Psychologist Discovers Intricacies About
Lying
What happens when you tell a lie?
Set aside your ethical concerns for a moment -- after all, lying is a habit we
practice with astonishing dexterity and frequency, whether we realize it or
not.
What goes on in your brain when you
willfully deceive someone? And what happens later, when you attempt to access
the memory of your deceit?
How you remember a lie may be
impacted profoundly by how you lie, according to a new study by LSU
Associate Professor Sean Lane and former graduate student Kathleen Vieria. The
study, accepted for publication in the Journal of Applied Research and Memory
Cognition, examines two kinds of lies -- false descriptions and false denials
-- and the different cognitive machinery that we use to record and retrieve
them.
False descriptions are deliberate flights of the imagination -- details and descriptions that we invent for something that didn't happen. As it turned out, these lies were far easier for Lane's test subjects to remember.
Lane explained that false
descriptions remain more accessible and more durable in our memories because
they tax our cognitive power.
"If I'm going to lie to you
about something that didn't happen, I'm going to have to keep a lot of
different constraints in mind," Lane said.
Liars must remember what they say,
and also monitor how plausible they seem, the depth of detail they offer, even
how confident they appear to the listener. And if the listener doesn't seem to
be buying it, they must adapt the story accordingly.
"As the constructive process
lays down records of our details and descriptions, it also lays down information
about the process of construction," Lane said.
In short, false descriptions take
work. We remember them well precisely because of the effort required to make
them up. When subjects in Lane's study were asked to recall their own false
descriptions 48 hours later, their memories were largely accurate. They
remembered what they said, and they remembered that what they said was
inaccurate.
The same is not true for false
denials. This kind of lie -- denying something that actually happened -- is
often brief, and its cognitive demand is therefore much smaller.
With a false denial, Lane said,
"I'm not constructing details. But I'm also not going to remember the act
because there's not much cognitively involved in the denial." Lane's test
subjects had a hard time remembering their own false denials after 48 hours.
This finding has implications for
forensic interrogation, where suspects often encounter a series of rapid-fire
questions. A guilty suspect is more inclined to forget a false denial, and
therefore more likely to contradict himself on the same information later.
But there is a haunting implication
for innocent suspects, too. Lane's test subjects also had a hard time
remembering if the denials they'd made were true or false. This same memory
problem might plague suspects who are asked to make repeated truthful denials.
To explain, Lane cited the
"illusory truth effect," the idea that hearing false information
repeatedly will make it seem truthful, simply because it's familiar. His study
takes this idea in a new direction.
"They're telling the truth,
they're denying, but later this thing seems familiar," said Lane.
"They're confusing the familiarity of the repetition [with the truth], not
realizing that those repeated denials are what makes it seem familiar 48 hours
later."
This means that telling the truth
can actually lead to a false memory. A man who repeatedly denies being present
at the scene of the crime, for example, might actually begin to imagine that
scene -- where it was, what it looked like, who was present -- even if he was
never there. It feels strangely familiar to him, and because the repeated
denials have slipped from his memory, he can't explain why.
False memory is a well-documented
phenomenon, and Lane has researched it extensively throughout his career. In a
courtroom, it can be disastrous. Through studies like this one, Lane offers
forensic investigators a deeper insight into this bizarre behavior.
Story Source:
The above story is based on materials provided
by Louisiana State University.
Note: Materials may be edited for
content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited
above.
Journal Reference:
1.
Kathleen M. Vieira, Sean M.
Lane. How you lie affects what you remember. Journal of
Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 2013; DOI: 10.1016/j.jarmac.2013.05.005
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