This week on Scam School, we learn how to lie!
You liar!
You lying liar who lies!
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Welcome to the only show that's less honest than your tax
returns.
Scam School, the only show dedicated
to social engineering at the bar and on the street.
I'm your host, Brian Brushwood, and this
is a subject I have wanted to cover
since day one of Scam School.
It's finally happening-- we are starting
a two-part interview with Clark Freshman, professor of law
and expert in facial expressions and lying.
Oh my god, you have no idea how excited
I am to cover this topic, finally.
We are here with none other than Clark Freshman, professor
of law and what, lie detection?
What's your exact category?
Professor of law.
We're all professors of law and nothing else.
OK, but you are an expert in--
Negotiation in lie detection and emotion.
And so you're from University of California Hastings, right?
Correct.
So originally I put out to Twitter,
I said, I'm looking for someone who's
the best at lie detection, who happens to be maybe
in the northern California area.
Turns out you're right in our backyard
and this worked out so perfect.
Tell me about what you do.
So what I do is I mostly teach negotiation in law school.
And I started studying about a decade
ago emotion in negotiation.
And then about five six years ago,
moved that into telling whether people
are lying during negotiation, and telling
whether the techniques you're using,
the pitches you're using, would actually work.
So it's the same thing selling cars,
as trying to persuade a judge, as trying
to pick up someone in a bar.
It's all the same of figuring out
where is their traction in what you're saying.
What is the first thing we should know in negotiation
and figuring out who's lying?
Well, a couple places you could start.
The first way I would say is become aware
of everyone's baseline.
Part of that will be the voice.
So your voice is relatively loud, and your voice is--
I prefer energetic.
--relatively fast.
My voice is relatively fast.
So let's take a look at voice.
When you figure out what somebody's baseline is and then
we see when they're acting differently
from their baseline, that tells us something's going on.
Doesn't necessarily mean that they're lying.
Could be that they're lying, could
be that they're more interested-- we don't know.
Face is another one.
So yours, a relatively animated face
from what I can tell right now.
You're now smiling from the lower part of your face,
so that is not a hit.
So right now you're not sincerely happy.
You're acting polite.
But there's no movement in the upper part of your-- now
you just got some movement in the upper part of your face,
so now it's actually moving.
So these muscles that push up your cheekbones,
these are the ones that reveal there's a sincere smile as
opposed to a flight attendant smile
if they're smiling like that.
Wow.
Doesn't mean they're faking it, right?
So we live in a society of politeness.
So people do these kind of deference
smiles, polite smiles.
And they're not being fake, they're just not "felt" smiles.
That's not "felt" happiness.
Just another accessory.
And your nod right here.
Some people are nodders.
Some people are not nodders.
Let's suppose we're talking, and you're nodding all along.
And then I say something about, god, Sarah Palin, what a bitch,
and you stop nodding at that point.
And that might tell you, huh, could be a Republican,
could be brain dead.
We don't now at that point, we just
know that there's something different about the Sarah
Palin.
I talk with my hands, some people don't.
I stop talking with my hands, that's a soft spot.
We want to investigate that.
Why is that?
Could be that I'm stopping talking with my hands
because I'm having to think harder.
Well, that could be because you've
asked me something embarrassing.
Why did your last relationship end?
I'm embarrassed.
I'm not lying, but I'm trying to figure out
what am I going to share with you.
But that is also a clue of deception.
It doesn't mean a person is lying.
But when they stop talking with their hands as they usually do,
soft spot could be that they're lying.
We've got voice, we've got talking with their hands,
we've got their face, and we've got verbal style.
So, so far I said this, so that means
that I speak relatively informally.
If I started speaking relatively formally,
that would be a problem.
If you start in the middle of one of your episodes
saying, well, whereas this is what you said last time,
I'm noticing a certain inconsistency, indeed,
a certain postmodern milieu of inconsistency.
Then you might think, oh, that's inconsistent with Brian's
usual verbal style.
Brian sounds smart today.
Who is this guy?
Right.
Who is that guy.
Great.
So now you changed your voice a little bit there.
You're talking more deeply.
You just started drinking.
So that's a little bit of a clue it's off these five things,
but it can also fit within baseline.
But for a normal person who has better things
to do with their time, when they start reaching for the water,
or they cough, or they swallow, this is a sign of arousal.
And arousal could be that they're sexually aroused,
but it could also be the stress response has kicked in.
That's a sign that I'm making the person uncomfortable.
If I'm trying to sell you something,
I'm trying to get you to take one of my workshops
in lie detection and you start doing that, I would think,
oh, this person is not so comfortable,
let me try something else.
Now, the last technique, besides verbal style,
is verbal content.
Another example of verbal content changing
is you stay on topic for all the others,
but then for one you start meandering around.
It reminds you of something.
So let's say the conversation seems
to be angling towards a certain direction, and then
all of a sudden out of nowhere--
You switch.
--it takes a side.
Yeah.
Just a recap, the baseline, the things
you've got to pay attention to, there was the voice.
Voice was number one we talked about.
So we've got the face is the second one,
and that becomes very important on its own.
We've got verbal style.
We've got body movements.
And we've got verbal content.
Those are the five basic ones that we're looking at.
And basically establishing a baseline
just means paying attention and making a mental note of what
seems to be what they do naturally
in all of those five categories?
Yes, that's right.
And some of them count more than others.
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Let's take a look at facial expressions.
So facial expressions, much more specific.
So there are seven facial expressions
that have a universal meaning across cultures.
The person I do a lot of research
with, Paul Ekman, the person who's
the inspiration for TV show Lie to Me,
the scientific advisor for it, he said he was in Papua,
New Guinea years ago when Papua, New Guinea
had no contact with the West.
He studied it in blind individuals
who've never seen these expressions-- they show up
the same.
So one of them, for example, the easiest one to learn
is contempt.
Now contempt is a nightmare.
If you're scamming on someone in a bar,
they show contempt, just move on.
Picture Dick Cheney-- you started to do it right there.
It's an asymmetrical smile.
It's a smile on one side of your face.
You did a subtle expression of contempt right before.
And if we slowed it down, that would be exactly what it was.
And they're going to do that.
They're going to go back and capture it.
I hate you guys.
That's exactly what it was, you were just slightly moved sense.
So this is contempt.
OK.
Just like that, that's exactly it.
Sometimes it's on the left.
Sometimes it's on the right.
If you look at Dick Cheney, if you look at George Bush--
do it all the time.
So contempt-- the connotation to me
is that it's this sheer hatred for the person,
but that's not necessarily what you mean by contempt.
Not hatred.
Contempt, one extreme could be a sense of moral superiority.
So you might be talking to someone in San Francisco,
and you say, what do you think of Sarah Palin,
and they show contempt.
You might be talking to Sarah Palin
and say, what do you think of same sex marriage,
and she shows contempt.
So it can be a moral quality of derision.
It can be a sense of being better than.
For some people, it's just skepticism.
Now what's the difference between disgust and--
Contempt is just this very simple muscle.
Disgust is pretty complicated.
Discuss at its extreme is everything moves
towards the middle, like this.
Like you smelled something bad?
Like you smelled something bad.
What's your least favorite food?
Brussels sprouts?
I actually love vegetables.
Love Brussels sprouts, cats?
Sour milk, have you ever had sour milk?
Oh, yeah.
Have you ever had food poisoning?
Oh, yeah.
I just did it.
I did it totally instinctively.
So here's the third lesson.
You have the soft spots from the deviations from baseline.
The expressions at their extreme would be something like this.
But people try to conceal them.
So often all you'll see is the expression that's slight,
as you did with the contempt, it was just
a slight something going on.
Or it happens very quickly.
So you might get disgust, and all you would see
is the wrinkling of the nose.
But in slow motion, you'd see the whole face was like that
and people don't notice it.
Because what they're doing is, they're
looking in the wrong place.
But let's say you're trying to be nice to me.
Where are you really looking at on my face?
Well, normally, in your eyes.
Right, you were looking in my eyes
and it's a total waste of your time.
Really?
Yeah, the eyes are a total waste of your time.
On the other hand, the eyebrows, very interesting.
So the eyebrows come down and together
like that-- that on its own is just interest.
When I was talking with your producer,
I said something to her and she said
would you be willing to do this?
And I said no, and she did this.
And I couldn't tell, was she angry or was she just thinking,
oh shit, what am I going to do instead?
So that could just be I'm thinking about it.
That's interesting, because suppose
you're talking to somebody, he's like, well,
what about if we do this?
And it could be going to a restaurant,
could be going to a certain country for a vacation,
could be whatever.
And they do that, they're not necessarily angry,
but they're having to think about it.
If the eyes glare, if the eyes open wide
or sometimes they get tighter-- some people
do that, the lower eyelids get tight and the eyebrows go down.
That can be anger, and you want to notice that.
Talking with the pursed lips with that,
with the men often when trying to interview women,
that can be the involuntary rolling under of the lips.
Very hard to do voluntarily.
But it's a very reliable sign a person's starting to anger.
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All right, so talking about eyes.
I was always under the impression
that you wanted to look in somebody's eyes
to show that you were paying attention to them.
And it was like a courtesy thing,
like I'm paying attention to you.
But I have noticed that when I'm talking,
I'm not comfortable talking only into someone's eyes.
I make sure to look away as I try to gather my thoughts
and then deliver them a piece at a time.
But you're saying it's OK to have a conversation
and not be looking at someone's eyes?
Two different things.
So one is politeness-- yes, you do
want to be looking at people's eyes in certain cultures.
That's where there's a lot of cultural variation.
But if you watch videos, if you just
watch your friends more aware, you'll
notice people do look away a fair amount.
Now, when they look away, that turns out to be a clue.
It doesn't mean they're lying.
It's this big movement, so I just looked up
and to the right.
Some people would tell you, oh, up and to the right,
if he's right-handed he's lying, if he's left-handed
he's not lying.
That turns out, by a bunch of published studies, not
to be true.
Thank you for that.
Doesn't matter where you look.
But here's a big tip.
Because I hear that all the time, and that sounds
like such pseudo-science to me.
Yeah, it's totally pseudo-science.
It is true that when you're looking up
you're more likely to be retrieving information
or trying to gather your thoughts.
Some people look down, some people look up,
some people look to the side.
Let's suppose I say to you a series of questions.
So I say, what year were you born?
1975.
OK, so you looked up slightly for that.
Probably that was just because you're
wondering where I'm going with that.
Doesn't mean that you're lying.
But it does mean that it's a change from baseline--
you're thinking about something.
So sometimes your birth year, sometimes you
think you should know that.
If I said, where were you born?
Where were you born?
Fountain Valley, California.
And what's your mother's first name?
Victoria.
And what's your father's first name?
Alan.
And what's your mother's middle name?
Sue-- wait, are you asking for my mother's maiden name?
Where is this headed?
Right.
Susan.
So you get the security clearance.
So you were looking up a little bit,
and you were trying actually.
Your eyes, if we were to roll this back over in slow motion,
your eyes started to look up and then
you would pull them back down.
And I was catching myself.
Which is actually more of a soft spot
than you're just looking up.
Because what that tells me is both
that you're having to think, and you're
trying not to let me know that you're trying to think.
And that's exactly what it is.
And it's a little bit weird, because we
know the cameras are on and we know
that I'm trying to play a certain role as host
to the show.
But at the same time, I'm also trying to be genuine.
And it's creating this weird double bind
where I'm trying to be natural, but also
trying to be perfectly fake.
Right, and so you're moving back and forth.
And so for you in this kind of a context,
let's suppose that I saw, we'll call it
micro-expressions, so very fast, fleeting emotion.
Ordinarily I'd have to say, wow, that could
be a clue that the person's lying.
Why is he showing-- two of the big ones are disgust and fear.
But you might be showing fear not because you're
afraid that I'll catch you lying,
but you're afraid that you'll look bad,
or you're afraid that you're not maintaining some image that you
want to maintain.
So ordinarily that micro-expression,
that micro-movement of your eyes, that
would be very suspicious.
But because I know you're engaging
in impression management, no big deal.
So simply if you're interviewing somebody for a job--
Where they know they're trying to put on their best face.
That could be happening all the time.
Now, we're out of time for this episode.
But don't worry, you'll get the second mind
blowing half of Clark's interview, coming up soon.
In the meantime, let us know what you like,
and more importantly, what you'd like
to see in future episodes of Scam School,
by posting at the boards at scamschool.tv
where you can see all of our episodes
right back to episode one.
If you want to suggest your favorite bar scam or trick,
you can write me directly at brian@revision3.com.
If you're doing the Twitter thing,
follow the show at twitter.com/scamschool.
Or follow me personally at twitter.com/shwood.
Coming up soon, we'll have the rest of Clark's interview
where he catches me lying in a very personal matter.
It's too personal.
It's for me to know, not you.