Spy the Lie: How to Spot Deception the CIA Way

At any given moment in time, as human beings we tend to be either visually dominant or auditorily dominant—­we’re either more aware of and pro­cessing what ­we’re seeing, or more aware of and pro­cessing what ­we’re hearing. The problem with that goes back to what we said about communication being both verbal and nonverbal in nature, which means that deceptive behavior can come in either or both forms. How do we capture both at the same time?
The trick is to train our brains to go into what we call “L-squared mode”—­we have to tell it to look and listen simultaneously. We have to say, “Brain, for the next few seconds, you’re going to pro­cess in both the visual and auditory channels what’s being communicated to me.”

Advances are made by answering questions. Discoveries are made by questioning answers.

The greatest problem in communication is the illusion that it has been accomplished.

“Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth.”

Silence in response to a question is almost universally perceived­ as deceptive.

But Phil knew that in order to convince his accuser, a deceptive person may respond to an allegation with a truthful statement, often one that casts himself in a highly favorable light.

Our experience has shown that if we can identify the first deceptive behavior within that first five seconds, we can reasonably conclude that the behavior is directly associated with the stimulus.

The pens on a polygraph chart record four physiological responses to the stimulus. There are two respiratory tracings, one cardiovascular activity tracing, and one galvanic skin response tracing, which rec­ords changes in skin moisture.

Advances are made by answering questions. Discoveries are made by questioning answers.

Research tells us that if we divide communication into two broad buckets—­everything that’s a word, or the verbals; and everything that’s not a word, or the nonverbals—­the majority of communication is nonverbal.