WEBVTT - Do Our Pets Lie to Us? 0:00:01.240 --> 0:00:05.240 Hey, everyone, welcome to Science Stuff, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:05.480 --> 0:00:07.560 My name is horthe Cham and today in the program, 0:00:07.640 --> 0:00:11.799 we'll be asking the question do our pets lie to us? 0:00:12.480 --> 0:00:14.960 It's a question that pet owners have been asking themselves 0:00:15.000 --> 0:00:18.720 for centuries. Is my feline friend fibbing? Is my dog 0:00:18.800 --> 0:00:22.440 duping me with deceit? We're gonna tackle the general question 0:00:22.560 --> 0:00:26.120 of whether animals can lie, and we're gonna ask if 0:00:26.160 --> 0:00:29.159 they have the same tells that humans do, can you 0:00:29.200 --> 0:00:32.000 catch them in the act. We're going to talk with 0:00:32.040 --> 0:00:35.240 a biologist and also a brain scientist to get to 0:00:35.320 --> 0:00:38.280 the bottom of this. Now, this is a special episode 0:00:38.320 --> 0:00:41.599 because today's question comes from a friend of mine, and 0:00:41.680 --> 0:00:45.520 not just a friend, a famous friend. Mary Robinette Kowal 0:00:45.720 --> 0:00:48.599 is a well known science fiction writer. She's only one 0:00:48.600 --> 0:00:51.600 of eighteen people in history to have won all three 0:00:51.760 --> 0:00:55.840 major science fiction awards, that's the Hugo, the Nebula, and 0:00:55.880 --> 0:00:59.040 the Locusts. And she's asking this question for a very 0:00:59.280 --> 0:01:04.440 peculiar reason. She's taught her cat to talk, but now 0:01:04.480 --> 0:01:07.600 she's wondering if her cat is lying to her. So 0:01:07.680 --> 0:01:10.800 here is my chat with science fiction author Mary Robinett Kowal, 0:01:11.319 --> 0:01:16.160 answering her question of whether our pets are being perfidious 0:01:17.120 --> 0:01:20.240 that means they're lying anyways, enjoy. 0:01:20.760 --> 0:01:23.679 My question is I want to know about animals lying 0:01:24.319 --> 0:01:27.400 and if they have the same kind of tells that 0:01:27.640 --> 0:01:28.240 humans have. 0:01:28.959 --> 0:01:31.280 Yeah, that's a great question. What made you think of 0:01:31.280 --> 0:01:31.760 this question? 0:01:32.959 --> 0:01:36.200 What made me think of it is I have a 0:01:36.400 --> 0:01:43.200 cat who uses buttons to talk. Were part of a study. 0:01:43.240 --> 0:01:46.000 There's thousands of animals in this study out of University 0:01:46.000 --> 0:01:47.760 of San Diego. But we're also part of this very 0:01:47.840 --> 0:01:51.920 large movement of people whose animals use buttons to talk. 0:01:52.320 --> 0:01:56.000 It's called augmentative inner species communication. It started with a 0:01:56.040 --> 0:01:58.840 woman named Christina Hunger in twenty nineteen. She was a 0:01:58.840 --> 0:02:02.360 speech language therapist who basically thought, what happens if I 0:02:02.480 --> 0:02:05.800 use the same techniques that I use with my nonverbal 0:02:05.800 --> 0:02:09.760 patients if I use them with my new puppy. And 0:02:09.880 --> 0:02:13.840 she spawns this global movement. So, Elsie, my cat, has 0:02:13.880 --> 0:02:18.280 one hundred and twenty word vocabulary, and she, to all appearances, 0:02:18.360 --> 0:02:23.440 will lie to me. For instance, I had just given 0:02:23.440 --> 0:02:25.960 her the button for sleepy, and you model it for 0:02:26.000 --> 0:02:28.040 them the same way you'd model for a child. And 0:02:28.080 --> 0:02:32.440 then she said bedroom lie down, sleepy, and you know, 0:02:32.480 --> 0:02:34.560 I'd been in the kitchen. I was making my lunch. 0:02:34.600 --> 0:02:36.040 But I'm like, I'm going to abandon lunch. I'm going 0:02:36.080 --> 0:02:37.680 to model this. Let's go lie down. And so I 0:02:37.720 --> 0:02:39.440 walk into the bedroom and I lie down. I'm like, 0:02:39.480 --> 0:02:42.320 why is my cat not here? And I go in 0:02:42.360 --> 0:02:43.519 and she's eating my lunch. 0:02:43.639 --> 0:02:46.360 She fooled you, she fooled me to the bedroom to 0:02:46.480 --> 0:02:48.400 leave the room. I feel like you're living in a 0:02:48.400 --> 0:02:49.400 science fiction world. 0:02:49.720 --> 0:02:50.160 I am. 0:02:50.480 --> 0:02:54.200 I am, yes for that story from up the Pixar 0:02:54.280 --> 0:02:55.800 movie with the dog with the speaker. 0:02:55.880 --> 0:02:58.320 Yeah, it is like the way I describe it is, 0:02:58.480 --> 0:03:01.360 I am living with a non he an intelligence who 0:03:01.560 --> 0:03:05.680 is an el toddler covered in fur and an alien. 0:03:07.160 --> 0:03:09.200 Oh man, I feel like I could spend the rest 0:03:09.200 --> 0:03:10.720 at the end of you just asking you about this 0:03:10.800 --> 0:03:13.760 movement and your pet. Yeah, but if I'm going to 0:03:13.800 --> 0:03:14.880 try to answer your question. 0:03:14.720 --> 0:03:15.440 We should get to it. 0:03:15.800 --> 0:03:16.880 Yes, please do Okay? 0:03:16.960 --> 0:03:20.320 And now I'm not an animal expert or psychologist, so 0:03:20.600 --> 0:03:23.000 I didn't know the answer. But fortunately I do know 0:03:23.040 --> 0:03:25.799 someone who happens to be both of those things. So 0:03:25.880 --> 0:03:29.040 I reached out to my friend Katie Golden, and Katie 0:03:29.120 --> 0:03:31.240 is a podcaster. She's a host of a podcast called 0:03:31.360 --> 0:03:35.640 Creature Feature, and she's a trained behavioral biologist and a 0:03:35.640 --> 0:03:39.080 trained psychologist. I thought perfect person to ask this question. Okay, 0:03:39.080 --> 0:03:41.280 so here is her first part of the answer. 0:03:42.400 --> 0:03:45.800 There's obviously a ton of deception in nature. You look 0:03:45.840 --> 0:03:49.520 at a leaf insect or stickbug, it's being deceptive, right, 0:03:49.560 --> 0:03:51.000 It's disguised. 0:03:50.400 --> 0:03:52.720 As a leaf or stick camouflage. 0:03:53.160 --> 0:03:56.280 Yeah, it's camouflage. So like, there's there's so much deception 0:03:56.680 --> 0:04:00.320 in the natural world. You know, there's even deception on 0:04:00.360 --> 0:04:05.760 the microbial level, like viral DNA tricking the immune system 0:04:05.840 --> 0:04:08.280 into allowing it to go through the body. You know, 0:04:08.320 --> 0:04:10.720 there's so many levels of deception. But I feel like 0:04:10.800 --> 0:04:14.000 what your question and what Mary's question is kind of 0:04:14.000 --> 0:04:17.320 getting at is lying, which to me feels different from 0:04:17.360 --> 0:04:20.919 like passive deception. Like if you're born as a leaf 0:04:20.960 --> 0:04:24.120 insect and you look like a leaf, you're not trying 0:04:24.320 --> 0:04:27.520 to trick anyone necessarily, that's just how you are. But 0:04:27.640 --> 0:04:32.200 evolution has pushed you into this state. When you look 0:04:32.240 --> 0:04:34.520 more and more like this leaf or like the stick, 0:04:34.560 --> 0:04:37.640 you tend to survive more. So it's a type of deception. 0:04:37.760 --> 0:04:41.080 But to me, it doesn't feel like lying. Lying feels 0:04:41.160 --> 0:04:45.280 like I am communicating something to you directly that is 0:04:45.480 --> 0:04:49.600 false and intentionally, so like I am intentionally misleading you 0:04:49.839 --> 0:04:53.080 to get what I want or to avoid consequences. 0:04:53.560 --> 0:04:55.560 So I think you're saying the concept of lying in 0:04:55.560 --> 0:04:59.719 this context of the question, it's more about playing mind games. 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:02.120 You're not just like wearing some sort of suit to 0:05:02.480 --> 0:05:05.279 help you hide. If you're you're intentionally aware of the 0:05:05.360 --> 0:05:08.800 other organism or person out there, and you're intentionally doing 0:05:08.839 --> 0:05:10.159 something to mess with their minds. 0:05:10.360 --> 0:05:14.840 Yeah. One of my favorite examples of lying without any 0:05:15.160 --> 0:05:19.920 vocalization is in squirrels, where squirrels will bury a ton 0:05:19.960 --> 0:05:22.080 of nuts and they have to do this to survive 0:05:22.120 --> 0:05:24.880 the winter, so that they have these nut caches, and 0:05:25.160 --> 0:05:28.160 so once things are barren and there's not as much food, 0:05:28.200 --> 0:05:31.000 then they can dig them up and eat them. And 0:05:31.440 --> 0:05:33.280 one thing that squirrels will do is they'll try to 0:05:33.320 --> 0:05:36.760 steal each other's nut cases, because why spend all this 0:05:36.800 --> 0:05:38.960 time looking for nuts when you can just see another 0:05:39.000 --> 0:05:41.440 squirrel bearing a nut, remember where they buried the nut, 0:05:41.800 --> 0:05:45.680 and then steal it. And so squirrels have come up 0:05:45.720 --> 0:05:50.600 with a way to combat the thieves, and that is 0:05:50.720 --> 0:05:56.200 by deceiving them intentionally with a behavior which is pretending 0:05:56.279 --> 0:06:00.320 to bury a nut while a thief is watching and 0:06:00.360 --> 0:06:03.360 then leaving the area, and as the thief is busy 0:06:03.400 --> 0:06:05.599 sort of trying to dig up that nut for itself, 0:06:06.080 --> 0:06:08.680 then it buries the nut for real. So it's this 0:06:09.200 --> 0:06:12.359 intentional perception of like, look, I'm bearing a nut, and 0:06:12.400 --> 0:06:15.400 then the thief goes there and looks for it and then. 0:06:15.600 --> 0:06:19.120 Doesn't find anything, and then it gets ah nuts eggs. 0:06:22.560 --> 0:06:24.560 That's the one squirrel joke that they make. 0:06:25.400 --> 0:06:28.479 Yes, So then a squirrel will pretend to hide a 0:06:28.600 --> 0:06:32.200 nut because it knows that it's being watched by another squirrel. 0:06:33.600 --> 0:06:36.960 Now is that proven would only do this fake hiding 0:06:37.080 --> 0:06:39.120 nut behavior if it knows it's being watched. 0:06:39.560 --> 0:06:41.960 I believe they've found that they do more of the 0:06:42.040 --> 0:06:45.120 hiding behavior when they think they're being observed. 0:06:46.440 --> 0:06:48.920 When we come back, Katie will tell us an example 0:06:49.000 --> 0:06:52.320 of animals actually telling a lie, and then she'll tell 0:06:52.400 --> 0:06:55.080 us how she thinks her dog is lying to her. 0:06:55.720 --> 0:07:04.680 You're listening to sign stuff. Welcome back to science stuff. 0:07:05.440 --> 0:07:08.640 Katie had another interesting example, and this one does involve 0:07:08.839 --> 0:07:09.440 telling a lot. 0:07:09.760 --> 0:07:12.920 There's another animal, which is maybe one of my favorite liars, 0:07:13.080 --> 0:07:16.040 and this one is actually lying verbally, so we're getting 0:07:16.040 --> 0:07:18.760 really close to kind of human lies. Right. So, alarm 0:07:18.880 --> 0:07:22.720 calls are done by an animal to warn its family 0:07:23.280 --> 0:07:27.080 that a predator is about. And sometimes it's really specific. 0:07:27.120 --> 0:07:29.680 Sometimes they're like they'll have a call that's lookout. It's 0:07:29.680 --> 0:07:31.760 a hawk, look out, it's a snake, look out, it's 0:07:31.840 --> 0:07:34.840 like a coyote, you know, different calls for different predators. 0:07:34.960 --> 0:07:38.440 So there's this animal called the fork tailed drongo, which 0:07:38.680 --> 0:07:42.720 sounds kind of like an insult, like, does not sound nice. 0:07:43.040 --> 0:07:45.920 There are a species of bird that lives in South Africa. 0:07:46.160 --> 0:07:48.280 They look kind of like a blackbird, but they have 0:07:48.320 --> 0:07:50.720 a little bit of a thicker beak and a forked tail. 0:07:51.160 --> 0:07:54.720 And so these birds will watch other animals handling a 0:07:54.760 --> 0:07:58.040 food item and then issue an alarm call. But this 0:07:58.120 --> 0:08:01.720 is a false alarm. They're crying, they're saying, I see something, 0:08:02.240 --> 0:08:05.600 uh oh, And it's either mimicking the alarm call of 0:08:05.640 --> 0:08:08.880 that species, like say a meer cat alarm call, or 0:08:08.920 --> 0:08:11.560 they're using their own alarm call. And something that's kind 0:08:11.600 --> 0:08:15.360 of interesting about alarm calls is animals learn the alarm 0:08:15.400 --> 0:08:18.600 calls of other species because that helps them. Right, if 0:08:18.640 --> 0:08:22.240 you hear some other animal using an alarm call, you're like, oh, 0:08:22.400 --> 0:08:25.160 well they think something's up, so I should also run. 0:08:25.880 --> 0:08:30.040 And so these birds, these drongos, learn that they can 0:08:30.400 --> 0:08:33.240 either mimic an alarm call or use their own type 0:08:33.280 --> 0:08:36.199 of alarm call and animals will run away. And they 0:08:36.240 --> 0:08:39.600 do this when they are observing their targets, they're victims 0:08:39.679 --> 0:08:43.520 eating food or handling food. And then once their victims 0:08:43.520 --> 0:08:46.960 have run away because basically they've been lied to, they've 0:08:46.960 --> 0:08:49.600 been told there's a predator, then the drangle goes in 0:08:49.640 --> 0:08:52.480 and eats the food. And in this case, I know 0:08:52.640 --> 0:08:55.480 for a fact that they have done research where they've 0:08:55.480 --> 0:08:58.760 found that they do more of these false alarm calls 0:08:58.840 --> 0:09:03.120 when they are watching an animal handling food directly. So 0:09:03.200 --> 0:09:05.839 it is very linked to an awareness of like, look 0:09:05.920 --> 0:09:08.319 that's food I want. I can get it to run 0:09:08.360 --> 0:09:10.760 away if I fake an alarm call. 0:09:11.200 --> 0:09:13.400 Wow, that is amazing. It makes me sort of have 0:09:13.440 --> 0:09:16.520 any immediate humanizing reaction. It makes me not trust this animal, 0:09:16.600 --> 0:09:18.480 or it makes me think of this animal as being 0:09:18.600 --> 0:09:20.679 deceptive or not a good person. 0:09:20.800 --> 0:09:22.160 Yeah, we make a moral judgment. 0:09:23.120 --> 0:09:27.280 So birds lie too, Mary, that's so cool. They literally 0:09:27.280 --> 0:09:27.840 cry wolf. 0:09:28.280 --> 0:09:31.160 Yes, that is amazing. This is a surprise to maybe 0:09:31.480 --> 0:09:34.800 and also a moment of like, well, of course some 0:09:34.920 --> 0:09:37.080 bird would have gone like, oh, that worked, well, let's 0:09:37.080 --> 0:09:37.640 do that again. 0:09:39.640 --> 0:09:41.520 And I like this example because it's sort of like 0:09:41.559 --> 0:09:43.960 the classic hey, look behind you, or like well there's 0:09:43.960 --> 0:09:46.680 a tiger coming for you to fool somebody you're trying 0:09:46.679 --> 0:09:47.400 to take advantage of. 0:09:47.520 --> 0:09:48.719 Yeah, oh no gods. 0:09:52.600 --> 0:09:55.280 In terms of verbal lying. So I don't have a 0:09:55.320 --> 0:09:58.839 study here, but I do have an anecdote of my dog. 0:09:59.000 --> 0:10:02.320 She will verbally lie to me about danger when she 0:10:02.440 --> 0:10:04.920 sees something outside the window. She does her job as 0:10:04.960 --> 0:10:07.160 a little guard dog, even though I didn't hire her. 0:10:07.160 --> 0:10:11.079 I don't know who did. But she barks at pigeons, 0:10:11.120 --> 0:10:14.320 at whatever, like any birds, any activity, another dog barking. 0:10:14.440 --> 0:10:17.559 She has a certain sound, a certain tone to that bark. 0:10:17.800 --> 0:10:21.360 Her hackles raise, her tail is stiff. It's alertness, right, 0:10:21.480 --> 0:10:24.360 like I am in a protective mode and there is 0:10:24.400 --> 0:10:26.959 something out there and I am alerting you, which again 0:10:27.080 --> 0:10:28.960 is not something you see in wolves. This is a 0:10:29.000 --> 0:10:32.040 dog specific trait that we've bred into them. And so 0:10:32.440 --> 0:10:34.840 she'll do this right, But if I'm about to leave 0:10:34.880 --> 0:10:38.920 the apartment, she'll bark, but her tone's very different. She's relaxed, 0:10:39.240 --> 0:10:42.280 her tail's down, but she's looking out the window, and 0:10:42.679 --> 0:10:46.280 her body language is otherwise very like relaxed and calm, 0:10:46.360 --> 0:10:48.920 but she barks, and her tone is different when she's 0:10:48.960 --> 0:10:51.560 barking and she's staring out and there's nothing there, right, 0:10:51.559 --> 0:10:54.080 there's nothing out the window. And I think she's doing 0:10:54.120 --> 0:10:56.520 this every time I'm about to leave, to basically say like, 0:10:56.559 --> 0:11:00.480 don't leave. There's something weird, there's something interesting or weird 0:11:00.520 --> 0:11:03.679 over here. You should stay. So she's trying to lie 0:11:03.800 --> 0:11:06.319 to me about there being something at the window. 0:11:06.760 --> 0:11:09.439 What are you doing, Katies, there's a pigeon out there. 0:11:09.559 --> 0:11:10.720 Pigeons are dangerous. 0:11:10.880 --> 0:11:14.320 Stay in exactly, which I find is so interesting. And 0:11:14.440 --> 0:11:16.920 the fact that her tone kind of is different, so 0:11:16.960 --> 0:11:19.760 it's like she's trying to make it sound convincing, but 0:11:19.880 --> 0:11:22.360 I can kind of tell the difference. She has a 0:11:22.440 --> 0:11:25.840 different sort of tone, a different sort of like body language. 0:11:25.880 --> 0:11:28.720 Everything's a little bit different when she's lying and I 0:11:28.760 --> 0:11:31.360 see there's like literally nothing out there, versus when she 0:11:31.400 --> 0:11:33.720 actually sees something. I look out and there's like a pigeon, 0:11:33.840 --> 0:11:35.440 which you know, big deal, thanks. 0:11:35.240 --> 0:11:39.360 Cookie, meaning Cookie is not good at lying, Like she 0:11:39.559 --> 0:11:41.080 tells that you can tell she's. 0:11:41.000 --> 0:11:43.360 Lying, right, which I only know because I know her 0:11:43.480 --> 0:11:47.600 baseline behavior, and I also know dog body language, right, 0:11:47.679 --> 0:11:50.800 like tail being stiff and the hackles being raised. There's 0:11:50.840 --> 0:11:53.439 a lot like the stiffness in the body can show 0:11:53.480 --> 0:11:56.840 you like how anxious or alert a dog is, and 0:11:56.880 --> 0:11:59.680 whereas if the tail's lower and they seem more relaxed, 0:11:59.679 --> 0:12:02.360 but then they're barking and like running around in a circle, 0:12:02.400 --> 0:12:03.920 you're like, hmmm, it's interesting. 0:12:04.760 --> 0:12:07.960 It's like smart enough to think about lying to you 0:12:08.080 --> 0:12:10.560 so that you don't go out, but not smart enough 0:12:10.600 --> 0:12:12.640 to notice her own tails. 0:12:13.040 --> 0:12:15.680 Well, it's probably hard to control those too, because like 0:12:15.760 --> 0:12:18.760 a lot of those tells are not something that she 0:12:19.040 --> 0:12:22.880 has executive control over, right, Like the same thing with humans. 0:12:22.920 --> 0:12:26.560 We can't control everything we do. Maybe with practice, we 0:12:26.600 --> 0:12:30.400 can control our heart rate and our sweating or something, 0:12:30.440 --> 0:12:34.800 but it is really difficult for a human to control everything, right, 0:12:34.840 --> 0:12:37.160 Like you can't. If you're like I is twitching a 0:12:37.160 --> 0:12:41.120 little bit, you can't turn that off necessarily. So we 0:12:41.120 --> 0:12:44.880 don't have complete control over our body language, nor do 0:12:45.000 --> 0:12:47.720 I think dogs don't have complete control, but they have 0:12:47.840 --> 0:12:51.040 some control, and sometimes they'll manipulate that to get what 0:12:51.080 --> 0:12:51.520 they want. 0:12:51.960 --> 0:12:54.800 Wow, what if you put Cookie in like acting lessons, 0:12:54.960 --> 0:12:55.880 you never leave the house. 0:12:56.360 --> 0:13:00.559 Yeah, you know, if Cookie got an oscar, I would 0:13:00.600 --> 0:13:03.240 stay home with her all day. 0:13:03.679 --> 0:13:05.640 One of the reasons I was curious about this is 0:13:05.679 --> 0:13:08.800 that there are self soothing actions that humans will do 0:13:08.840 --> 0:13:13.240 when they're lying. Not always, but often people will fidget 0:13:13.240 --> 0:13:15.480 a little bit more, or they will fidget less because 0:13:15.480 --> 0:13:17.720 they're aware that they need to look super calm. So 0:13:17.760 --> 0:13:20.280 there are these things that people will do. There's a 0:13:20.360 --> 0:13:22.760 study that people tend to look up into the left 0:13:22.800 --> 0:13:25.080 a little bit when they are telling a lie versus 0:13:25.160 --> 0:13:27.280 when they're accessing a memory that really happened. 0:13:27.480 --> 0:13:27.680 Yeah. 0:13:27.760 --> 0:13:30.440 The part of your question was do animals lie? Do 0:13:30.520 --> 0:13:35.239 they have tells? And do they correlate to tells in humans? 0:13:35.800 --> 0:13:36.160 Yeah? 0:13:36.320 --> 0:13:38.760 Right, If there is something common we have with animals 0:13:38.800 --> 0:13:41.680 when we lie, does that mean that it's genetic and 0:13:41.720 --> 0:13:44.400 we can fight it or is it just cultural? Part 0:13:44.400 --> 0:13:46.720 of your question was or tells cultural or not? 0:13:46.920 --> 0:13:47.160 Yeah? 0:13:47.400 --> 0:13:50.480 Okay, Yeah, So I got really interested in this question also, 0:13:50.720 --> 0:13:53.800 and so I reached out to a psychologist at the 0:13:53.920 --> 0:13:57.880 University of Oslo who's been publishing a lot recently on 0:13:57.920 --> 0:13:59.960 the kind of neuroscience of lying. 0:14:00.360 --> 0:14:02.640 Oh, I'm so excited by this. 0:14:04.320 --> 0:14:06.960 Okay, this is Tim's description what he does. 0:14:08.040 --> 0:14:13.240 Yes, I'm a psychologist. In my area is cognitive psychology, 0:14:13.559 --> 0:14:18.640 so memory and mental processes, how we think, And more 0:14:18.640 --> 0:14:22.080 recent years I have spent time doing research on how 0:14:22.320 --> 0:14:28.120 cognitive processes link up to emotional processes, more recently specifically 0:14:28.160 --> 0:14:33.800 looking at light detection, which is pretty important task or 0:14:33.960 --> 0:14:36.680 job throughout the legal system. You know, from the time 0:14:36.720 --> 0:14:39.360 a crime is committed, when the police turn up and 0:14:39.360 --> 0:14:44.240 they want to look for witnesses or victims or perpetrators. 0:14:44.600 --> 0:14:47.440 You know, the task of deciding, well, you know, is 0:14:47.520 --> 0:14:50.320 this person telling me the truth or art is quite 0:14:50.400 --> 0:14:53.400 important all the way through the detective work into the 0:14:53.440 --> 0:14:55.840 court system. You know, you have witnesses there and the 0:14:56.240 --> 0:14:58.640 jury or the judges have to decide, you know, well 0:14:58.720 --> 0:15:01.520 they can't both be telling the truth, so which one 0:15:01.640 --> 0:15:06.000 is it? So it's an important topic, you know, obviously 0:15:06.560 --> 0:15:08.680 important in a practical sense. 0:15:10.600 --> 0:15:13.800 Yeah, so Tim, doctor Brennans are as a psychologists. But 0:15:13.880 --> 0:15:16.320 then when the lawyer approached him and said Hey, you're 0:15:16.440 --> 0:15:18.880 someone who knows about emotions and things like that, can 0:15:18.920 --> 0:15:21.640 you come and be an expert on this case? And 0:15:21.680 --> 0:15:23.960 that's how he got a really interesting idea of lying, 0:15:24.040 --> 0:15:27.120 because it's so crucial in a legal case, right, like 0:15:28.160 --> 0:15:30.600 two people are saying different things. Who's telling the truth? 0:15:30.640 --> 0:15:33.320 How do you determine who is guilty? In some cases 0:15:33.360 --> 0:15:35.680 a matter of life and death? Right, Yeah, although he 0:15:35.720 --> 0:15:38.080 says in Norway they don't have death penalty, so it's 0:15:38.200 --> 0:15:39.720 a matter of life in prison. 0:15:39.800 --> 0:15:42.120 I guess does he talk to you about ways he 0:15:42.160 --> 0:15:42.600 can tell? 0:15:42.880 --> 0:15:43.080 Yeah? 0:15:43.160 --> 0:15:43.360 Yeah. 0:15:43.440 --> 0:15:45.400 The basic question I asked him was what's going on 0:15:45.480 --> 0:15:49.359 in your body when you're telling a lie? Neuroscience psychology 0:15:49.360 --> 0:15:50.840 point of view, what's your body doing? 0:15:52.200 --> 0:15:56.200 So, what's happening in our body and brains when we're 0:15:56.560 --> 0:16:00.320 telling a lie? We're deliberately trying to deceive. Most of 0:16:00.400 --> 0:16:03.440 us on a daily basis, we know how it feels 0:16:03.520 --> 0:16:06.840 to tell a lie, and so from the inside you 0:16:06.880 --> 0:16:10.840 can feel a bit of stress and you're wondering, is 0:16:10.920 --> 0:16:14.680 this person understanding that I'm not quite telling the truth here? 0:16:14.760 --> 0:16:17.640 And so on. That's one of the main things is 0:16:17.680 --> 0:16:23.120 that the stress is associated with lying and mental effort, 0:16:23.400 --> 0:16:26.560 because it's much easier just to tell the truth and 0:16:26.800 --> 0:16:29.920 retrieve from memory rather than having to keep track of 0:16:29.960 --> 0:16:34.760 what you've said to whom and which details you've made 0:16:34.840 --> 0:16:38.320 up and so on. There's more mental effort involved. One 0:16:38.360 --> 0:16:41.680 line of research it hopes to be able to pinpoint, 0:16:41.800 --> 0:16:44.480 for example, where in the brain this extra effort is 0:16:44.520 --> 0:16:49.880 being expended. And generally people are looking at the cognitive 0:16:49.920 --> 0:16:53.680 load hypothesis and to say, okay, is there a way 0:16:54.000 --> 0:16:58.560 for measuring cognitive load or rather imposing cognitive load. So 0:16:59.240 --> 0:17:01.840 if you're telling the truth, you should be all right, 0:17:02.280 --> 0:17:04.920 but if you're lying, you've already got the extra cognitive 0:17:04.920 --> 0:17:06.919 blowed and this will tip you over the edge so 0:17:06.960 --> 0:17:12.000 that it all collapses. And there's some research in favor 0:17:12.000 --> 0:17:15.440 of that sort of idea that you can distinguish between 0:17:15.800 --> 0:17:19.560 liars and truth tellers by imposing cognitive blow to a 0:17:19.600 --> 0:17:20.320 certain extent. 0:17:21.480 --> 0:17:25.480 Wow, that's cool. And then there's another part of my 0:17:25.520 --> 0:17:28.800 brain that's like every ADHD person is just going to 0:17:28.840 --> 0:17:31.120 look like a liar if you're just putting more targahiveload 0:17:31.200 --> 0:17:31.520 on us. 0:17:33.760 --> 0:17:36.439 Yeah, yeah, it seems like you know the way he 0:17:36.520 --> 0:17:38.200 looks at it, And I guess scientists look at it 0:17:38.240 --> 0:17:40.639 is that this idea of tells, it kind of boils 0:17:40.680 --> 0:17:42.679 down to what your brain is trying to do. Right, 0:17:42.720 --> 0:17:45.159 You're trying to tell a story that you know is 0:17:45.200 --> 0:17:48.520 not true, and so therefore there's two things associated with that. 0:17:48.560 --> 0:17:51.440 One is stress. One is that he might be worried 0:17:51.440 --> 0:17:53.600 about the consequences of lying. You might be worried about 0:17:53.600 --> 0:17:55.480 what if I get caught? How is it going to look? 0:17:55.560 --> 0:17:58.280 And you also have to think more than you would 0:17:58.359 --> 0:18:00.240 if you were telling the truth, because when you telling 0:18:00.240 --> 0:18:02.960 the truth, you're just maybe recalling and then spitting it out. 0:18:03.080 --> 0:18:05.040 When you're trying to lie, you have to think about 0:18:05.240 --> 0:18:07.280 what is the lie? What was the actual thing that happened? 0:18:07.359 --> 0:18:09.280 Might be self consistent? How do I make sure that 0:18:09.320 --> 0:18:13.200 I'm telling the right lie? Yeah, And so that can 0:18:13.240 --> 0:18:17.040 then manifest as some of these things that we call tells. 0:18:17.200 --> 0:18:19.920 If you're thinking extra hard telling you lie, you might 0:18:20.040 --> 0:18:22.679 stammer more, or you might say oh more, or you 0:18:22.760 --> 0:18:25.320 might feel the stress, and so you avoid the other 0:18:25.359 --> 0:18:26.360 person's gaze. 0:18:26.640 --> 0:18:26.880 Yeah. 0:18:27.080 --> 0:18:29.520 So that because the information that I have about lying 0:18:29.640 --> 0:18:35.720 comes from reading about basically spies, cia interrogators and things 0:18:35.760 --> 0:18:39.959 like that, where they're looking at the external behaviors, whereas 0:18:40.320 --> 0:18:43.840 doctor Brennan is looking at the root causes of those behaviors, 0:18:43.840 --> 0:18:45.240 which is so interesting. 0:18:45.720 --> 0:18:47.840 Yeah, yeah, it's interesting. You can talk about tells, but 0:18:47.920 --> 0:18:49.760 really it's helpful to just think about what is your 0:18:49.760 --> 0:18:52.080 brain trying to do when you're trying to lie? Right? 0:18:52.320 --> 0:18:55.800 Oh yeah, I'm so excited. This is very cool. 0:18:57.000 --> 0:18:59.920 Now, an interesting thing about that is if you offer 0:19:00.080 --> 0:19:02.960 people around the world and there's this big study being 0:19:03.000 --> 0:19:06.520 done a few years ago asking people from seventy five 0:19:06.560 --> 0:19:12.320 different countries and people agree around the planet that if 0:19:12.359 --> 0:19:14.800 you don't look me in the eyes and you're looking 0:19:14.840 --> 0:19:17.480 a bit shifty and possibly lying, you know, this is 0:19:17.720 --> 0:19:21.800 deemed to be a q to deception. And in all 0:19:21.840 --> 0:19:25.440 these different countries, over all these different languages, was finding 0:19:25.840 --> 0:19:27.040 huge similarities. 0:19:27.760 --> 0:19:31.399 This is this international constortium of basically lying scientists or 0:19:31.440 --> 0:19:34.600 scientist that's dirty lying. And they did this huge survey 0:19:34.600 --> 0:19:37.639 where they send the questionnaires to like forty people in 0:19:37.680 --> 0:19:42.000 each of seventy five countries and across the world there 0:19:42.000 --> 0:19:45.400 are a lot of similar answers, meaning like this thing 0:19:45.480 --> 0:19:50.439 cuts across cultures in South America and North America, Europe, Africa, Asia, 0:19:50.480 --> 0:19:53.440 and so The number one thing that most people say 0:19:53.600 --> 0:19:56.280 that is a tell is that you're avoiding eye contact. 0:19:56.520 --> 0:19:57.560 That's fascinating. 0:19:57.880 --> 0:20:01.280 Yeah, you're verting gaze. And so something like seventy percent 0:20:01.320 --> 0:20:03.679 of all cultures in the world mentioned this as a 0:20:03.720 --> 0:20:06.320 clear sign that you're lying, which I think makes me 0:20:06.359 --> 0:20:08.040 wonder is it easier to lie over zoom? 0:20:08.080 --> 0:20:08.680 Then right? 0:20:08.840 --> 0:20:12.600 Nobody expects you to the eye. 0:20:12.240 --> 0:20:14.119 Yeah, oh, that is interesting. 0:20:14.280 --> 0:20:17.600 A lot of these cultures mentioned nervousness. You're a little incoherent, 0:20:17.840 --> 0:20:20.120 You're not making a lot of sense, you're making too 0:20:20.160 --> 0:20:23.679 many body movements, too many facial expressions, you're sort of 0:20:23.720 --> 0:20:27.439 inconsistent in your story. You're saying um a lot or uh, 0:20:27.480 --> 0:20:29.800 you're pausing a lot. There was another one of the 0:20:29.840 --> 0:20:31.000 signs that people mentioned. 0:20:31.200 --> 0:20:34.960 Interesting. Do you know if in that study that's seventy 0:20:35.040 --> 0:20:37.800 percent with the eye contact and being important, do you 0:20:37.840 --> 0:20:41.840 know how that relates to the culture's overall relationship with 0:20:41.880 --> 0:20:42.520