{"id":593,"date":"2009-09-16T14:50:12","date_gmt":"2009-09-16T21:50:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.humintell.com\/?p=593"},"modified":"2024-02-05T14:43:03","modified_gmt":"2024-02-05T21:43:03","slug":"the-truth-behind-lie-to-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.humintell.com\/2009\/09\/the-truth-behind-lie-to-me\/","title":{"rendered":"The Truth Behind Lie to Me: The Science and Characters"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/jXytQOkNaq4\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3>Lie to Me: The TV Drama Series<\/h3>\n<p>While Lie to Me the TV show is loosely based on Dr. Paul Ekman\u2019s work in the field of microexpressions, it must be remembered that the show is a television drama series where plot lines are fabricated, characters are fictional and the truth is often exaggerated.<\/p>\n<p>How accurate is Lie to Me\u2019s depiction of The Lightman Group? Do people like Ria Torres even exist? Is the science that is depicted in the show accurate?<\/p>\n<p>In this blog we try to answer some of these questions and more.<\/p>\n<h3>The Lightman Group<\/h3>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-42444 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/www.humintell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/tim-roth-lie-to-me.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"292\" height=\"234\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.humintell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/tim-roth-lie-to-me.jpeg 512w, https:\/\/www.humintell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/tim-roth-lie-to-me-300x240.jpeg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 292px) 100vw, 292px\" \/>The Lightman Group is headed by Dr. Cal Lightman, a \u201chuman lie detector\u201d who spent years working for the FBI before he formed his own company. He and his team are hired to assist in cases where they question people\u2019s honesty.<\/p>\n<p>In the show we see Dr. Lightman talk to someone in regular conversation and within a few seconds, be able to tell if they are lying or not.<\/p>\n<p>A misconception one might have from the show is that a company like The Lightman Group actually exists, when in fact, the company that is portrayed on the show <strong>does not exist<\/strong> in real life.<\/p>\n<p>While it is true that psychologists can assist corporations and law enforcement groups to determine if someone is being honest, this takes countless hours of research and analysis of video footage.<\/p>\n<p>This is contrary to the false depiction that a psychologist who studies facial expression and nonverbal behavior can know\u00a0 if someone is lying to them from 2 minutes of conversation. The work these psychologists engage in is often tedious; it involves facial coding, establishing a baseline for the person being observed and comparing their nonverbal and verbal actions.<\/p>\n<h3>Truth Wizards<\/h3>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-36043 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/www.humintell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/download.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"275\" height=\"183\" \/>Although a company like the Lightman Group does not exist in real life, people like Ria Torres do.\u00a0 Torres, who is a \u201cnatural\u201d at detecting deception, is based off of Maureen O\u2019Sullivan\u2019s study called the <strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.eurekalert.org\/pub_releases\/2004-10\/ama-lad100804.php\">Wizards Project<\/a><\/span><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Of the 13,000 people that were tested in their deception detection techniques, only 31 were wizards, who were able to tell \u201cwhether the person is lying, whether the lie is about an opinion, how someone is feeling or about a theft\u201d.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Lie to Me Science: Is it Accurate?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>While much of the show is \u201crooted in actual science\u201d much of it is exaggerated and the information should be taken with a grain of salt.<\/p>\n<p>In one of the first episodes, there is a great quote by Dr. Lightman where he says \u201cThe body contradicts the words- he\u2019s lying\u201d. What\u2019s important to remember is that if a person\u2019s body, or nonverbal behavior, contradicts the words, or verbal behavior, it doesn\u2019t automatically mean they\u2019re lying.<\/p>\n<p>It simply means you need to investigate the situation a little more and try to understand why they were trying to hide something. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.humintell.com\/2009\/08\/common-misconceptions-about-microexpressions\/\">(<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>See common misconceptions about microexpressions part 1<\/strong><\/span>)<\/a><\/p>\n<p>There are other parts of the show that are exaggerated for dramatic effect. The show often mentions manipulators, which are nonverbal behaviors. These behaviors are usually those that a person manipulates (e.g. scratching the nose or neck).<\/p>\n<p>Many of these behaviors can be a clue to detecting deception if they change from a person\u2019s <strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.humintell.com\/2009\/07\/so-you-want-to-be-an-expert-1\/\">baseline<\/a> <\/span><\/strong>(what they normally do). This extremely important detail is often left out of the show. Just because a person scratches their nose doesn\u2019t mean they\u2019re automatically lying. It could be a sign of deception, or just a nervous tick.<\/p>\n<p>Everyone has their own \u201ctells\u201d- what they do when they lie, but this differs from person to person. What is important to note is that there is not one signal that tells someone that they are lying- there is no Pinocchio.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lie to Me: The TV Drama Series While Lie to Me the TV show is loosely based on Dr. Paul Ekman\u2019s work in the field of microexpressions, it must be remembered that the show is a television drama series where plot lines are fabricated, characters are fictional and the truth is often exaggerated. How accurate&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,18,30,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-deception","category-lie-to-me","category-lying","category-microexpressions"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.humintell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.humintell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.humintell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.humintell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.humintell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=593"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.humintell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42905,"href":"https:\/\/www.humintell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593\/revisions\/42905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.humintell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.humintell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.humintell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}