Lie Detection

The ability to regularly, even easily, purposely deceive others is a characteristic that humans believe sets them apart from other species. Since human life began, humans have tried to develop methods to determine if others are lying to them. Are any of these methods effective?

People have used various methods in this endeavor, including looking at how people behave, listening to how they speak, analyzing what they say, and examining their internal bodily or brain activity. Research, however, suggests that there is no uniformity in human behavior that demonstrates the same kind of differences between lying and truth telling.

Many people feel aroused when telling big lies and expect others to feel the same way. Therefore, they expect that liars' visible behavior will be such that liars ...