Is This True? “The Liar’s Walk—Detecting Deception with Gait and Gesture”

A new study about walking and liars and computers is bountiful for teachers who want their students to decide whether to believe bold claims. See if you can count the bold claims made in the study. “The Liar’s Walk—Detecting Deception with Gait and Gesture,” Tanmay Randhavane, Uttaran Bhattacharya, Kyra Kapsaskis, Kurt Gray, Aniket Bera, Dinesh […]

Lies, Lies, Lies — and the people who research why people do that

An article called “WHY WE LIE: THE SCIENCE BEHIND OUR DECEPTIVE WAYS,” in the June 2017 issue of National Geographic magazine, explores research about lying. Three of the researchers discussed there — Bruno Verschuere, Kang Lee, and Dan Ariely — are Ig Nobel Prize winners. Yudhijit Bhattacharjee, the journalist who wrote the article, writes about them: … […]

“Most people don’t lie very often but a few people lie a lot”

“Most people don’t lie very often but a few people lie a lot.” That’s one of the insights honored by this year’s Ig Nobel Prize for psychology. The Vanderbilt University Research newsletter explains: Study about how lying varies with age receives Ig Nobel Prize Centennial Professor of Psychology Gordon Logan [pictured here] is co-author of a paper on […]

Science: Controlling Our Bladders Makes Us Better Liars

According to a recent scientific study, we’re better at lying when we are also controlling our bladders. Investigators Elise Fenn, Iris Blandón-Gitlin, Jennifer Coons, Catherine Pineda, and Reinalyn Echon from Claremont Graduate University were studying the Inhibitory Spillover Effect (ISE), which “occurs when performance in one self-control task facilitates performance in another (simultaneously conducted) self-control task.” Deception […]