there are a number of myths about
deception detection people believe that
if someone looks away or gaze aversion
is an indicator of deception or bringing
the hand to the mouth or the jaw that
could also be an indicator of deception
or grooming gestures like fixing their
hair or settling the clothing and so
forth or fidgeting in your chair all
those things are potential indicators of
deception but there's no universal
indicator of deception
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criminal behavioral analysis is the
umbrella term that covers all the work
that we did at the FBI's Behavioral
Analysis Unit that includes criminal
profiling active listening interview and
interrogation and deception detection we
also study teach consult on and conduct
investigative interviews investigative
interviews can be broken down into non
confrontational interviews and
interrogations but the goal of both of
them is to get accurate and reliable
information to get there one of the
tools that we use is deception detection
where we take a holistic approach and
looking at many different types of
indicators we look at fight-or-flight
cognitive complexity and perception
management as three different ways of
detecting deception fight-or-flight is
nothing more than noting the
physiological changes that occur when
someone's under stress stress can
indicate lying
for example decrease in salivation so
make somebody swallow deeply or
increased heart rate or increased
adrenaline to the hands and legs because
our primitive brain wants to tell us to
either stand and fight or run away so it
provides extra energy to your limbs when
you're sitting there in an interrogation
and you want to run but you can't many
times you'll fidget with your hands or
your legs or you'll bring them up and
then try to cover them in a grooming
gesture when Jodi arias was brought in
for questioning after her boyfriend was
brutally murdered she was sitting there
and being observed by a police camera
now many suspects will experience
nervous energy and when they're
preparing to lie that can come out in
minor fidgeting or grooming gestures but
sometimes there's gross body movements
and there's no better example of this
than when Jodi arias got up from the
chair and went over to the wall and did
a handstand for several seconds to sort
of burn off that nervous energy it's a
perfect example of fight-or-flight the
concept of cognitive complexity is that
when people lie they tried to keep it as
simple as possible they also lie
typically only about two senses
what they hear and what they see they
don't necessarily add how it smelled or
spatial relationships or interactions
with other people and they typically
keep it on a very shallow level so if
you think about it as cutting an onion
in half and you look at the rings of
that onion typically Liars will lie
about the first ring where they were
that day and maybe who they were with at
moments but if you drill down and ask
them questions about what did they do
during that time what were they watching
on TV who won the football game who
scored the last touchdown typically that
will fall apart
and if you talk to one of their
co-defendants and they give you
different answers the fact that they're
lying really stands out perception
management is when a suspect tries to
behave in a way they think the
interviewer would expect from somebody
giving a truthful statement so the
suspect might believe that fidgeting
would indicate lying so they'll be very
still when they're telling lies so as
not to give it away but the fact is
throughout the other time they may have
been fidgeting all the time and then the
stillness is actually the indicator that
they're deceiving then we look at verbal
nonverbal and non linguistic verbal
communication verbal indicators of
deception can include words such as like
sort of almost kind of when words like
that are interjected in a sentence
what follows is something that the
teller doesn't even have confidence in
for example I sort of did my homework or
I started to go to work that indicates
that someone didn't finish the task that
they claimed to have done nonverbal
behavior that could indicate deception
or changes in body movements and actions
on the
the interviewee once you've normed an
individual you look for changes in their
behavior someone who's been sitting
straight and answering questions
directly and looking right in your eyes
and being very attentive might become
fidgety strange movements lake shaking
arms moving grooming gestures
straightening clothes when they're under
the stress of lying so you have to look
at changes in those physical behaviors
non linguistic verbal indicators of
deception could be an increase in the
pace of talking an increase or decrease
in the volume a change in pitch
sometimes when people are lying the
stress makes their voice go up a few
octaves and that can be an indicator
that you need to drill down on to
determine whether they're lying about
the thing that you're investigating the
goal of looking for indicators of
deception is to then find the areas
where you want to drill down deeper and
ask more probing questions ask in
different orders and ask questions
around them that may undermine and
contradict the things that they've told
you earlier when Scott Peterson was
interrogated about the disappearance of
his pregnant wife Lacey he also gave
indicators of deception
there's a major difference between
hearing and listening hearing is the
thing that your ear does it's receiving
sound vibrations but listening is
actually cognitively participating in
what you're hearing and so if you're
writing something down while somebody's
talking to you you can't actively listen
and I'd like to mention the fact that
this officer is questioning Scott
Peterson and writing down his answers
rather than looking at his behavior is a
big mistake what he should be doing is
letting someone else write down the
answers so he could observe
it's got Peterson's behavior a lot of
the behaviors that we look for when
we're trying to detect deception are
very common and you can see it in public
statements all the time for example when
President Nixon made that infamous I'm
not a crook statement because people
have got to know whether or not their
presidents a crook well I'm not a crook
he said and I think too that I can say
and I think too that I can say that in
my public life I welcome this kind of
investigation that in my years of public
life that I welcome this kind of
examination it was so nervous about
having to say that statement that he had
to build up his courage by saying I
think too that I can say it's extraneous
information the pace of his speaking
increases radically that I welcome this
kind of examination I welcome this kind
of examination and that's a non
linguistic verbal indicator of deception
it's again a change in behavior that's a
red flag that I would dive deeper into
if I was interrogating him about this so
when we're assessing President Nixon's
statements we look at perception
management verbal nonverbal and non
linguistic verbal clues to determine
he's actually lying during the
Whitewater investigation against
President Clinton he was accused of
having a sexual relationship with one of
the interns at the White House Monica
Lewinsky and he denied that emphatically
but there are a lot of indicators of
deception in his denial I did not have
sexual relations with that one
in this clip the President Clinton is
clearly trying to manage the perceptions
of the public he says I want to say
something through the American people
but I want to say one thing to the
American people I want you to listen to
me I want you to listen to me I'm gonna
say this again I'm gonna say this again
three statements in order to set up what
he's about to say instead of simply
stating it when you're telling facts you
simply have to state them when you're
telling a lie you have to convince the
people that what you're about to say is
the truth and that's what I believe he's
doing President Clinton is a very smart
man and he's using very carefully chosen
words here what President Clinton says
here is that he did not have sexual
relations with that woman
sexual relations with that woman that
woman being Monica Lewinsky but he uses
the term that woman to distance himself
from Monica Lewinsky when in fact we all
now know that he did have a sexual
relationship with her he also uses the
words sexual relations I did not have
sexual relations with that woman for
sexual relations without he's using
those specific words because he wants
people to have a very strict
interpretation of what he's saying what
he's doing is committing a lie of
omission he's saying he didn't have
sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky
but what he's not saying is the guilty
behavior of having sexual activity with
her he's implying that nothing happened
when in fact all he's saying is we
didn't engage in sexual intercourse so
it's a misdirection and a deception but
carefully clad in very specific language
that appears to be a denial when it's
not a denial at all that's what I would
drill down on to find out what he
actually did with Monica wins
after every confession the investigator
should drill down into the details both
with the person who's confessing and
outside to verify or refute the details
of that confession when there's
inconsistency between known facts and
what somebody says in a confession that
undermines the credibility of the
confession many times cases will be
successful or fall apart based on what
happens during the course of an
investigative interview so we use
behavioral analysis principles to
determine whether a confession is
accurate and reliable or a false
confession the thing is that every
person is an individual and we have to
make sure that we take a holistic look
at all of these things and the entire
behavior that human being exhibits when
they're undergoing interview or
interrogations