Telling lies

Current lie-detector tests should be replaced by a new way of identifying whether suspects are telling the truth by overloading their brains
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This innovative approach involves giving suspects secondary tasks such as giving their version of events in reverse order, or recalling information relayed through a set of headphones.
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As lying takes up more brain power than telling the truth, a guilty suspect is unlikely to be able to perform other tasks as well.

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Dr Vrij criticised the conventional arousal-based app-roach. "The trouble with this is that liars do not necessarily reveal more signs of arousal when answering key questions and, conversely, truth-tellers might be anxious and hence show signs of arousal when answering.

"The cognitive-load approach is based on the idea that lying in an interview setting is cognitively demanding as liars have to think harder to concentrate on extra demands such as what others are thinking, keeping their story straight, and monitoring and controlling their behaviour so they avoid creating the impression they are lying.

"This should show up as a poorer performance in providing a statement and also on the secondary task."

Another approach is to time people

Dr Gregg, a research fellow at the centre for research on self and identity at Southampton University, found that when people were instructed to answer true and false statements about themselves dishonestly and statements about the world honestly, they took significantly longer on the task than people who told the truth.

Researchers who monitored the length of time taken to answer questions found it takes more than 30 per cent less time to be honest than to tell a fib.

The discovery followed computer-based trials in Britain of a new technique that could replace conventional lie detector tests that are not widely used because of fears over the reliability of their results.

Aiden Gregg, a psychologist at Southampton University developed a timed antagonistic response alethiometer test (Tara) which involves answering a series of questions displayed on a computer screen as quickly as possible by tapping responses on a keyboard.
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The test records how long it takes each individual to answer and uses an algorithm to analyse the results.
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He found that interviewees in 85 per cent of cases were slower at faking answers than when telling the truth. Separate research using the equipment suggests the dishonest responses took 1.8 seconds but the truthful answers were more than 30 per cent quicker at about 1.2 seconds.
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Dr Gregg said he built his Tara test because he suspected that criminals were finding increasing ways to hide their dishonesty. He told the Sunday Times:
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"We are not getting any smarter at detecting lies, and that could have serious consequences"
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Telegraph
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And yet we are all exposed to lies all day, everyday
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Our media is full of so called spin, which is usually just another word for lying
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So any contribution to exposing liars has to be helpful