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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."
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...
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.
... 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
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!
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
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.
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.
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.
PimpMyMazda.com - Crazy mods to a 2002 Mazda Protege DX.
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?
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]
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
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.
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.
I always tell the truth. I'm too lazy to lie
Says the guy who went by a pseudonym.
Bad karma for correcting people I always say.
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.