations, such as for instance a man who's just killed his wife, sitting in his car thinking to himself all the things he did today not killing his wife, essentially fabricating a story or lying to himself. When brought in for a lie detector test you really wouldn't want it showing that a murderer could indeed lie about comitting such an act without any sign showing that he was indeed lying. Of course, this method would be quite useless for questions which the subject hasn't had ample time to manufacture the truth for.
Wouldn't it be nice to test this theory on the great W. Bush?
... Can you make sure they're on tight? I'm not getting a reading here.
Doctor: Ok, put the probes on the president, Norma.
Norma: They are on, sir.
Doctor:
Norma: Yes sir, they're on tight.
Doctor: Mr. Bush, can you please tell us why we are at war with Iraq.
Dub'ya: They are a terrorist harboring nation with weapons of mass destruction! Yeehaw!
Doctor: Norma, can you turn down the sensor sensitivity, please? My reader just crashed.
Dub'ya: Yee-haw!!
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
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.
So here's what I want to know:
Since it takes more "brain power" to lie then does that mean that smart people are better liars?
Nik
-This sig has been discontinued after a sudden realization.
The quote at the bottom of the page when this article was posted was:
:P
"One man tells a falsehood, a hundred repeat it as true."
It's soo true! I do *ALL* the damn work around here.
"Be afraid to die until you have won some victory for humanity" -Horace Mann
"Liars have alot to remember."
-- an unknown but astute source
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
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.
Six of them were asked to shoot a toy gun and then lie and say they didn't do it. Three others who watched told the truth about what happened.
This experiment isn't symmetric - the conditions for each group are entirely different. A proper experiment would consist of:
1. a group who committed the act and lies
2. a group who committed the act and tells the truth
3. a group who witnesses and lies
4. a group who witnesses and tells the truth
Also, they should probably have a control group of people who didn't witness anything.
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R: "I'll pay you $50 to be in this experiment"
S: "Sweet!"
R: "Just lie down under this scanner..."
S: "Is this gonna give me cancer?"
R: "No no, it's perfectly safe. Just a moment... ok, main screen turn on."
S: "Can I go now?"
R: "No, first you have to tell me who fired the gun"
S: "What gun?"
R: "The gun that was fired about 10 minutes ago"
S: "But I only just got here!"
R: "Is that so... where were you 10 minutes ago?"
S: "I was on Slashdot!"
R: "You're lying!"
FBI busts down the door, carts the test subject off to Cuba. Another day, another victory in the War On Terror.
fish and pipes
You've never worked with sales people, have you?
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.
Lying may be difficult, but telling "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth" isn't exactly easy.
The problem lies in editing. For any complex situation, there are several truths that can be said, some relevant, and some not. You have to decide what your questioner really wants to know and think about that stuff.
You also have to turn that stuff into a coherent sentence. In my case, my mind generally works in a very fuzzy way. I don't really categorize things until someone asks me a question, so It is hard to untangle the fuzz and put it in a nice, complete package.
The final problem with telling the truth is the spin. You have to describe things in such a way that you look good and can't get trapped. Like the old "does this dress make me look fat?"-type questions, or pretty much anything you say to your boss.
With lies, these problems kind of solve themselves. When you make up a lie, you build in the spin and story from the start.
i'd hit it so hard, if you pulled me out you'd be the king of britain [bash.org]
Do you never think when asked to tell the truth? This was a simple test where people knew what was true and what was false. What if you're asked to recall details of an incident 6 months ago? Are you not piecing together information, reconstructing the memory from other snippets you know, retrieving long-buried information? While it may be true that fMRI can detect lies, I'm sceptical of the "common sense" explanation that you have to work more to lie. Furthermore, what about people who believe they have some guilt, but actually don't, say in the case of a death where they're not sure about suicide or murder. Do not the nearest and dearest of a suicide often blame themselves? What if they're asked whether they were responsible for their loved one's death? They might answer yes, even if they were not responsible in the case in question. You can pick holes in that example, but the point is that the whole issue becomes messy when one recalls that people have beliefs and interpretations of situations, and that will significantly affect their answers.
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!
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.
I finally kow... it's not the sex part that makes me tired....
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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!'"
This is your boss.
You're fired.
And these are not the droids I'm looking for.
Move along. Move along.
.
"You have liberated me from thought."
You mean making shit up is more work than just remembering? Next thing you know, those wacky scientists will discover that creating is harder than copying, running is harder than walking, and water is actually wet!
I saw this TV show one time where a police department teamed up with scientists and devised a better polygraph test.
They strapped a suspect in a chair and showed them a carefully laid out sequence of images on a TV screen, some benign images (like bowls of ice cream or a beachball) but some are details about the crime (if murder, show police photos of the corpse, or show some evidence left behind like a scarf or jewelry that the victim didn't own, or possible accomplises already linked to the crime). While this went on, the scientists measured brain activity and they could tell when a suspect "remembers" pictures, the parts of the brain fire off and the scientists can see it. When the suspects brain indicates it remembers and it's on a crime photo, they can reasonably presume the suspect had something to do with it.
Of course this has limitations, like what if the suspect was under the influence of something, or the materials about the crime aren't effective enough, but it's much harder to fool your brain.
No wonder those High School jocks that can smooth talk their way into and out of anything end up packing my groceries when I am living in a nice house with a decent family... I despise stupid people.
_
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Not to mention those involved in sequence completion (hippocampus) and configural learning (hippocampus). Configural learning has some similarities to what-if scenarios, as does sequence completion. Naturally, this is why the hippocampus is good at both.
And yes, I am a huge fan of the hippocampus.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
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.
Makes sense. Let's also keep in mind that a good lie takes into account more variables, like proposed "witnesses" to the pretend event, why they wouldn't be able to testify on your account, where your best friend was at the time (so he wouldn't know!) so he can't be asked to validate the story, extenuating circumstances leading up to the cataclysm of false occurances, etc, etc. I've told lies where I'd covered every possible angle so my Mom couldn't find out otherwise.
Partying used to be such an adventure.
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77 77 77 2e 6d 65 6c 76 69 6e 73 2e 63 6f 6d
I half-expected that this story would be categorized under Politics.
Unless you believe the lie is true, as many successful liars do.
...Bill Gates recent MRI scans. They were off the charts.
At first, I thought it was due to exceptionally high intelligence. Now we know "the rest of the story."
Dr. Tim
People can be [self] trained to practice deception easily all the time. Then it wouldnt take more efforts. Spies are trained in this technique.
You don't actually have to believe it. You just have to have previously constructed the memory in your mind. People react differently when remembering things than they do when creatively "making something up." A common tell is when people glance up and to the left while speaking. This is a common indicator of creative thought. A good liar will have rehearsed or fantasized a lie in their head. When asked about it, they remember what they rehearsed, rather than creating it on the spot. Especially talented liars base their lies upon a true experience to prevent details from tripping them up. This way they do not have to think up anything on the fly.
I'd be very curious to see what is shown in these scans when a well trained professional is put to the test. I suspect they are just detecting how creative thought differs from memory retrieval and that classic lying techniques will fool this new method as well.
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.
Just to join the chorus to say how intuitively obvious this is.
The Science Channel had a good program recently about the stages humans have to go through in order to learn how to lie. A big part of it is the ability to model what other people know and what is detectable as differences in reality.
For instance, in the show, children age 3 and under couldn't fathom that anyone had information they didn't, and also couldn't understand that others didn't know everything they do. So when they lie, they make up information about things they know nothing about, and assume you know nothing about, either. One example is, you play Guess Which Hand? and they just show you which hand the object is in because they know which it is, and think therefore that you automatically know that which hand it is, also.
Clearly, a lot more of the brain is absolutely going to be involved in lying than in truth-telling. That is, if you're actually trying to deceive someone and aren't just being sarcastic:
--You have to recall events as they were, so you're doing exactly the work there that you would if telling the straight truth.
--In addition, you're modeling the physical characteristics of events and whether they could fit with what the other person has and will experience during the time period affected by the lie.
--And on top of that, the emotive portions are going to be relied on for modeling the emotive characteristics of those you're lying to so you can figure out A) are they buying it? B)if suspicious, how far might they go to unravel the deception?
I'm sure really bad liars use less of their brain to make their lies, and are thus less succesful.
How many times has someone lied to you, and your reaction was, "They lied to me" AND "They think I'm stupid!" It isn't so much they think you're stupid, it's that it's very hard for people to lie successfully to people who are smarter than they are.