Precautions required when interpreting behavioral signs of deception

Assessing the behavioral signs of deception harbors a lot of dangers. In the list below, I summarized all the precautions that need to be taken in order to reduce the possibility of making mistakes when interpreting them. The verifier needs to constantly evaluate the likelihood of how a gesture or expression can speak about lies or truth: full confidence is very rare. A suspect is usually confessed only when conflicting emotions are clearly read on his face (macroexpressions) or some of the hidden information breaks through in a tirade.

1. Try to understand exactly the basis of any of your guesses (or intuitions) about whether a person is lying or not. Realizing how you interpret the behavioral signs of deception, you will learn to detect your own mistakes and understand whether you have the opportunity to make the right judgment or not.
2. Remember that when a deception is found, there are two dangers: disbelief of truth (when a truth speaker is mistaken for a liar) and faith of a lie (when a liar is considered a speaker of truth). It is impossible to completely avoid these errors, so carefully consider all the consequences of any of these errors.
3. The absence of signs of deception is not yet evidence of the truth; some liars do not allow any blunders at all. But the presence of signs of deception still does not indicate a lie; some people feel uncomfortable or guilty, even when they are telling the truth. But it is possible to reduce the danger of the Brokaw trap, which arises due to individual differences in behavior, if we base our judgments on the basis of changes in the behavior of the suspect.
4. Carefully consider if you have any preconceptions about the suspect, and if so, how they can interfere with making the right judgment. Do not try to judge whether a person is lying or not, if covered with jealousy or subjected to a flash of blinding. Avoid the temptation to suspect a lie only because you have no other acceptable explanation for the same events or actions.
5. Never forget the possibility that a sign of emotion is not a sign of deception, but only an indication of how a person reacts to suspicion of lying; Do not at all get used to thinking that emotions are a sure sign of deception, especially if you are not very knowledgeable about the character of the suspect, about his expectations and unfamiliar with him.
6. Keep in mind that many signs of deception are not built on one, but on several emotions, and you should always think carefully before making a judgment, especially if one of these emotions says that the suspect is lying, and the other that says the truth.
7. Consider whether a person knows about suspicions about himself or not, and do not forget that losses and gains will be inevitable in both cases.
8. If you have information that can only be available to the truly guilty one, try applying the guilty knowledge test.
9. Never make a final conclusion about whether a person is lying or not, only on the basis of your own interpretation of the behavioral signs of deception. They should serve only as a warning that more detailed information and more in-depth investigation are needed. Behavioral signs, like the lie detector testimony, can never be absolute evidence in and of itself.
10. Use test questions from tab. 4 "A complete list of questions of the verifier" application to assess the lie, the liar and himself as a verifier, as well as the likelihood of making the right judgment or an error.

Attempts to detect a lie with a detector also have many dangers. And although now I considered the behavioral signs of deception, rather than a detector, and, accordingly, a wide range of situations where people may lie or be suspected of lying, and not the narrow limits of detector tests, in the next chapter I will deal with them. After all, the detector is used in a variety of responsible situations: in counterintelligence, in criminal investigations, and more recently in business; and I want to believe that my lie analysis, reproduced in this and previous chapters, will be able to help better understand the strengths and weaknesses of the detector. In addition, consideration of the problems associated with the operation of the detector will help the verifier to better understand the dangers that arise when working with behavioral signs. And finally, we consider the most interesting and practical question: what gives more accurate results - a lie detector or behavioral signs?