Hey, everybody, This is Chuck and welcome to Uh. I guess this is week three of s Y S Kate Selects, where we give you one of our favorite or maybe a timely episode from our vault that maybe you didn't hear. And uh we're curating these individually, and this is my pick lying Liars colon how lying works? Liar, I think that was It sounds like a Josh title. It's a great one. This is from June of twelve, and um, I don't know. I just remember this being a pretty good episode and lying is um just a pretty interesting concept to me. And so I wanted to make this my selection this week and I hope you enjoy it. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, Right, Yeah, take it, Chuck, Josh that that shirt looks great on you today. I just want to say that, Uh, I really like a checked pattern. Well, I see what you're doing. Um, you're blinking and you're scratching your face. It looks like you have scabies like my friend Dirty Mitch. Yeah. Um, but that doesn't indicate necessarily that you're lying. I'm glad you said necessarily, because they didn't say that in this article, and that was a very important omission. Now they did. They didn't say necessarily, they meaning Tom, Tom didn't say necessarily. I had to write it in because what we're talking about are potential tells whether or not whether that you can recognize a lie. And people often associate blinking, scratching the face, covering the mouth as uh, surefire indicators. And that's not necessarily the cases. No, it's not. And let's just get that out right now. Um. It's because there aren't any sure fire behaviors where you're like, oh, you're lying, Like the one I always heard was touching your touching your face, right, that's it's based on the idea that somebody might do that if they don't normally do that, or if before this whole conversation started and a lie, Uh, they're placed in a position where they're lying, where they're choosing to lie, and they start doing that, they are now deviating from their baseline behavior. And that's what the important thing is exactly. That's where you add the qualifier necessarily. Like Tom said, like maybe the dude has an eyelash in his eye, Jason, he's rubbing his eyes or blinking a lot, So yeah, it's interesting. Yeah, that's why he's scratching his face um orca. Or maybe someone's self conscious because of a missing front tooth, so they cover their mouth when they talk. I cover my mouth when I talk, um, especially when I'm eating. Oh yeah, sure, but you're just not supposed to talk while you eat. Yeah, Emily does that because she can't stop talking ever, so she'll just talk while she eats and cover her mouth. So I'm not even gonna bother to ask you if you've ever lied? I've lied today? Have you some of you? I'm sure? Apparently according to studies I have. Um, you found a few studies that I've I've thought were a little let's get into them, okay, I mean, so they're surprising. Like one of them found that a quarter of of all of our daily interactions involved lies. That's really high. I like, I really, I don't think like I'm naive. I I went back and just kind of like evaluated my behavior. I'm like, it still seems high. Agreed, So, uh, who does everyone else lying more than us? Are these just a really rotten people. I don't know that happened to be part of this random sample in the study. Well, and you know, you pull up any study online and you're going to find a different result, Like people are every ninety minutes, people are every ninety seconds, she lied twice a day, that kind of thing. Yeah, so, um Phi psychologist failing miserably at studying lying is what you're saying as far as coming up with hard because I don't think there are any hard and fast rules. I might not lie at all today, or I might like ten times tomorrow. If you don't lie at all to day, they'll make a movie about you. Don't They make movies like that. You either can't lie Jim Carrey's case or yeah, that's usually the plot. Yeah. So so I guess before we get into the studies, do you want to talk about what is a lie? Yeah? You dug this up. I like these definitions. So there's this philosopher named Cecelia Bach who is a Swedish philosopher who published a book in the nine that apparently still to this day it's like the the authority um lying and philosophically speaking. The work in the seventies in psychology. I think they were smoking a lot of weed, that's what it was. Um. Yeah, and she's a philosopher. Um, so this is the philosophical ethical approach to lying. And so cecili Bach came up with basically a definition of a lie, and she said that it has three features, Um, that it communicates some information. Now, philosophers tend to choose their words carefully. They're like almost the poets of the humanities, especially if you don't include poetry as a humanity. Um. The liar intends to deceive or mislead, of course, and the liar believes that what they're saying is not true. So they haven't tricked themselves into believing, uh that they like O. J believes that he did not kill his wife. Yeah. I don't know. I think that's a different conversation altogether, because that begs the question is it really possible to fully trick yourself into believing something you know is not true is true? You always hear that that can happen, Like you become so um entrenched in that lie for so long that you don't even realize it's a lie anymore. I'd like to see the study on that, though, yeah, I'm sure somebody's got one out here. But so those three you put those three things together, and um, you have a lie. You're communicating information, right, yeah, Um, you're you're intend to deceive and you don't believe what you're saying is true. And I'll apologies to O J. By the way, that was really uncalled for. Yeah, really sorry, that was very uncalled for, Chuck, Shame on you for UM. So there's a big debate though about whether or not, um, the lie has to have false information to it. Yeah, that's what I don't quite understand. Can you explain that? Yes? So example, UM, I I like your shirt, and I know that you hate shirts that have armpit stains on them. But I know at that at the present time you also have a pinch nerve in your neck so you can't see very clearly. Okay, So I want your shirt. I know you'll give it to me if I tell you there's an armpit stain. I don't think there's an armpit stain. I don't believe what I'm saying is true. But I say, Chuck that that modest master it is an armpit stain. You should probably give it to me, and you take it off and give it to me, and the shirt actually has an armpit stain. And someone pops their head and goes, want, want Want. That was not false information. Even though I intended to deceive you. I didn't believe what I was saying. I was just communicating information. That's the that's the point. But that brings up another philosophical question, like, is a lie of omission then a lie because you're not communicating anything. In Tom's article they talk about um, the reason the U. S. Court system say the whole truth and nothing but the truth is because a lie of omission sometimes is not as UH look down upon, because you're not actually constructing some falsehead. You're just not telling the whole truth. Interesting. Yeah, a lot of the version of the yeah, you know, sure, I think. I think ultimately you can follow. The conclusion is that most philosophers believe that lying is bad, but that there are exceptions to the rule. Like if a murderer comes up and says, hey, I'm looking for my next victim. Have you seen this man and you have seen this man and you know where he is, then I'm making this really basic gets But that's a that's a that's an example of when a lie is beneficial. You're thwarting a murderer and saving somebody's life. Yes, you should lie, or obviously a white lie, which kids learned early on, um, is something you do oftentimes to spare the feelings of someone else. That that top does not make you look bad. I think it's cut, just just fun. Sure, but maybe you should wear that other one because you look great and black. Well you, I imagine if you're dealing with an intelligent person, you've showing your hand at that point. Not necessarily. Yeah, um, but you did mention kids, you mentioned white lies. Yeah, so you found a study. Supposedly, according to Tom, around age two or three, we realized that we're not being constantly supervised, that reality exists outside of other people's view. Our reality sometimes does. When we go into another room or Mom's in the other room, I'm still here playing yes, and it comes becomes clear to us that we are responsible for conveying that information. But we have a choice e g. Free will that allows us to decide whether that we convey that information truthfully or dishonestly. Right. Yeah, and then after that it just takes off like a rocket. Yeah, this one study, Um, found that nine and ten of the kids that they spied on, and this is just this is just cruel. They put kids in a room with like a stuffed animal or they called it a soft toy, which was a little creepy um behind them, and said don't look at that behind you, and they would leave the room in videotape them, and of course nine out of ten kids turned around looked at it. And then did I actually say how many of them lied? Um, I don't even see that. I guess they were just told not to look at it. And I don't know if that's a lie. You know, that's a little lanky. It's not following orders, it's disobeying all right, Well, how about this? The second part of that study was older kids. They would give them a test with the answers on the back and tell them not to look at the answers, give them a fake answer, and when they were asked to explain the fake answer, they would make up a lie like, oh I learned that in history class, right, And actually they the question was who discovered Tunisia? That's one of them and the on the back the answer um was a fake answer. Presidious Aikman and so some the dumb kids from Star Wars who cheated said it does doesn't. Um, the dumb kids who cheated put that down and uh. But then Wayne, given the opportunity to fest up with them lied. What I just disagree with about this study was that, um, it said that the smartest kids told the best lies. How do you qualify that? What a you know, the best lies? Uh? If it's believable and conveyed in a way that's uh. But that's all subjective with confidence, totally subjective. It's methodologically unsound. But the whole point of these studies was they believe that children who are able to lie, um, have faster developing brains, especially the areas involved in executive functioning. So they believe, they concur that a child who lies early on might be more successful later in life. Yeah. Well, I mean you can make a case that lying is um, basically using your imagination. Yeah, especially when you're a child. And they they have other studies that support the fact that rich people are more prone to lie and manipulate. So rich people are more trying to do a lot of shady stuff. You think, well, yeah, that's how a lot of them get rich. Huh. Yeah, m hmm, chuck um. You want to talk about why people tell lies, like some of the great categories of lies, the Big six. So what you call it? Sure? Number one, Josh, is to conceal a misdeed instead of trouble. And even at the advanced stage of forty one, this is the reason I will most often lie because I hate being in trouble and I will try and cover for myself. Uh sometimes, even though in the end and in the long run, it's better to tell the truth, agreed. The the short term, you might get away with something, but you're not doing yourself any favors. I call these lies of cowardice, thank you. It's basically it sucks. I mean, it's that you're you're having to like go through this terrible, uncomfortable, you know, moment or whatever it is. But I'm really glad Tom pointed out at least in the short term you might not gain an advantage, but overall, like there is a positive outcome. You're building trust by fessing out or whatever you know. Number two to preserve a reputation. Um and the example time uses a drug a drug addict recovering drug addict who might lie about having gone to rehab or something like that, or to like a perspective romantic partner. Yeah, and I think that these are kind of understandable to an extent. It's it's like, you know, we have walls up. Yeah, you know, you know if you're if you're just a normal person, you don't walk down the street like, hey, Josh, get to meet you. I spent some time in rehably, like there's just a certain amount and then once you get to that point, well then maybe you are kind of short shrifting somebody who's who you consider close to um if you're not telling them that. But as you gain trust, then you open up more and you should um. Number three this one, of course, we all get the white lie to avoid hurting someone's feelings. We already kind of covered that. Number four. To increase stature or reputation. Yeah, these are just the boastful people. They're like, yeah, I scored forty two in uh in a high school basketball game one time and one county and track and you're like, you do some investigation and you realize they weren't even on the track team, right, And I've realized that, like when you notice when you have a lot of these people in your life, like there usually it's time to get introspective because there's something wrong with the way that you're living. If you have people like this, yeah, orbiting you a lot. Those people wear me out, they really do. I've done a pretty good job with shaking you know, everybody like that off. I don't. I can't think of anybody in my life like even acquaintance wise, and it's like that just makes up lies about themselves, agreed. And I have known people like that. They don't stick around. No, especially once you get out of what you're like mid twenties is like that edge of what you know where you should be interacting with those people still well. And I think that's sort of a an immaturity thing to like if you're still doing that when you as you grow older, then you've got some serious problems. But everyone when they're younger probably stretches the truth about things they've done. Sure, but even still don't you remember, like it's just kind of being uncomfortable when somebody was doing this, and everyone in this group that they're talking to is like, we know you're lying, Like this is just please stop. This is you might as well be putting bamboo shoots under a fingernail number five to manipulate. And this is probably something like I said, the rich people are more prone to lie. Um, this is an evasive or defensive it's to gain something for yourself. It's pretty pretty it's the most vicious type of lying, probably because it also can involve telling lies about other people right to get ahead. That's all destroy someone else's reputation. Man, those people, there's a special place in Dante circle for you. Agreed. Now, those people you start to run into more of, especially as you inter the corporate world. And you know what, they may be the same people who were telling the other lives when they were younger. You know what I'm saying, They just evolved into to be manipulators. And the last one, Josh, is to control information. Um. And this is what we mentioned about indirect lying or like withholding parts of the truth a liable mission. Yeah, which I'm more able to forgive something like that. Um. So that's as you called it, the Big six. Huh, the Big six, um, Chuck. Kind Of one of the running themes that we've had here is that everybody lies. I don't think that we've Yeah, you said it, explicitly. Every the Dalai Lama doesn't lie. I don't know. I could see him wanting to preserve harmony or balance or something like that at a diplomatic dinner or something, or with one of his followers feelings about like, yes, that is a really nice sand mandala. Sure you know. Yeah, he's sent putting a lot of high pressure social situations. So at the very least everyone has little white lies, I imagine, like right, Um, but there are some types of personalities that are much more prone to lying, um the big five. Yes, like pathological liars. Yes, they are the worst of the worst because they are sociopathic and they don't understand right and wrong. Um, and they have they're probably really good liars because they don't understand right or wrong, because they're not gonna have the stresses associated with guilt in line bad people. Yeah, their consciences don't put them through their paces when they're lying, because they lack in whole or in part consciences compared to non sociopathic people. Right. Uh. Number two. I've known one of these people, a compulsive liar, and I really felt bad for him because they almost seem like they can't help it. Yeah, and you would think a pathological liar and a compulsive liar one and the same. Not no compulsive liar UM. Pathological liar lies um as a strategy. It's a means of gaining advantage. UM. A compulsive liar like can't help it, like they have their brain has been trained to lie as a first resort, even if they're not, if there's no gain whatsoever in line, they they will still just generally lie. It's the first thing. It's their gut reaction. It's Uh, this guy knew. It was really clear that he lied as a first option, as his go to when he didn't need to. And it was so frustrating. And I had a sort of a big brotherly relationship to this guy, so it wasn't he wasn't a peer, so I tried to help him through that. But UM, I haven't talked to him a long time. I don't know if it worked. So you abandoned him faith that them um and one of the and this of course makes sense in his case too, without getting specific, but said that living in an abusive environment, relying as necessary to self preservation might be where that stems from. And I think that was the case for him. Yeah, it's like the brain has been trained to um lie, like this is what you do. It's But the good thing is if you run across somebody in your life who cares enough about you, they can be trained out of you, I imagine, although I'm sure it's a painful process for both people. Yeah, it's probably are you're really waiting for me to say. People culty programming UM. Narcissists of course will lie. These are the people who um lie to increase stature and reputation, but they do themselves no favors. Borderline personalities. I thought this one was kind of interesting. They will go through wild mood swings and engage in really risky behavior, but then they come back down to normalcy and they're like, oh, um, I just gambled away our savings count and then they'll lie to cover those up, right. Uh. And then histrionic personalities, Uh, these are people if you have like a true histrionic personality disorder, you are attention seeking, excessively needy uh for approval and emotional um. Apparently women are more prone to be histrionic by ratio four to one. Oh is there right what they say? Or at least I have the disorder and you can, um, these are people desperate for attention, like if you leave, if you walk out the door, and to kill myself. That was a great example time used. Yeah that's a lie, you mean. I were on this air tram flight once in this UM we were waiting to take off and this caterer was backing off of the little his little sky ramp who was backing away from the other door, the catering door UM, and apparently it was still hooked a part of it or whatever. The SHEI was like, no, no, don't do and he kept going and she turned around, was like, well, we're not going anywhere for a while. And the way she said it, you could tell we were we were discussing this, like neither one of us believed her. We just knew she was wrong because just she's threw it out there like, well we're not going anywhere for a while, like and of course, like everything was fine within like fifteen minutes, but the way she sounded, it was gonna be like stuck on a tarmic for three hours. And it was weird. Were afforded this glimpse into this woman's true personality, and I wouldn't have hung out with histrionic. She was a bit histrionic and that was probably low level you could tell, all right, so stay away from her. How can you tell if someone's lying. We've talked about micro expressions, yeah, and the micro expression. Yeah, it was like three years ago. Uh yeah, yeah, it has been well. Basically, the for those people who don't know that, we have a good hundred and thirty hundred and fifty at the sisodes still not on iTunes, not um we the episode we did on micro expressions. Basically, a micro expression is an uncontrollable fleeting, like millisecond long facial expression that is linked to your true feelings. That was longer than a millisecond. I just made a quick frowny face. That was a grim was it? You look like? Megan m ram I don't know this is on Twitter girling like that. It's hilarious. Um anyway, Uh, it's it's a you can't control it. It's linked to your true feelings, and people have been shown to be able to pick up on these without even consciously knowing it. You just get what we would call a gut feeling about somebody because their smile and that sudden fleeting micro expression of like contempt back into a smile that you didn't really see, but you're caught, don't add up, and your body is like, why am I having a weird reaction to this person? So that's a micro expression, and they're they're apparently linked to lies and lying. So basically, if you have a gut feeling that somebody's lying, you might be onto something. Yes, and it might be because of a micro expression that you saw. Interesting. You know this, I know, but I still find it interesting. Okay, I'm not lying. That's your new thing? Interesting? Did you know that that I said that? Um, I've been on that for a while. Yeah, if I ramped it up lately. Interesting. Uh. These are non verbal cues, by the way, micro expressions. Another one is a forced smile. And I think we've talked about this too. That's when you smile with your mouth only. Yeah. It's so creepy, is the seeing it? You're just like, you know, what are you doing? Right? You look weird right now? Um? But seeing it described the way Tom wrote it, which is a perfect description, was creepy to me. Yes, it was. Um. Another thing you can look for is like someone's nodding yes during a denial some kind that could be a dead giveaway. It's terrible. Sometimes it's like way more outward, Like you get literally in a defensive position, right, like crossing your arms or moving away, turning away from somebody who's questioning you, and fidgeting. Finally we get to fidgeting. Like, fidgeting is significant if the person is normally calm or doesn't normally fidget. If it's a fidgety, nervous person to begin with, then that doesn't it doesn't mean that they're lying. If they're fidgety and then they get calm all of a sudden while you think that they're lying, then you're onto something there. But they're probably the weirdest person in the world, and you should force them into lies just to watch them go from fidgety to normal, because they'd be really odd to see. Um verbal Sometimes you know, you can pick up on nonverbal cues. Sometimes they are quite verbal. Um So like, ask asked me a question, asked me, why didn't I come over last night and help you with your with your lawn mowing. Uh, that's a terrible question, all right, I'll ask me why did you tell me that the sweetwater thing doesn't have a date when it clearly does. Well, I'll fake it and then I'll tell you the real answer, because that actually does ever real answer. Um, So what you're saying that you looked and saw that my band gig for Sweetwater didn't have a date on it? Is that what you're asking me? Yes, well, I mean I could tell you, uh right now exactly. There's a very good reason for that, Josh, Then why don't you liar? So those are some of the not actually verbal cues, taking too long, not using contractions, repeating the question, basically buying yourself, sometimes not using contractions. It's hilarious to me, like, I cannot believe that you want to know why and tell you why I did not tell you this, and the reason why, the real reason why, No, the reason why you're not using contractions. Well, to draw it out so your brain can the other part of you can come up with the answer. That's so hilarious. The real reason why I said that about Sweetwater is because I just found out two days ago that they have gone with another band and its officially canceled. No, yeah, that's a little bummed. Do you want me to talk to somebody? No? Now, I was told that one of the reasons why they went with another band is because we didn't have like video and things to send to show you caged up your two fifty gig computer with HD videos. Yeah, but a lot of stuff we don't want to send out, like a lot of pants lists, pencils, l cheap. Well, I think that stinks. If you're at Sweetwater Brewer right now, shame on you. Now, this wasn't them, This was in GEO. This as a fundraiser. So the fan who wrote in to ask you bomped. You bumped me really for another band. And I've looked at the other band too, like they have a website and videos and lady, stop listening right now. No, don't do that, at least for the rest of the episode. It's okay. It was humbling. Well, I'm sorry that I brought it up. That's okay. Might as well get it out there. I'm glad you did, because you probably thought I was lying to you. Where are we? We are now going to teach people how to lie? Which I thought was an interesting feature of this article. Okay, I um, I thought it was interesting. I also refused to do it. I find it wholly a moral to teach people how to lie? Do you want to skip this in? No, but it's still information. I feel like we can say people who are successful at lying tend to do certain things, but teaching somebody how to lie, I think it's just utterly wrong. Well, imagine there's been more than one attorney give these instructions to their clients. Definitely on the stand, but I mean like attorneys, nobody. But we're making all kinds of friends today. It turneys in Detroit especially p you. Alright, so here's how to lie, so says Tom Chief. So this is what successful liars do. Okay, stay calm. That's what they'll probably tell you before you get on the witness stand. Will put you up, especially with the polygraph. Yeah sure, because it measures all those fluctuations and what temperature and heart rate and yeah you're yeah, you're yeah, those two things. Just keep it simple, stupid. And this one, boy, you see this one when someone's cooking up a lie and they you know they're lying when they start adding all these details because they think, well the more detailed, like who could make this up? I was thinking about this and I was like, while I was reading this, I was like going over my own behavior. Is he's using myself as a model. It's impossible not too I guess, right, Um, this this I did not get. Like I I tried to think back to like any lie or story I've ever told him, like if if like just adding details and like information that has nothing to do with anything, Like I don't get that. Yeah, well, you know it probably means you're not a very good liar. That's a good thing. I hope that's what it means. But that's like the Eddie Murphy. Uh remember his joke about you know, the ladies called the guy like the car was at the other ladies house and it was just what me, That's what he kept saying. Yeah, but I called you and you know, I called you red hand and it wouldn't me Oh yeah yeah, And that I guess that kind of goes back to it and keep it as simple as possible. Richard Pryor apparently also had a little bit where like, um, he said that he came in and found like his wife or his girlfriend in bed with another guy and she's like, who are you gonna believe me? Or your lion eyes? That's pretty good. Um remains steady Um. And this goes back to the you will be you're being studied by. Let's go ahead and use the courtroom example, like we're coaching you to go on the stand. This jury is gonna be watching you. Just remain steady. If you're all fidgety, stay fidgety. People who are good liars tend to remain steady, right, And what do you mean by that is not just like you have to keep a steady hand. That was already covered in staying calm. People who are good liars continue the behavior that they were that they if they were relaxed before there's a line of questioning started, they're relaxed during it, and they're relaxed after. If they're fidgety, then they're fidgety before, during and after. Yeah, because they say one of the telltale signs is um or the way of one way to trip up a liar, which we'll talk about is to change the subject and see if you see them relax because they think, oh man, that's over, thank god. Yeah, Tom says, um. Once the questioning is over, don't suddenly relax and a pure really all right, I can get down now off the stand, um, And then good liars generally are affable, which makes sense. They make people want to believe them because I think if you don't like somebody, it's easier to be suspicious of them. Yeah. Well, how many people have gotten away with horrible stuff because they just seem likable? What about Ted Bundy? How many people? How many more people was he able to kill? And he got caught? Remember we talked about him before he got caught because he went in like just a completely reckless, like killing rampage in his sorority house. Yeah, he killed for years before that. Yeah, but he was white and he had good haircut, so I mean he couldn't he couldn't have been any threat to anybody. I love that serial killer stuff. I could do like every other show on some aspect of that, We'll do another serial killer one. Okay, Okay, so Chuck, I will. I don't find it a moral to teach people to tell when someone at lyne so that we can do five steps the Big five Big Part two, Part two. Um, and we kind of already talked about establishing the baseline, Like if you think someone might be lying in your quizzing, hum, look at their behavior very closely and determine how they just normally act and just go ahead and log that in your brain. Let's step one, right, And I mean this is like I guess if this is if you're a professional interrogator like the lady in that terrible show, um or on Law and Order, the Great Shows, um Or, if you're on a jury, this is good advice. If you sit on a jury to watch these people, that's a good one too, for sure. Um Or if you are um something, uh, if you are really help bent on finding out if somebody that you interact with is lying to you, and you do a lot of pre planning, you could do this too. But yes, before you let on that there's a line of questioning that's going to be coming up. You want to interact with the person in um may notes about their behavior. Are they a fidgety Joe, not literally in front of them making notes? Or if you do do that, just don't lend them see what you're right? Alright? So number two is once you've established this, to look for deviations from that pretty much a no brainer, Like did they start fidgeting all that stuff? Yeah? Or if they're fidgety Joe, do they turn into a smooth Samuel all of a sudden, that's weird that that did would just be so weird it would be it's weird. Or if they're smooth Samuel and they're trying into a fidgety joe, there you go. That's a that's a deviation from the baseline. That's right. Uh. Step three, you really gotta listen, um so, I might be pretty steely with their nonverbal cues. So just listen to what they're saying and is it adding up. If they're spouting off all kinds of details, maybe lead them down a different path and then jump back to those details and see if they're still on those. And then you pick out a detail it seems a little hinky to you, as you would say, and started asking them questions about that, because then they may have to lie about the lie, right, And if none of it's fitting, are they having to make up more information to explain why certain things aren't fitting into this um? And eventually, if you draw the line of questioning out enough, you're going to drive the person totally insane because their brains are going over time. Yeah, the tell tale heard, I think, and that would happen in that they actually they didn't even know what was going on those guys. Oh yeah, that's right. They were sort of innocently questioning and it was all in his head. Either that or it was really a phantom heart, right, that's the I guess you just shouldn't murder. Yeah, boy, that John Cusack movie about Poe looks like one of the worst pieces of garbage for me, it really does. Whose idea was that, let's make a movie about Edgar Allan Poe as a as a murderous hunter And I'm thinking John Cusack? Yeah, really, although I have to say a Lincoln vampire hunter looks awesome. Yeah, I totally want to see that. Man, I can't see that. That was no, but I'm sorry. I saw the the preview for the po one and for the um Abraham Lincoln one, like right next to each other. So I linked the two and they look similar and mood her tone, um oh, hold on with them with everything adding up and drawing it out. One of the other things we talked about the body language, where um, a body language might be lie what they're really thinking or what they really believe. Where if you're if you're denying something but you're nodding your head, and she talked about um a rod or somebody like that who was involved in steroids, and he was on like sixty minutes and someone broke down their micro expressions yeah and found clearly that he was like he was nodding his head when he said yes or something like that at one point, So, um are so dumb? Yeah? And why you why you're doing that? Normally, our body language matches up to our thoughts because they're accurate and true and instinctual, right, and when they're when we're lying, not only do we have to think about the words we're saying and fabricate this alternate reality that doesn't really exist except in our heads, we also have to come up with the body language that's supposed to match us being calm, us being truthful, whatever. And so all of this thinky thinky can be confusing to um a liar. And if if you stretch it out over the course of enough time a line of questioning, they're probably going to be like, why are you interrogating me? Or whatever? And you've broken them And at that point you just drive the hammer home and literally beat them to death with the hammer. That's the inevitable conclusion of any line of questioning. Right now. What you could do, though, is pause, because a pause and the conversation might make just a regular conversation feel uncomfortable. You talk about the awkward pause, but man, if someone's cooking up a lie and you're asking them questions and you pause, and this is a big time tactic by an attorney with someone on the stand, that will seem like an eternity to those people. Yeah, they may get fidgety or whatever. They'll turn into like Miranda July on that video tape and you, me and everyone we know where she's like, I can do anything right now? Is that? Did you see that? I did? I enjoyed that you know what I'm talking about and know exactly what you're talking about. So if somebody does that in the middle of a pause during a line of questioning, yeah, they're lying, uh and finally, or they're adorable and artsy right and or into mumble core um. And then we talked about the last one. Step five has changed the subject. And see if you see them visibly relax and then go ah ha yeah, where they're like yeah and they're like, oh wait, no, I wasn't relaxing, right, I'm on meth. Yeah, that's a good way to catch somebody off guard. Or you could do the Colombo method, let him off the hook, let them calm down, and then turn around be like one more question. How was that what he would do? Oh yeah, every time that thought we would catch somebody and that would be like that, like they didn't have an answer for that, and it totally caught him off guard and then he beat him to death of the hammer at the end of every episode. Robert Blake, Right, I'm the Colombo Peter Fault, Peter Falk. I always get those guys confused. Robert Blake really did go to jail for murder. Yeah, that's because he really killed his wife. He was Burretta. That's right. I always getting confused, But not with the Rockford Files. Oh no, that's a Jim. Yeah, it's great. Um, all right, so I didn't look at any of the famous lives in history. They weren't. They were pretty much whatever standard. So we talked about the Kids study. UM. I found an interesting link from the University of Southern California, huh, where they found what they believe is proof that, uh, the brain structure of a pathological liar is different. They're actually wired differently than the rest of us. Oh yeah, I could totally see that because the brain is subject to plasticity and so structurally it's different. Right, Well, that's what they say. They took subjects a D eight volunteers and then interviewed them with psychological tests and placed them in different categories of like are you a repeated liar? Are you anti social and pathological liar? Or are you normal? I guess a normal liar? And then they hooked him up to the old m R I the Wonder machine, and they found that liars had significantly more white matter and less gray matter, which they believe equates to um. Liars are quicker thinkers. Basically white matters the stuff that transmits the electrical impulse. They're more equipped to lie physically, their brains, their feet. I'm I'm like one big continuous lump of gray matter. Yeah, I don't think I have any white matter whatsoever. There's like a little there's a donkey on like a ferry that goes across the mighty mississipp that's my that's my neural transmission with Huck Finn. Yeah. Um, but huck fan is like really fat and kind of dumb. There they go, right now I can chuck yeah. Uh. And then this other thing we've touched on, the thinking cap, transcranial magnetic stimulation. Yeah, and what was that again, TMS, Oh, it's the it was the thinking cap. We did an episode on this too, where there's a I guess that uses magnets magnetic pulses that can target very specific parts of the brain without fighting others. Laying a magnet that can pulse right over a specific part of your brain and going woom woomp, and then high frequency stuff makes you like you twitch and stuff like that. Low frequency can give you a stutter depending on the region of the brain. It's basically just messing with your brain and the neural firing. And it can make you more creative too. Wasn't that one of them? Yeah, that's what they found more creative and um people could pick out like prime numbers out of a huge block of numbers. Whether they couldn't do that right before, they could draw horse really well all of a sudden, so apparently if UM these volunteers were hooked up to the TMS Thinking Cap machine, let's call it, and volunteered to have their dor dorsalateral prefonal cortex stimulated, which is UM complex thought and deception decision making. And they found and it has two sides like every other part of the brain. And they found that people who had the left side stimulated lit more often. Uh, and people on the right side were more likely to tell the truth. And they asked him like obvious question. It's like what color is this piece of paper? Lie to me or don't lie to me? And basically it's early in the going here. I think this is from two thousand eleven, but they think this could lead to possibly one day instead of people taking a lie detector tests, taking a lie prevention test, like hooking them up and basically, you cannot lie to me while you're getting pulse like this. That is crazy. So did you kill your wife? That is very crazy? Did I? No? I wasn't asking me although I haven't seen you mean awhile, okay, sorry this morning, I'll have her send you an email. Sure. Well, actually, it's funny you brought that up because UM this last little study UM found the email people are only likely to lie in email four pent of the time, compared to thirty seven percent on the phone seven percent in person via text. And I found that interesting. I find it interesting to The phone makes sense because it's verbal communication, so you're more frightened. There's more intimidation, which I think probably is one of the things that leads to lying among people more frequently than anything else, being intimidated face to face, which probably helps exactly. So the phone is the most um lie laden form of communication, but email is the least lie laden, and I think it's because you don't have to vocally express it. Plus the internet makes us all very brassy. Uh well, plus email to also there's like documented evidence the paper trail or an electric paper trail. Yeah, that's a good point too, Like I wouldn't line in an email because when somebody could take that email later on and bust me on it, that's true. I would only do that fourteen percent in the time, evidently, right. Well, I record all of you was in my conversation, so I've got it all documented, all of it. Oh bad, I guess that's it. That's all I got. That was a lot. That was a lot online. We we covered the philosophical aspects you mentioned the brain, We pood pood psychology. Um. We talked about the Big five, the Big six, the other Big five. We covered everything in him. Yeah, and let us finish by saying, two kids out there. Although it may seem like a good idea at the time, it is not a good idea in the long run in your life. May just make things worse. In fact, it will very much likely make things much worse on you agreed to tell the truth. Agreed. It's a good habit to get into as you grow. Oh yeah, those are the people who really kind of become the best agreed later on. Not necessarily the richest, although that's not the Richard Brandson never told a lie in his life, probably, but there are richest beyond the dollar exactly. That's what I'm driving and being honest as one and the true trust of another person doesn't much wealthier than that. Agreed Uh a few while learn more about lying. You can look it up by typing L Y, I, n G in the search bar at how stuff works dot com. I said, search bar in there no lie. This means it's time for a listener mail. Whoa, Nelly, whoa. We got a couple of quick announcements to make a listener mail. The first is we have if you've listened to our Halloween episodes. The past two years we do readings that are royalty free because they're old, right and they're good from po and Lovecraft and the like. This year, we want to read one of your horror stories absolutely true, um, and we're going to do that through this long, complicated process by which starting uh this well a little while ago June eighth and running until July. You can submit your own, um horror fiction not been published any anywhere else and that is between three thousand and four thousand words. That's right. You can send it in an email to how Stuff Works Underscore Contests at Discovery dot com. Right, yeah, and do yourself a favor. Uh go read the rules because you don't want to take the time to do this and then be disqualified. No, there's a blog post on the blogs that how Stuff Works and it's titled something like stuff you should know his horror Fiction contest colon get your official rules here something like that, and it's got all the rules that has like a pithy introduction to the rules that we came up with and then UM. So the key here though is no matter what, um, you have to in the email write the words by entering into the contest. I agree to abide by the contest rules. Any email that that has a submission that doesn't have those words in it is automatically disqualified. Yeah, and we don't want that because if you worked on this, you know we want you to be able to win. Yeah. Um, it's only open to residents of the US eighteen or older eighteen as of June eighteen. That's right. But anyway you send him to us, we're gonna read all of them, we're gonna judge them. Uh, and then that we're gonna pick the top sixteen, enterim into a bracket, and it's gonna be like the thunder Dome until everybody votes on their favorite, and that favorite one is the one we'll read for our Halloween episode. Pretty cool, great idea, Josh's idea. I think he's already regretting having thought of it because about complicated contests, are they really really are? Yeh? But I don't regret it. No, I'm I'm very anxious and um so comic Con to what. Yeah, we're gonna be at Comic Con in San Diego. You're going to Comic Con. You are two? Pal? Oh, that's right, I know. I booked my ticket. Oh you booked your own. I had people book mind for me. Well well, um so, uh let's see, we're gonna be a comic Con on Thursday, July twelve, and we're going to do a live podcast at a panel right yeah, right there at the convention center. Uh, we do not know what time exactly it. Uh, well, we'll announce that on Facebook and the like in Twitter. And they're supposed to be possibly a special guests. Maybe there's gonna be Trappiezes, Monkeys, circus, peanuts, the whole thing. Yeah, and we can't announce the guests yet because we haven't locked it down, but hopefully they are in the fringe of society. Alright, So comic con horror fiction contests. It's time now for listen to mail. Uh Josh, I'm gonna call this ss k uh teaching America's utes. Okay, Um, hi guys and Jerry, I've written before you even mentioned my podcast our list on your show once. Remember we were the doppelgangers because we sent you T shirts that you originally thought were you sure? And it was us? I remember those guys. Anyway, I wanted to write and thank you besides being a podcaster. I'm a teacher. My fourth graders were going to be dissecting earthworms, and help prepare them for their first ever dissection, I gave them a homework assignment of listening to the earthworm podcast. Great idea. Um. Many had never listened to a podcast before, and I was wondering how they would react. And the overall response was great, except for the three that ended up with seizures. For some weird reason. They found it funny that you discussed species pronunciation, which turns out I was wrong. Remember I said I can't say species. Apparently you can see either. Uh No, I said species. You said it's species or species or species or species and I said, no, it's just species. So you were wrong in that. I just just wanted to make sure. I don't really remember it, but that's how it, right though. Uh. They found the facts that you shared amazing. I gave them a questionnaire to fill out in Mr Zach because spelled the word question zach. As they listened in, almost everyone completed their homework, which is no small feed. So thank you for giving me another way to reinforce my lessons. You may have some new fans in exchange, and that is Mr Zach at Ease Cooper monest Story Charter in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. Go Coops at Amount Coops Go barrel Makers. Yes, then that what Cooper's do? Oh was that a Cooper? Sure? I think so, man, I hope it is good. I hope it is. Um, thanks Zach. It's good to hear from you guys again. Uh and uh, where can they find their podcast? Chuck, It's called our list on iTunes? Probably Yeah? Sure, okay, um, usual old Google cool? Uh. If we have helped shape children's lives, man, we are crazy for that. We always love hearing about that kind of stuff. Um, so we want to hear it. Send it to us. You can tweet to us at s y s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook at stuff you Should Know, Facebook dot com slash stuff you Should Know um, and you can send us an email at stuff podcast at Discovery dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit how Stuff Works dot com. M