Wizards Project

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The Wizards Project was a research project at the University of California, San Francisco led by Paul Ekman and Maureen O'Sullivan that studied the ability of people to detect lies. The experts identified in their study were called "Truth Wizards". O'Sullivan spent more than 20 years studying the science of lying and deceit. [1] The project was originally named the Diogenes Project, after Diogenes of Sinope, the Greek philosopher who would look into people's faces using a lamp, claiming to be looking for an honest man.

Contents

Synopsis

The project defined a "Truth Wizard" as a person identified who can identify deception with accuracy of at least 80%, whereas the average person rates around 50%. No Truth Wizard was 100% accurate. "Wizard" is used to mean "a person of amazing skill or accomplishment." [2]

O'Sullivan and Ekman [2] identified only 50 people as Truth Wizards after testing 20,000 (~0.25%) [3] from all walks of life, including the Secret Service, FBI, sheriffs, police, attorneys, arbitrators, psychologists, students, and many others. Surprisingly,[ citation needed ] while psychiatrists and law enforcement personnel showed no more aptitude than college freshmen, Secret Service agents were the most skilled.

O'Sullivan remarked, "Our wizards are extraordinarily attuned to detecting the nuances of facial expressions, body language and ways of talking and thinking. Some of them can observe a videotape for a few seconds and amazingly they can describe eight details about the person on the tape." [1]

Scientists are currently studying Truth Wizards to identify new ways to spot a liar. [ citation needed ]

Truth Wizards use a variety of clues to spot deception and do not depend on any one "clue" to identify a liar. Truth wizards have a natural knack for spotting microexpressions. They also home in on inconsistencies in emotion, body language, and the spoken word with amazing skill.

Ekman said on NPR: "We're still trying to find out how in the world did they learn this skill? Are they the sort of Mozarts of lie detection; they just had it?" [4]

Ekman points out that the success rate of Truth Wizards is "without any specialized training," [4] and claims that anyone can be trained to detect microexpressions, one element used by Truth Wizards to spot deception in some case, and has released a training CD to do that.

Controversies

Psychologists Charles F. Bond and Ahmet Uysal of Texas Christian University criticized the methodology used by Ekman and O'Sullivan and suspected the performance of the reported Truth Wizards to be due to chance (a type I error), concluding that "convincing evidence of lie detection wizardry has never been presented." [5] [6] [7] Gary D. Bond from Winston Salem State University later replicated the experiment using a more rigorous protocol and found two people to be exceptionally fast and accurate at lie detection out of 112 law enforcement officers and 122 undergraduate students, a result consistent with Ekman and O'Sullivan's. [8] Both experts at lie detection were female Native American BIA correctional officers.

O'Sullivan responded to Bond and Uysal in "Unicorns or Tiger Woods: are lie detection experts myths or rarities? A response to on lie detection 'wizards' by Bond and Uysal". [9] Bond and Uysal had critiqued a chapter which discussed the initial stages for a research program under way. They commented on two different issues in particular. Firstly, the scores of any "Truth Wizard" may have been a coincidence and secondly, the procedures used for testing does not meet the standards of classical psychometric class theory. [9] Ekman, Mark Frank and O'Sullivan also published "Reply scoring and reporting: A response to Bond (2008)". [10]

In addition, the methods employed by the original researchers have also come under criticism, with suggestion that methodological techniques and particular results have not been published fully. [11]

Ekman's work is the inspiration for the Fox TV series Lie to Me (2009–2011). One of the show's main characters, Ria Torres, is a "natural", that is, a Truth Wizard.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Polygraph</span> Device that attempts to infer lying

A polygraph, often incorrectly referred to as a lie detector test, is a device or procedure that measures and records several physiological indicators such as blood pressure, pulse, respiration, and skin conductivity while a person is asked and answers a series of questions. The belief underpinning the use of the polygraph is that deceptive answers will produce physiological responses that can be differentiated from those associated with non-deceptive answers; however, there are no specific physiological reactions associated with lying, making it difficult to identify factors that separate those who are lying from those who are telling the truth.

Deception or falsehood is an act or statement that misleads, hides the truth, or promotes a belief, concept, or idea that is not true. It is often done for personal gain or advantage. Deception can involve dissimulation, propaganda and sleight of hand as well as distraction, camouflage or concealment. There is also self-deception, as in bad faith. It can also be called, with varying subjective implications, beguilement, deceit, bluff, mystification, ruse, or subterfuge.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Interrogation</span> Interviews by police, military or intelligence personnel

Interrogation is interviewing as commonly employed by law enforcement officers, military personnel, intelligence agencies, organized crime syndicates, and terrorist organizations with the goal of eliciting useful information, particularly information related to suspected crime. Interrogation may involve a diverse array of techniques, ranging from developing a rapport with the subject to torture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lie</span> Intentionally false statement made to deceive

A lie is an assertion that is believed to be false, typically used with the purpose of deceiving or misleading someone. The practice of communicating lies is called lying. A person who communicates a lie may be termed a liar. Lies can be interpreted as deliberately false statements or misleading statements. Lies may also serve a variety of instrumental, interpersonal, or psychological functions for the individuals who use them.

Self-deception is a process of denying or rationalizing away the relevance, significance, or importance of opposing evidence and logical argument. Self-deception involves convincing oneself of a truth so that one does not reveal any self-knowledge of the deception.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul Ekman</span> American psychologist and academic

Paul Ekman is an American psychologist and professor emeritus at the University of California, San Francisco who is a pioneer in the study of emotions and their relation to facial expressions. He was ranked 59th out of the 100 most cited psychologists of the twentieth century. Ekman conducted seminal research on the specific biological correlations of specific emotions, attempting to demonstrate the universality and discreteness of emotions in a Darwinian approach.

A microexpression is a facial expression that only lasts for a short moment. It is the innate result of a voluntary and an involuntary emotional response occurring simultaneously and conflicting with one another, and occurs when the amygdala responds appropriately to the stimuli that the individual experiences and the individual wishes to conceal this specific emotion. This results in the individual very briefly displaying their true emotions followed by a false emotional reaction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bad faith</span> Duplicity, fraud, or deception

Bad faith is a sustained form of deception which consists of entertaining or pretending to entertain one set of feelings while acting as if influenced by another. It is associated with hypocrisy, breach of contract, affectation, and lip service. It may involve intentional deceit of others, or self-deception.

Lie detection is an assessment of a verbal statement with the goal to reveal a possible intentional deceit. Lie detection may refer to a cognitive process of detecting deception by evaluating message content as well as non-verbal cues. It also may refer to questioning techniques used along with technology that record physiological functions to ascertain truth and falsehood in response. The latter is commonly used by law enforcement in the United States, but rarely in other countries because it is based on pseudoscience.

Interpersonal deception theory (IDT) is one of a number of theories that attempts to explain how individuals handle actual deception at the conscious or subconscious level while engaged in face-to-face communication. The theory was put forth by David Buller and Judee Burgoon in 1996 to explore this idea that deception is an engaging process between receiver and deceiver. IDT assumes that communication is not static; it is influenced by personal goals and the meaning of the interaction as it unfolds. The sender's overt communications are affected by the overt and covert communications of the receiver, and vice versa. IDT explores the interrelation between the sender's communicative meaning and the receiver's thoughts and behavior in deceptive exchanges.

The timed antagonistic response alethiometer, or TARA, is a type of lie detection technique that relies upon cognitive chronometry.

Statement analysis, also called scientific content analysis (SCAN), is a technique for analyzing the words people use to try to determine if what they said is accurate. Proponents claim this technique can be used to detect concealed information, missing information, embedded confessions and whether the information that person has provided is true or false.

Lie to Me is an American crime drama television series. It originally ran on the Fox network from January 21, 2009, to January 31, 2011. In the show, Dr. Cal Lightman and his colleagues in The Lightman Group accept assignments from third parties, and assist in investigations, reaching the truth through applied psychology: interpreting microexpressions, through the Facial Action Coding System, and body language. In May 2009, the show was renewed for a second season consisting of 13 episodes; season two premiered on September 28, 2009. On November 24, 2009, Fox ordered an extra nine episodes for season two, bringing the season order to 22 episodes.

Non-verbal leakage is a form of non-verbal behavior that occurs when a person verbalizes one thing, but their body language indicates another, common forms of which include facial movements and hand-to-face gestures. The term "non-verbal leakage" got its origin in literature in 1968, leading to many subsequent studies on the topic throughout the 1970s, with related studies continuing today.

Othello occurs when a suspicious observer discounts cues of truthfulness. Essentially the Othello error occurs, Paul Ekman states, "when the lie catcher fails to consider that a truthful person who is under stress may appear to be lying", their non-verbal signals expressing their worry at the possibility of being disbelieved. A lie-detector or polygraph may be deceived in the same way, by misinterpreting nervous signals from a truthful person. The error is named after William Shakespeare's tragic play Othello; the dynamics between the two main characters, Othello and Desdemona, are a particularly well-known example of the error in practice.

Aldert Vrij is a professor of applied social psychology in the department of psychology at the University of Portsmouth in Portsmouth, England. His main area of expertise is utilizing nonverbal and verbal cues of deception, also called lie detection. Author of numerous research articles, Vrij has found that human beings can become more accurate judges of truth and deception not by passive observation of a speaker's verbal and nonverbal behavior but by tactically outsmarting liars through use of various techniques.

Mark G. Frank is a communication professor and department chair, and an internationally recognized expert on human nonverbal communication, emotion, and deception. Dr. Frank conducts research and does training on micro expressions of emotion and of the face. His research studies include other nonverbal indicators of deception throughout the rest of the body. He is the Director of the Communication Science Center research laboratory that is located on the North Campus of the University at Buffalo. Under his guidance, a team of graduate researchers conduct experiments and studies for private and government entities. Frank uses his expertise in communication and psychology to assist law enforcement agencies in monitoring both verbal and nonverbal communication.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pamela Meyer</span>

Pamela Meyer is an American author, certified fraud examiner, and entrepreneur. Described by Reader's Digest as "the nation's best known expert on lying," Meyer is the author of the 2010 book Liespotting: Proven Techniques to Detect Deception. Her 2011 TED talk, "How to Spot a Liar," has exceeded 31 million views and is one of the 20 most popular TED talks of all time.

Truth-default theory (TDT) is a communication theory which predicts and explains the use of veracity and deception detection in humans. It was developed upon the discovery of the veracity effect - whereby the proportion of truths versus lies presented in a judgement study on deception will drive accuracy rates. This theory gets its name from its central idea which is the truth-default state. This idea suggests that people presume others to be honest because they either don't think of deception as a possibility during communicating or because there is insufficient evidence that they are being deceived. Emotions, arousal, strategic self-presentation, and cognitive effort are nonverbal behaviors that one might find in deception detection. Ultimately this theory predicts that speakers and listeners will default to use the truth to achieve their communicative goals. However, if the truth presents a problem, then deception will surface as a viable option for goal attainment.

Motivation impairment effect (MIE) is a hypothesised behavioral effect relating to the communication of deception. The MIE posits that people who are highly motivated to deceive are less successful in their goal when their speech and mannerisms are observed by the intended audience. This is because their nonverbal cues, such as adaptor gestures, sweating, kinesic behaviors, verbal disfluencies, etc, tend to be more pronounced due to increased stress, cognitive load, and heightened emotional state. There is some disagreement regarding the MIE hypothesis, with a few nonverbal communication scholars arguing that deception should not be examined as separate for senders and receivers, but rather as an integral part of the overall process.

References

  1. 1 2 "Lying and deceit - the Wizards Project".
  2. 1 2 Granhag, Pär; Strömwall, Leid (2004). The Detection of Deception in Forensic Contexts. Cambridge University Press. p. 269. ISBN   978-0-521-54157-2.
  3. Camilleri, J. (January 21, 2009). "Truth Wizard knows when you've been lying". Chicago Sun-Times.
  4. 1 2 http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/2009/01/23/08 Archived 2009-06-07 at the Wayback Machine The Face Never Lies
  5. Bond, Charles F & Uysal, Ahmet. (2007). "On lie detection 'wizards'". Law and human behavior31.
  6. Bond, C. F. (2008), "Commentary: A few can catch a liar, sometimes: Comments on Ekman and O'Sullivan (1991), as well as Ekman, O'Sullivan, and Frank (1999)". Applied Cognitive Psychology22:1298–1300.
  7. Ekman, P., O'Sullivan, M. and Frank, M. (2008), "Reply scoring and reporting: A response to Bond (2008)". Applied Cognitive Psychology22:1315–1317.
  8. Bond, Gary D. (2008). "Deception detection expertise" Law and human behavior32.
  9. 1 2 O'Sullivan, Maureen. (2007). "Unicorns or Tiger Woods: are lie detection experts myths or rarities? A response to on lie detection "wizards" by Bond and Uysal". Law and human behavior31 JSTOR   4499519
  10. Paul Ekman, Maureen O'Sullivan, Mark Frank. . Applied Cognitive Psychology.
  11. Bond, Charles (December 2008). "Commentary a few can catch a liar, sometimes: Comments on Ekman and O'Sullivan (1991), as well as Ekman, O'Sullivan, and Frank (1999)". Applied Cognitive Psychology . 22 (9): 1298–1300. doi:10.1002/acp.1475.