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Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, welcome to Science Stuff, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: My name is horthe Cham and today in the program,

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Speaker 1: we'll be asking the question do our pets lie to us?

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Speaker 1: It's a question that pet owners have been asking themselves

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Speaker 1: for centuries. Is my feline friend fibbing? Is my dog

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Speaker 1: duping me with deceit? We're gonna tackle the general question

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Speaker 1: of whether animals can lie, and we're gonna ask if

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Speaker 1: they have the same tells that humans do, can you

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Speaker 1: catch them in the act. We're going to talk with

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Speaker 1: a biologist and also a brain scientist to get to

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Speaker 1: the bottom of this. Now, this is a special episode

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Speaker 1: because today's question comes from a friend of mine, and

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Speaker 1: not just a friend, a famous friend. Mary Robinette Kowal

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Speaker 1: is a well known science fiction writer. She's only one

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Speaker 1: of eighteen people in history to have won all three

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Speaker 1: major science fiction awards, that's the Hugo, the Nebula, and

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Speaker 1: the Locusts. And she's asking this question for a very

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Speaker 1: peculiar reason. She's taught her cat to talk, but now

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Speaker 1: she's wondering if her cat is lying to her. So

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Speaker 1: here is my chat with science fiction author Mary Robinett Kowal,

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Speaker 1: answering her question of whether our pets are being perfidious

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Speaker 1: that means they're lying anyways, enjoy.

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Speaker 2: My question is I want to know about animals lying

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Speaker 2: and if they have the same kind of tells that

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Speaker 2: humans have.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a great question. What made you think of

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Speaker 1: this question?

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Speaker 2: What made me think of it is I have a

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Speaker 2: cat who uses buttons to talk. Were part of a study.

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Speaker 2: There's thousands of animals in this study out of University

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Speaker 2: of San Diego. But we're also part of this very

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Speaker 2: large movement of people whose animals use buttons to talk.

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Speaker 2: It's called augmentative inner species communication. It started with a

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Speaker 2: woman named Christina Hunger in twenty nineteen. She was a

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Speaker 2: speech language therapist who basically thought, what happens if I

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Speaker 2: use the same techniques that I use with my nonverbal

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Speaker 2: patients if I use them with my new puppy. And

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Speaker 2: she spawns this global movement. So, Elsie, my cat, has

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Speaker 2: one hundred and twenty word vocabulary, and she, to all appearances,

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Speaker 2: will lie to me. For instance, I had just given

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Speaker 2: her the button for sleepy, and you model it for

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Speaker 2: them the same way you'd model for a child. And

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Speaker 2: then she said bedroom lie down, sleepy, and you know,

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Speaker 2: I'd been in the kitchen. I was making my lunch.

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Speaker 2: But I'm like, I'm going to abandon lunch. I'm going

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Speaker 2: to model this. Let's go lie down. And so I

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Speaker 2: walk into the bedroom and I lie down. I'm like,

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Speaker 2: why is my cat not here? And I go in

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Speaker 2: and she's eating my lunch.

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Speaker 1: She fooled you, she fooled me to the bedroom to

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Speaker 1: leave the room. I feel like you're living in a

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Speaker 1: science fiction world.

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Speaker 2: I am.

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Speaker 1: I am, yes for that story from up the Pixar

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Speaker 1: movie with the dog with the speaker.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it is like the way I describe it is,

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Speaker 2: I am living with a non he an intelligence who

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Speaker 2: is an el toddler covered in fur and an alien.

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Speaker 1: Oh man, I feel like I could spend the rest

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Speaker 1: at the end of you just asking you about this

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Speaker 1: movement and your pet. Yeah, but if I'm going to

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Speaker 1: try to answer your question.

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Speaker 3: We should get to it.

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Speaker 2: Yes, please do Okay?

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Speaker 1: And now I'm not an animal expert or psychologist, so

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Speaker 1: I didn't know the answer. But fortunately I do know

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Speaker 1: someone who happens to be both of those things. So

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Speaker 1: I reached out to my friend Katie Golden, and Katie

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Speaker 1: is a podcaster. She's a host of a podcast called

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Speaker 1: Creature Feature, and she's a trained behavioral biologist and a

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Speaker 1: trained psychologist. I thought perfect person to ask this question. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so here is her first part of the answer.

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Speaker 4: There's obviously a ton of deception in nature. You look

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Speaker 4: at a leaf insect or stickbug, it's being deceptive, right,

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Speaker 4: It's disguised.

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Speaker 1: As a leaf or stick camouflage.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, it's camouflage. So like, there's there's so much deception

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Speaker 4: in the natural world. You know, there's even deception on

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Speaker 4: the microbial level, like viral DNA tricking the immune system

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Speaker 4: into allowing it to go through the body. You know,

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Speaker 4: there's so many levels of deception. But I feel like

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Speaker 4: what your question and what Mary's question is kind of

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Speaker 4: getting at is lying, which to me feels different from

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Speaker 4: like passive deception. Like if you're born as a leaf

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Speaker 4: insect and you look like a leaf, you're not trying

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Speaker 4: to trick anyone necessarily, that's just how you are. But

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Speaker 4: evolution has pushed you into this state. When you look

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Speaker 4: more and more like this leaf or like the stick,

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Speaker 4: you tend to survive more. So it's a type of deception.

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Speaker 4: But to me, it doesn't feel like lying. Lying feels

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Speaker 4: like I am communicating something to you directly that is

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Speaker 4: false and intentionally, so like I am intentionally misleading you

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Speaker 4: to get what I want or to avoid consequences.

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Speaker 1: So I think you're saying the concept of lying in

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Speaker 1: this context of the question, it's more about playing mind games.

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Speaker 1: You're not just like wearing some sort of suit to

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Speaker 1: help you hide. If you're you're intentionally aware of the

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Speaker 1: other organism or person out there, and you're intentionally doing

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Speaker 1: something to mess with their minds.

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Speaker 4: Yeah. One of my favorite examples of lying without any

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Speaker 4: vocalization is in squirrels, where squirrels will bury a ton

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Speaker 4: of nuts and they have to do this to survive

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Speaker 4: the winter, so that they have these nut caches, and

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Speaker 4: so once things are barren and there's not as much food,

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Speaker 4: then they can dig them up and eat them. And

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Speaker 4: one thing that squirrels will do is they'll try to

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Speaker 4: steal each other's nut cases, because why spend all this

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Speaker 4: time looking for nuts when you can just see another

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Speaker 4: squirrel bearing a nut, remember where they buried the nut,

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Speaker 4: and then steal it. And so squirrels have come up

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Speaker 4: with a way to combat the thieves, and that is

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Speaker 4: by deceiving them intentionally with a behavior which is pretending

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Speaker 4: to bury a nut while a thief is watching and

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Speaker 4: then leaving the area, and as the thief is busy

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Speaker 4: sort of trying to dig up that nut for itself,

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Speaker 4: then it buries the nut for real. So it's this

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Speaker 4: intentional perception of like, look, I'm bearing a nut, and

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Speaker 4: then the thief goes there and looks for it and then.

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Speaker 1: Doesn't find anything, and then it gets ah nuts eggs.

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Speaker 4: That's the one squirrel joke that they make.

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Speaker 1: Yes, So then a squirrel will pretend to hide a

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Speaker 1: nut because it knows that it's being watched by another squirrel.

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Speaker 1: Now is that proven would only do this fake hiding

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Speaker 1: nut behavior if it knows it's being watched.

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Speaker 4: I believe they've found that they do more of the

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Speaker 4: hiding behavior when they think they're being observed.

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Speaker 1: When we come back, Katie will tell us an example

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Speaker 1: of animals actually telling a lie, and then she'll tell

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Speaker 1: us how she thinks her dog is lying to her.

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Speaker 1: You're listening to sign stuff. Welcome back to science stuff.

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Speaker 1: Katie had another interesting example, and this one does involve

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Speaker 1: telling a lot.

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Speaker 4: There's another animal, which is maybe one of my favorite liars,

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Speaker 4: and this one is actually lying verbally, so we're getting

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Speaker 4: really close to kind of human lies. Right. So, alarm

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Speaker 4: calls are done by an animal to warn its family

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Speaker 4: that a predator is about. And sometimes it's really specific.

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Speaker 4: Sometimes they're like they'll have a call that's lookout. It's

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Speaker 4: a hawk, look out, it's a snake, look out, it's

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Speaker 4: like a coyote, you know, different calls for different predators.

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Speaker 4: So there's this animal called the fork tailed drongo, which

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Speaker 4: sounds kind of like an insult, like, does not sound nice.

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Speaker 4: There are a species of bird that lives in South Africa.

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Speaker 4: They look kind of like a blackbird, but they have

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Speaker 4: a little bit of a thicker beak and a forked tail.

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Speaker 4: And so these birds will watch other animals handling a

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Speaker 4: food item and then issue an alarm call. But this

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Speaker 4: is a false alarm. They're crying, they're saying, I see something,

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Speaker 4: uh oh, And it's either mimicking the alarm call of

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Speaker 4: that species, like say a meer cat alarm call, or

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Speaker 4: they're using their own alarm call. And something that's kind

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Speaker 4: of interesting about alarm calls is animals learn the alarm

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Speaker 4: calls of other species because that helps them. Right, if

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Speaker 4: you hear some other animal using an alarm call, you're like, oh,

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Speaker 4: well they think something's up, so I should also run.

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Speaker 4: And so these birds, these drongos, learn that they can

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Speaker 4: either mimic an alarm call or use their own type

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Speaker 4: of alarm call and animals will run away. And they

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Speaker 4: do this when they are observing their targets, they're victims

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Speaker 4: eating food or handling food. And then once their victims

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Speaker 4: have run away because basically they've been lied to, they've

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Speaker 4: been told there's a predator, then the drangle goes in

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Speaker 4: and eats the food. And in this case, I know

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Speaker 4: for a fact that they have done research where they've

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Speaker 4: found that they do more of these false alarm calls

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Speaker 4: when they are watching an animal handling food directly. So

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Speaker 4: it is very linked to an awareness of like, look

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Speaker 4: that's food I want. I can get it to run

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Speaker 4: away if I fake an alarm call.

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Speaker 1: Wow, that is amazing. It makes me sort of have

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Speaker 1: any immediate humanizing reaction. It makes me not trust this animal,

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Speaker 1: or it makes me think of this animal as being

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Speaker 1: deceptive or not a good person.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, we make a moral judgment.

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Speaker 1: So birds lie too, Mary, that's so cool. They literally

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Speaker 1: cry wolf.

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Speaker 2: Yes, that is amazing. This is a surprise to maybe

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Speaker 2: and also a moment of like, well, of course some

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Speaker 2: bird would have gone like, oh, that worked, well, let's

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Speaker 2: do that again.

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Speaker 1: And I like this example because it's sort of like

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Speaker 1: the classic hey, look behind you, or like well there's

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Speaker 1: a tiger coming for you to fool somebody you're trying

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Speaker 1: to take advantage of.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, oh no gods.

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Speaker 4: In terms of verbal lying. So I don't have a

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Speaker 4: study here, but I do have an anecdote of my dog.

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Speaker 4: She will verbally lie to me about danger when she

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Speaker 4: sees something outside the window. She does her job as

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Speaker 4: a little guard dog, even though I didn't hire her.

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Speaker 4: I don't know who did. But she barks at pigeons,

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Speaker 4: at whatever, like any birds, any activity, another dog barking.

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Speaker 4: She has a certain sound, a certain tone to that bark.

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Speaker 4: Her hackles raise, her tail is stiff. It's alertness, right,

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Speaker 4: like I am in a protective mode and there is

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Speaker 4: something out there and I am alerting you, which again

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Speaker 4: is not something you see in wolves. This is a

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Speaker 4: dog specific trait that we've bred into them. And so

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Speaker 4: she'll do this right, But if I'm about to leave

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Speaker 4: the apartment, she'll bark, but her tone's very different. She's relaxed,

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Speaker 4: her tail's down, but she's looking out the window, and

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Speaker 4: her body language is otherwise very like relaxed and calm,

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Speaker 4: but she barks, and her tone is different when she's

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Speaker 4: barking and she's staring out and there's nothing there, right,

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Speaker 4: there's nothing out the window. And I think she's doing

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Speaker 4: this every time I'm about to leave, to basically say like,

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Speaker 4: don't leave. There's something weird, there's something interesting or weird

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Speaker 4: over here. You should stay. So she's trying to lie

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Speaker 4: to me about there being something at the window.

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Speaker 1: What are you doing, Katies, there's a pigeon out there.

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Speaker 1: Pigeons are dangerous.

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Speaker 4: Stay in exactly, which I find is so interesting. And

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Speaker 4: the fact that her tone kind of is different, so

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Speaker 4: it's like she's trying to make it sound convincing, but

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Speaker 4: I can kind of tell the difference. She has a

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Speaker 4: different sort of tone, a different sort of like body language.

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Speaker 4: Everything's a little bit different when she's lying and I

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Speaker 4: see there's like literally nothing out there, versus when she

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Speaker 4: actually sees something. I look out and there's like a pigeon,

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Speaker 4: which you know, big deal, thanks.

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Speaker 1: Cookie, meaning Cookie is not good at lying, Like she

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Speaker 1: tells that you can tell she's.

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Speaker 4: Lying, right, which I only know because I know her

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Speaker 4: baseline behavior, and I also know dog body language, right,

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Speaker 4: like tail being stiff and the hackles being raised. There's

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Speaker 4: a lot like the stiffness in the body can show

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Speaker 4: you like how anxious or alert a dog is, and

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Speaker 4: whereas if the tail's lower and they seem more relaxed,

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Speaker 4: but then they're barking and like running around in a circle,

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Speaker 4: you're like, hmmm, it's interesting.

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Speaker 1: It's like smart enough to think about lying to you

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Speaker 1: so that you don't go out, but not smart enough

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Speaker 1: to notice her own tails.

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Speaker 4: Well, it's probably hard to control those too, because like

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Speaker 4: a lot of those tells are not something that she

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Speaker 4: has executive control over, right, Like the same thing with humans.

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Speaker 4: We can't control everything we do. Maybe with practice, we

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Speaker 4: can control our heart rate and our sweating or something,

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Speaker 4: but it is really difficult for a human to control everything, right,

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Speaker 4: Like you can't. If you're like I is twitching a

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Speaker 4: little bit, you can't turn that off necessarily. So we

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Speaker 4: don't have complete control over our body language, nor do

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Speaker 4: I think dogs don't have complete control, but they have

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Speaker 4: some control, and sometimes they'll manipulate that to get what

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Speaker 4: they want.

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Speaker 1: Wow, what if you put Cookie in like acting lessons,

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Speaker 1: you never leave the house.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, if Cookie got an oscar, I would

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Speaker 4: stay home with her all day.

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Speaker 2: One of the reasons I was curious about this is

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Speaker 2: that there are self soothing actions that humans will do

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Speaker 2: when they're lying. Not always, but often people will fidget

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Speaker 2: a little bit more, or they will fidget less because

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Speaker 2: they're aware that they need to look super calm. So

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Speaker 2: there are these things that people will do. There's a

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Speaker 2: study that people tend to look up into the left

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Speaker 2: a little bit when they are telling a lie versus

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Speaker 2: when they're accessing a memory that really happened.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: The part of your question was do animals lie? Do

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Speaker 1: they have tells? And do they correlate to tells in humans?

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Speaker 2: Yeah?

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Speaker 1: Right, If there is something common we have with animals

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Speaker 1: when we lie, does that mean that it's genetic and

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Speaker 1: we can fight it or is it just cultural? Part

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Speaker 1: of your question was or tells cultural or not?

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Speaker 4: Yeah?

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Speaker 1: Okay, Yeah, So I got really interested in this question also,

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Speaker 1: and so I reached out to a psychologist at the

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Speaker 1: University of Oslo who's been publishing a lot recently on

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Speaker 1: the kind of neuroscience of lying.

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Speaker 2: Oh, I'm so excited by this.

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Speaker 1: Okay, this is Tim's description what he does.

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Speaker 3: Yes, I'm a psychologist. In my area is cognitive psychology,

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Speaker 3: so memory and mental processes, how we think, And more

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Speaker 3: recent years I have spent time doing research on how

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Speaker 3: cognitive processes link up to emotional processes, more recently specifically

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Speaker 3: looking at light detection, which is pretty important task or

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Speaker 3: job throughout the legal system. You know, from the time

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Speaker 3: a crime is committed, when the police turn up and

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Speaker 3: they want to look for witnesses or victims or perpetrators.

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Speaker 3: You know, the task of deciding, well, you know, is

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Speaker 3: this person telling me the truth or art is quite

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Speaker 3: important all the way through the detective work into the

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Speaker 3: court system. You know, you have witnesses there and the

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Speaker 3: jury or the judges have to decide, you know, well

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Speaker 3: they can't both be telling the truth, so which one

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Speaker 3: is it? So it's an important topic, you know, obviously

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Speaker 3: important in a practical sense.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so Tim, doctor Brennans are as a psychologists. But

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Speaker 1: then when the lawyer approached him and said Hey, you're

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Speaker 1: someone who knows about emotions and things like that, can

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Speaker 1: you come and be an expert on this case? And

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Speaker 1: that's how he got a really interesting idea of lying,

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Speaker 1: because it's so crucial in a legal case, right, like

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Speaker 1: two people are saying different things. Who's telling the truth?

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Speaker 1: How do you determine who is guilty? In some cases

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Speaker 1: a matter of life and death? Right, Yeah, although he

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Speaker 1: says in Norway they don't have death penalty, so it's

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Speaker 1: a matter of life in prison.

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Speaker 2: I guess does he talk to you about ways he

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Speaker 2: can tell?

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Speaker 1: Yeah?

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: The basic question I asked him was what's going on

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Speaker 1: in your body when you're telling a lie? Neuroscience psychology

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Speaker 1: point of view, what's your body doing?

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Speaker 3: So, what's happening in our body and brains when we're

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Speaker 3: telling a lie? We're deliberately trying to deceive. Most of

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Speaker 3: us on a daily basis, we know how it feels

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Speaker 3: to tell a lie, and so from the inside you

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Speaker 3: can feel a bit of stress and you're wondering, is

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Speaker 3: this person understanding that I'm not quite telling the truth here?

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Speaker 3: And so on. That's one of the main things is

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Speaker 3: that the stress is associated with lying and mental effort,

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Speaker 3: because it's much easier just to tell the truth and

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Speaker 3: retrieve from memory rather than having to keep track of

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Speaker 3: what you've said to whom and which details you've made

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Speaker 3: up and so on. There's more mental effort involved. One

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Speaker 3: line of research it hopes to be able to pinpoint,

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Speaker 3: for example, where in the brain this extra effort is

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Speaker 3: being expended. And generally people are looking at the cognitive

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Speaker 3: load hypothesis and to say, okay, is there a way

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Speaker 3: for measuring cognitive load or rather imposing cognitive load. So

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Speaker 3: if you're telling the truth, you should be all right,

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Speaker 3: but if you're lying, you've already got the extra cognitive

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Speaker 3: blowed and this will tip you over the edge so

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Speaker 3: that it all collapses. And there's some research in favor

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Speaker 3: of that sort of idea that you can distinguish between

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Speaker 3: liars and truth tellers by imposing cognitive blow to a

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Speaker 3: certain extent.

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Speaker 2: Wow, that's cool. And then there's another part of my

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Speaker 2: brain that's like every ADHD person is just going to

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Speaker 2: look like a liar if you're just putting more targahiveload

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Speaker 2: on us.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it seems like you know the way he

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Speaker 1: looks at it, And I guess scientists look at it

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Speaker 1: is that this idea of tells, it kind of boils

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Speaker 1: down to what your brain is trying to do. Right,

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Speaker 1: You're trying to tell a story that you know is

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Speaker 1: not true, and so therefore there's two things associated with that.

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Speaker 1: One is stress. One is that he might be worried

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Speaker 1: about the consequences of lying. You might be worried about

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Speaker 1: what if I get caught? How is it going to look?

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Speaker 1: And you also have to think more than you would

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Speaker 1: if you were telling the truth, because when you telling

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Speaker 1: the truth, you're just maybe recalling and then spitting it out.

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Speaker 1: When you're trying to lie, you have to think about

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Speaker 1: what is the lie? What was the actual thing that happened?

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Speaker 1: Might be self consistent? How do I make sure that

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Speaker 1: I'm telling the right lie? Yeah, And so that can

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Speaker 1: then manifest as some of these things that we call tells.

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Speaker 1: If you're thinking extra hard telling you lie, you might

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Speaker 1: stammer more, or you might say oh more, or you

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Speaker 1: might feel the stress, and so you avoid the other

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Speaker 1: person's gaze.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: So that because the information that I have about lying

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Speaker 2: comes from reading about basically spies, cia interrogators and things

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Speaker 2: like that, where they're looking at the external behaviors, whereas

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Speaker 2: doctor Brennan is looking at the root causes of those behaviors,

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Speaker 2: which is so interesting.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's interesting. You can talk about tells, but

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Speaker 1: really it's helpful to just think about what is your

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Speaker 1: brain trying to do when you're trying to lie? Right?

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I'm so excited. This is very cool.

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Speaker 3: Now, an interesting thing about that is if you offer

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Speaker 3: people around the world and there's this big study being

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Speaker 3: done a few years ago asking people from seventy five

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Speaker 3: different countries and people agree around the planet that if

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Speaker 3: you don't look me in the eyes and you're looking

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Speaker 3: a bit shifty and possibly lying, you know, this is

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Speaker 3: deemed to be a q to deception. And in all

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Speaker 3: these different countries, over all these different languages, was finding

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Speaker 3: huge similarities.

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Speaker 1: This is this international constortium of basically lying scientists or

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Speaker 1: scientist that's dirty lying. And they did this huge survey

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Speaker 1: where they send the questionnaires to like forty people in

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Speaker 1: each of seventy five countries and across the world there

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Speaker 1: are a lot of similar answers, meaning like this thing

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Speaker 1: cuts across cultures in South America and North America, Europe, Africa, Asia,

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Speaker 1: and so The number one thing that most people say

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Speaker 1: that is a tell is that you're avoiding eye contact.

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Speaker 2: That's fascinating.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, you're verting gaze. And so something like seventy percent

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Speaker 1: of all cultures in the world mentioned this as a

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Speaker 1: clear sign that you're lying, which I think makes me

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Speaker 1: wonder is it easier to lie over zoom?

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Speaker 2: Then right?

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Speaker 1: Nobody expects you to the eye.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, oh, that is interesting.

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Speaker 1: A lot of these cultures mentioned nervousness. You're a little incoherent,

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Speaker 1: You're not making a lot of sense, you're making too

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Speaker 1: many body movements, too many facial expressions, you're sort of

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Speaker 1: inconsistent in your story. You're saying um a lot or uh,

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Speaker 1: you're pausing a lot. There was another one of the

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Speaker 1: signs that people mentioned.

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Speaker 2: Interesting. Do you know if in that study that's seventy

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Speaker 2: percent with the eye contact and being important, do you

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Speaker 2: know how that relates to the culture's overall relationship with

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Speaker 2: eye contact.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a great question. An interesting fact about the

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Speaker 1: study that they found was that it was very universal

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Speaker 1: except in cultures for which direct eye contact is considered

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Speaker 1: maybe rude. So, for example, some parts in the Middle East,

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Speaker 1: I think it's considered rude to look someone directly in

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Speaker 1: the eye, maybe if you don't know them, or if

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Speaker 1: you're supposed to be showing some respect to them. And

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Speaker 1: so in those countries, eye contact was not high on

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Speaker 1: the telltale signs of line.

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Speaker 2: Interesting. So it's something that crosses a lot of different cultures.

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Speaker 2: But if you have a culture where people are socialized

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Speaker 2: to think that eye contact is impolite, then that que

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Speaker 2: becomes not a meaningful queue, right.

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Speaker 1: Because they know that if you're not looking in the

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Speaker 1: eye just means something else where. I imagine like if there's

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Speaker 1: a culture where people move their arms allot when they talk,

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Speaker 1: or they say oh a lot, or they take a

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Speaker 1: lot of pauses while they talk, then definitely those are

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Speaker 1: not going to be things that people say are clues

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Speaker 1: about lying. Don't go anywhere you're listening to science stuff.

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Speaker 2: So this makes me think that dogs, which are an

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Speaker 2: evolutionary bye product of humans being like, let's tinker with

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Speaker 2: this wolf, but bread to cohabitate with us, and eye

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Speaker 2: contact is very important for dogs, that dogs would also

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Speaker 2: have eye contact as a potential tell, but that cats,

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Speaker 2: which are not as interested in eye contact might not

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Speaker 2: have eye contact as a tell.

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Speaker 1: Well, There's an interesting study that I found related to dogs,

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Speaker 1: which is that, you know, dogs didn't evolve out their

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Speaker 1: nature like elephants or lions. What we call dogs really

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Speaker 1: kind of evolve from walls with us. Yeah, they wouldn't

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Speaker 1: be dogs without humans kind of basically. Yeah, And so

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Speaker 1: dogs evolve ways to gain our sympathy, and one of

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Speaker 1: them for those ways is to look at us in

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Speaker 1: the eye. But more importantly, some scientists think this ability

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Speaker 1: to kind of shed tears on sort of on cue

438
00:22:27,400 --> 00:22:29,240
Speaker 1: whenever they need to get something from me or gain

439
00:22:29,280 --> 00:22:30,160
Speaker 1: your sympathy.

440
00:22:30,400 --> 00:22:31,200
Speaker 2: Wow.

441
00:22:31,560 --> 00:22:33,400
Speaker 1: So if they want to connect with you or they

442
00:22:33,400 --> 00:22:36,040
Speaker 1: have connected with you, it will trigger some hormone and

443
00:22:36,040 --> 00:22:38,760
Speaker 1: then that hormone will trigger them to shed extra tear

444
00:22:38,800 --> 00:22:39,919
Speaker 1: or so there at least to have sort of like

445
00:22:40,000 --> 00:22:42,879
Speaker 1: watery Wow, I know the way they're sort of lying

446
00:22:42,920 --> 00:22:46,760
Speaker 1: to you when they with puppy eyes. I don't know's

447
00:22:47,040 --> 00:22:48,400
Speaker 1: I know, a blurry line.

448
00:22:48,480 --> 00:22:52,280
Speaker 2: Yeah. Like I had read that dogs had developed eyebrows

449
00:22:52,320 --> 00:22:54,840
Speaker 2: basically to be more appealing to humans. Wow.

450
00:22:55,160 --> 00:22:55,400
Speaker 3: Yeah.

451
00:22:55,480 --> 00:22:59,359
Speaker 2: Yeah, that they have significantly more muscles around their eyes

452
00:22:59,520 --> 00:23:03,119
Speaker 2: to create the iron show more white as well than wolves.

453
00:23:03,200 --> 00:23:06,159
Speaker 2: And the speculation is that it is something that happened

454
00:23:06,200 --> 00:23:09,400
Speaker 2: specifically because it makes them more appealing, right right, yeah,

455
00:23:09,520 --> 00:23:12,920
Speaker 2: not expressive, whereas cats who did not do that. Having

456
00:23:12,920 --> 00:23:15,240
Speaker 2: a conversation with a cat is like talking to someone

457
00:23:15,280 --> 00:23:17,600
Speaker 2: whose entire face has been botoxed.

458
00:23:18,080 --> 00:23:18,720
Speaker 1: Like they don't care.

459
00:23:19,119 --> 00:23:22,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, they would be good poker players, right, exactly.

460
00:23:22,359 --> 00:23:26,479
Speaker 1: There's a CTV these commonalities between animals and humans just

461
00:23:26,480 --> 00:23:29,040
Speaker 1: from the idea of what lying is, which is that

462
00:23:29,119 --> 00:23:31,640
Speaker 1: you're pretending that to do something, or to say something,

463
00:23:31,760 --> 00:23:34,119
Speaker 1: or just state something that you know it's not true.

464
00:23:34,400 --> 00:23:36,760
Speaker 1: So there's a common base and we sort of see

465
00:23:36,760 --> 00:23:38,760
Speaker 1: that with Katie and her dog and how she can

466
00:23:38,760 --> 00:23:41,040
Speaker 1: tell that the dog is maybe lying because the dog

467
00:23:41,320 --> 00:23:44,919
Speaker 1: is not a good actor. Yeah, and we see that also.

468
00:23:45,119 --> 00:23:48,560
Speaker 1: It seems in humans. It appears that there are common adalytes,

469
00:23:48,680 --> 00:23:52,439
Speaker 1: even among cultures. However, the plot to us here is

470
00:23:52,480 --> 00:23:56,800
Speaker 1: that Tim doesn't believe in tells at all. Oh wow, yeah,

471
00:23:56,840 --> 00:23:57,720
Speaker 1: here's what he said.

472
00:23:58,920 --> 00:24:03,920
Speaker 3: So there's really dissociation between what people believe and what

473
00:24:03,960 --> 00:24:08,920
Speaker 3: the research shows. So we have solid research showing that

474
00:24:09,200 --> 00:24:14,560
Speaker 3: nonverbal cues are at best faint, you know, faint cues

475
00:24:14,560 --> 00:24:18,479
Speaker 3: to deception. Can't there so far from being usable in

476
00:24:18,520 --> 00:24:21,600
Speaker 3: the forensic context, the sort of figure that we would

477
00:24:21,600 --> 00:24:26,040
Speaker 3: normally throw around is fifty four percent, where fifty to

478
00:24:26,040 --> 00:24:29,920
Speaker 3: fifty is the chance level. Right, So it's as if

479
00:24:29,960 --> 00:24:33,959
Speaker 3: we humans can pick something up, but just very little,

480
00:24:34,359 --> 00:24:36,320
Speaker 3: you know. And the research has been done in a

481
00:24:36,359 --> 00:24:41,400
Speaker 3: whole wide variety of situations, also situations that are really

482
00:24:41,520 --> 00:24:44,720
Speaker 3: meaningful for people, where it turns out some people have

483
00:24:44,760 --> 00:24:48,600
Speaker 3: been lying in a press conference about whether they knew

484
00:24:48,600 --> 00:24:51,639
Speaker 3: anything about the disappearance of one of their loved ones,

485
00:24:52,359 --> 00:24:55,280
Speaker 3: you know. And then afterwards you can when you've got

486
00:24:55,280 --> 00:24:58,760
Speaker 3: a set of those press conferences, and you can determine, Okay,

487
00:24:59,040 --> 00:25:01,239
Speaker 3: this group of people, well, they have nothing to do

488
00:25:01,280 --> 00:25:03,240
Speaker 3: with it, this group of people, they turn out to

489
00:25:03,240 --> 00:25:06,600
Speaker 3: be the perpetrator. The question can then be asked of

490
00:25:07,000 --> 00:25:12,240
Speaker 3: independent observers participants in experiments, what can you tell which

491
00:25:12,280 --> 00:25:16,000
Speaker 3: of these people are lying? You know? And we just can't.

492
00:25:17,720 --> 00:25:25,560
Speaker 2: Wow. Yeah huh, But like I hear that, and I

493
00:25:25,640 --> 00:25:30,000
Speaker 2: understand it, and I don't question it. And also I

494
00:25:30,040 --> 00:25:32,800
Speaker 2: think everyone has experienced a thing where you've been talking

495
00:25:32,840 --> 00:25:35,119
Speaker 2: to someone and you know that they're lying to you,

496
00:25:35,200 --> 00:25:36,240
Speaker 2: and you're right about it.

497
00:25:37,119 --> 00:25:40,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's sort of this conundrum right where intuitively we

498
00:25:41,119 --> 00:25:43,280
Speaker 1: know that tells exist and sometimes you can tell if

499
00:25:43,320 --> 00:25:46,159
Speaker 1: someone's lying, and yet people like Tim are saying these

500
00:25:46,440 --> 00:25:49,040
Speaker 1: non verbal cues, this idea of being able to tell

501
00:25:49,160 --> 00:25:52,040
Speaker 1: someone's lying is not true. Like at best, he said,

502
00:25:52,200 --> 00:25:54,679
Speaker 1: we can guess if someone's lying fifty four percent of

503
00:25:54,720 --> 00:25:55,080
Speaker 1: the time.

504
00:25:55,400 --> 00:26:00,440
Speaker 2: I wonder this is such a semantic split. It is

505
00:26:00,440 --> 00:26:03,360
Speaker 2: a difference between lying and acting.

506
00:26:04,280 --> 00:26:04,760
Speaker 1: What do you mean?

507
00:26:05,000 --> 00:26:08,280
Speaker 2: So there's a really famous quote by Marlon Brando when

508
00:26:08,280 --> 00:26:11,080
Speaker 2: people ask him, you know, what the secret to acting was,

509
00:26:11,080 --> 00:26:13,359
Speaker 2: and he's like, I'm just lying. That's all I'm doing.

510
00:26:13,480 --> 00:26:15,040
Speaker 2: And when you think about it, that is what an

511
00:26:15,040 --> 00:26:17,960
Speaker 2: actor's job is. An actor's job is to fake an

512
00:26:17,960 --> 00:26:21,359
Speaker 2: emotion in order to convince you that they are experiencing

513
00:26:21,600 --> 00:26:24,600
Speaker 2: the things that they're experiencing, but none of it's true.

514
00:26:25,320 --> 00:26:27,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I talked to Tim for quite a bit,

515
00:26:27,880 --> 00:26:29,840
Speaker 1: and I think that's his main point.

516
00:26:29,960 --> 00:26:30,159
Speaker 4: You know.

517
00:26:30,240 --> 00:26:32,080
Speaker 1: The idea is that when we're telling a lie, we

518
00:26:32,119 --> 00:26:35,480
Speaker 1: do have this connective break in our heads that might

519
00:26:35,720 --> 00:26:39,000
Speaker 1: manifest itself in your body doing things that you can't control.

520
00:26:39,119 --> 00:26:42,720
Speaker 1: But the problem is is that liars are also very smart,

521
00:26:42,800 --> 00:26:46,760
Speaker 1: and basically, if you're a liar. You've learned very early

522
00:26:46,800 --> 00:26:48,960
Speaker 1: on in your lying career, perhaps that if you don't

523
00:26:49,000 --> 00:26:50,480
Speaker 1: look at people in the eye, then they're going to

524
00:26:50,560 --> 00:26:53,600
Speaker 1: know you're lying. Right, So good liars know to look

525
00:26:53,600 --> 00:26:55,399
Speaker 1: people in the eye when they lie, or you know,

526
00:26:55,480 --> 00:26:59,000
Speaker 1: they're smart enough, unlike Katie's dog, to pick up on

527
00:26:59,320 --> 00:27:01,680
Speaker 1: the fact that they have these tells, and so good

528
00:27:01,720 --> 00:27:05,040
Speaker 1: liars they're good at hiding these tells. Basically what actors

529
00:27:05,080 --> 00:27:07,920
Speaker 1: do to just kind of convince their bodies that they're

530
00:27:07,960 --> 00:27:10,520
Speaker 1: not in a stressful situation. And so what the translations

531
00:27:10,560 --> 00:27:13,119
Speaker 1: to the data is that basically you can't really rely

532
00:27:13,240 --> 00:27:16,080
Speaker 1: on these tells, or that if you do, you're going

533
00:27:16,119 --> 00:27:17,639
Speaker 1: to be fooled by good.

534
00:27:17,560 --> 00:27:18,399
Speaker 2: Lifety four percent.

535
00:27:18,480 --> 00:27:22,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and it's not just tells that Tim also

536
00:27:22,320 --> 00:27:26,240
Speaker 1: has looked into things like polygraph tests. Oh and so

537
00:27:26,320 --> 00:27:28,280
Speaker 1: his general perspective is this.

538
00:27:29,560 --> 00:27:33,680
Speaker 3: But the question is to what extent can people adjust

539
00:27:33,720 --> 00:27:36,920
Speaker 3: these and compensate and hide the fact that they're lying

540
00:27:37,080 --> 00:27:41,600
Speaker 3: and they play the system, And the empirical evidence as

541
00:27:41,600 --> 00:27:45,240
Speaker 3: it stands would suggest that sort of machine is not

542
00:27:45,400 --> 00:27:48,719
Speaker 3: reliable enough to what would one want in the legal system.

543
00:27:48,800 --> 00:27:52,479
Speaker 3: Ninety nine points something percent you know, but we're just

544
00:27:52,600 --> 00:27:55,960
Speaker 3: not there, partly because of the issue of what it

545
00:27:56,040 --> 00:27:59,679
Speaker 3: called countermeasures that you can take when taking a polygraph,

546
00:28:00,040 --> 00:28:04,080
Speaker 3: so you can confuse the machine. You can trigger your

547
00:28:04,119 --> 00:28:08,840
Speaker 3: own physiology either by thinking something if you just at

548
00:28:08,920 --> 00:28:13,919
Speaker 3: random moment start thinking something horrible or exciting, or if

549
00:28:13,920 --> 00:28:16,520
Speaker 3: you have a stone in your shoe that you press

550
00:28:16,600 --> 00:28:19,040
Speaker 3: your big toe on every now and then you get

551
00:28:19,040 --> 00:28:21,360
Speaker 3: the same sort of activation. You know, so I'll be ooh,

552
00:28:21,440 --> 00:28:24,719
Speaker 3: there's something here, but you'd just be confusing, adding noise

553
00:28:24,760 --> 00:28:25,919
Speaker 3: to the whole system, you know.

554
00:28:26,359 --> 00:28:29,720
Speaker 1: Interesting, So then what's the average accuracy of something like

555
00:28:29,760 --> 00:28:30,680
Speaker 1: a polygraph test?

556
00:28:31,080 --> 00:28:35,760
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean there are different variants of it, different uses,

557
00:28:36,080 --> 00:28:39,320
Speaker 3: but to put one figure on it, it's around seventy percent.

558
00:28:39,520 --> 00:28:43,800
Speaker 3: So it's higher than you and me observing people and guessing.

559
00:28:44,000 --> 00:28:47,440
Speaker 3: So it's obviously picking something up. But like I mentioned

560
00:28:47,480 --> 00:28:50,840
Speaker 3: about the brain data, it's pretty messy data and there's

561
00:28:50,880 --> 00:28:52,560
Speaker 3: lots of loopholes in there.

562
00:28:53,920 --> 00:28:56,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I think that's where it stands. It's like

563
00:28:56,720 --> 00:28:59,440
Speaker 1: tells do exist if someone is it a novel liar,

564
00:28:59,640 --> 00:29:02,960
Speaker 1: Like kids are not good liars because they don't have

565
00:29:03,000 --> 00:29:05,960
Speaker 1: a lot of experience lying for you, know the kinds

566
00:29:06,000 --> 00:29:08,400
Speaker 1: of things that Tim looks at, which is like ego cases,

567
00:29:08,480 --> 00:29:11,440
Speaker 1: These things are basically useless in a courtroom to say

568
00:29:11,440 --> 00:29:13,720
Speaker 1: that someone didn't pass a polygraph test, or to say

569
00:29:13,720 --> 00:29:15,240
Speaker 1: they look to the right or they look to the lab.

570
00:29:15,320 --> 00:29:17,800
Speaker 1: Basically you can't really use that because even though you

571
00:29:17,880 --> 00:29:20,440
Speaker 1: might have statistical data that says, oh, you know, sixty

572
00:29:20,440 --> 00:29:21,959
Speaker 1: percent of the time that someone looks at the right,

573
00:29:22,000 --> 00:29:24,760
Speaker 1: they're lying, that's not going to fly in a corner. Right,

574
00:29:25,240 --> 00:29:28,720
Speaker 1: Or even I guess with your cat, right, your cat

575
00:29:28,760 --> 00:29:33,600
Speaker 1: could also be becoming a better liar as you interact

576
00:29:33,640 --> 00:29:35,320
Speaker 1: with your cat, right, Like, if your cat tries to

577
00:29:35,440 --> 00:29:37,760
Speaker 1: lie and sees that you didn't buy it, then the

578
00:29:37,840 --> 00:29:40,400
Speaker 1: cat might be learning like, oh wait, maybe it's because

579
00:29:40,440 --> 00:29:42,680
Speaker 1: I press it too hard or went too quickly to

580
00:29:42,720 --> 00:29:45,640
Speaker 1: press it or something, and your cat maybe is intelligent

581
00:29:45,720 --> 00:29:47,840
Speaker 1: enough to figure out that, oh, if I do this,

582
00:29:47,960 --> 00:29:49,720
Speaker 1: then Mary robin Att is going to believe me.

583
00:29:49,840 --> 00:29:52,640
Speaker 2: Yeah that's terrifying.

584
00:29:55,600 --> 00:29:58,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's basically Tim's point is that there's

585
00:29:58,360 --> 00:30:01,080
Speaker 1: really no way to tell someone's lie. I mean, you

586
00:30:01,400 --> 00:30:04,000
Speaker 1: might get a sense of, well, I'm fifty four percent

587
00:30:04,040 --> 00:30:06,120
Speaker 1: sure they're lying, but really, if you need to make

588
00:30:06,280 --> 00:30:08,240
Speaker 1: an important decision based on that you can.

589
00:30:09,560 --> 00:30:12,280
Speaker 2: Huh, So I guess then the answer to my question

590
00:30:12,720 --> 00:30:16,200
Speaker 2: is that animals do lie, but that tells just don't exist.

591
00:30:18,240 --> 00:30:22,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, basically, animals lie. They might have tells. There is

592
00:30:22,160 --> 00:30:25,920
Speaker 1: a sort of physiological connection between line and some sort

593
00:30:25,920 --> 00:30:28,920
Speaker 1: of non verbal cue or some sort of things that

594
00:30:28,960 --> 00:30:32,600
Speaker 1: you do. But it's so easily hackable, especially for humans

595
00:30:32,680 --> 00:30:35,040
Speaker 1: who are really smart and can learn after the first

596
00:30:35,040 --> 00:30:37,080
Speaker 1: lie what works and what doesn't work, that you probably

597
00:30:37,120 --> 00:30:39,280
Speaker 1: don't want to bet the house on thinking that someone

598
00:30:39,360 --> 00:30:40,320
Speaker 1: is lying based on the tell.

599
00:30:40,440 --> 00:30:43,240
Speaker 2: This is amazing to me. I am absolutely in love

600
00:30:43,280 --> 00:30:43,720
Speaker 2: with all of this.

601
00:30:45,760 --> 00:30:47,800
Speaker 1: Well, there is a little bit of hope. So Tim

602
00:30:47,880 --> 00:30:50,120
Speaker 1: has been thinking about this a lot, and so his

603
00:30:50,280 --> 00:30:53,120
Speaker 1: basic solution, or the thing that he proposes is basically

604
00:30:53,160 --> 00:30:54,760
Speaker 1: the only way you can really tell that someone is

605
00:30:54,840 --> 00:30:58,120
Speaker 1: lying is by catching them in a lie. So he thinks,

606
00:30:58,160 --> 00:31:00,760
Speaker 1: you don't waste time with polygraph tests in the court system,

607
00:31:00,960 --> 00:31:04,760
Speaker 1: just do good detective work. Yeah, ask the person what happened,

608
00:31:04,840 --> 00:31:07,160
Speaker 1: and then hide some of the information that you have,

609
00:31:07,320 --> 00:31:09,680
Speaker 1: Like you know, you have cameras that were pointing at

610
00:31:09,720 --> 00:31:11,840
Speaker 1: him when that person did it. But don't tell me.

611
00:31:11,840 --> 00:31:13,720
Speaker 1: I have the footage and then ask them what happened,

612
00:31:13,720 --> 00:31:15,280
Speaker 1: and then you can catch them in a line, and

613
00:31:15,280 --> 00:31:17,360
Speaker 1: then that can then tell you if they're lying about

614
00:31:17,360 --> 00:31:18,160
Speaker 1: other things.

615
00:31:18,480 --> 00:31:20,240
Speaker 2: Oh interesting, Yeah.

616
00:31:20,240 --> 00:31:23,480
Speaker 1: Like data, basically have data or try to outsmart the

617
00:31:23,560 --> 00:31:24,920
Speaker 1: liar in some way.

618
00:31:26,200 --> 00:31:28,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like Elsie has tried to send me out of

619
00:31:28,520 --> 00:31:30,840
Speaker 2: the room on a couple of other occasions to go

620
00:31:30,920 --> 00:31:33,200
Speaker 2: after my cheese sandwiches. And so now I know that

621
00:31:33,520 --> 00:31:36,120
Speaker 2: if I am preparing food and she suggests that I

622
00:31:36,160 --> 00:31:37,800
Speaker 2: need to leave the room, that I need to put

623
00:31:37,840 --> 00:31:40,240
Speaker 2: whatever food I'm preparing in the microwave so she can't

624
00:31:40,240 --> 00:31:40,560
Speaker 2: get to.

625
00:31:40,520 --> 00:31:44,760
Speaker 1: It, right right, Yeah, yes, I'm sorry to say, Mary Robinette,

626
00:31:44,960 --> 00:31:46,000
Speaker 1: you can't trust your cat.

627
00:31:46,280 --> 00:31:48,440
Speaker 2: No, No, I can trust her on a lot of things,

628
00:31:48,440 --> 00:31:50,560
Speaker 2: but unfortunately nothing involving food.

629
00:31:53,040 --> 00:31:55,080
Speaker 1: All right, Well, thank you so much, Mary Robinette. It's

630
00:31:55,080 --> 00:31:58,120
Speaker 1: been a pleasure to explore the idea of not telling

631
00:31:58,120 --> 00:31:58,520
Speaker 1: the truth.

632
00:31:58,720 --> 00:32:00,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you so much for doing all of the

633
00:32:00,520 --> 00:32:03,600
Speaker 2: research on that. That was fascinating and I have a

634
00:32:03,640 --> 00:32:06,320
Speaker 2: feeling that it is going to turn up in a

635
00:32:06,400 --> 00:32:07,400
Speaker 2: novel at some point.

636
00:32:08,040 --> 00:32:11,120
Speaker 1: All right, Hey, that's cool. Which part the cat or

637
00:32:11,160 --> 00:32:12,560
Speaker 1: the squirrel, the.

638
00:32:12,520 --> 00:32:15,680
Speaker 2: Squirrel, the school cat, the cat has already turned up,

639
00:32:15,440 --> 00:32:17,000
Speaker 2: and so many things.

640
00:32:18,000 --> 00:32:20,680
Speaker 1: Well, that's fascinating to see process that in real time

641
00:32:20,720 --> 00:32:23,320
Speaker 1: and to see that seed being planted for maybe a

642
00:32:23,360 --> 00:32:24,320
Speaker 1: future novel.

643
00:32:24,800 --> 00:32:26,960
Speaker 2: So interesting. Thank you so much for this.

644
00:32:27,200 --> 00:32:31,280
Speaker 1: Oh, thank you for joining us. Thanks to Mary Robinett

645
00:32:31,320 --> 00:32:33,440
Speaker 1: Kwal for being on the show. You can find her

646
00:32:33,480 --> 00:32:37,280
Speaker 1: award winning book The Cut Collating Stars wherever books are sold.

647
00:32:38,520 --> 00:32:42,040
Speaker 1: You've been listening to Science Stuff, the production of iHeartRadio,

648
00:32:42,360 --> 00:32:45,680
Speaker 1: written and produced by me Or hitch Ham, executive producer

649
00:32:45,800 --> 00:32:49,520
Speaker 1: Jerry Rowland, an audio engineer and mixer Kasey Peckram. Can

650
00:32:49,520 --> 00:32:52,800
Speaker 1: follow me on social media. Just search for PhD comics

651
00:32:52,840 --> 00:32:55,160
Speaker 1: and the name of your favorite platform. Be sure to

652
00:32:55,160 --> 00:32:58,400
Speaker 1: subscribe to Sign Stuff on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast

653
00:32:58,560 --> 00:33:01,480
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcast, and please tell your

654
00:33:01,480 --> 00:33:05,440
Speaker 1: friends We'll be back next Wednesday with another episode.