The language of telling lies

"Sorry,my phone died."

"Don't worry, I'm doing okay."

"I'm sorry, but those accusations are completely untrue."

"I just wanted to say that I love you."

Throughout history, various methods have been developed to detect lies, ranging from medieval torture devices to polygraphs, blood-pressure and breathing monitors, voice-stress analyzers, eye trackers, infrared brain scanners, and even the 400-pound electroencephalogram. However, while some of these tools have proven effective under certain circumstances, most can be deceived with sufficient preparation, and none are deemed reliable enough to be admissible in court. Perhaps the issue lies not with the techniques themselves, but with the underlying assumption that lying triggers physiological changes. What if we were to adopt a more direct approach, utilizing communication science to analyze the lies themselves? On a psychological level, we often lie in order to present a more favorable image of ourselves, connecting our fantasies to the person we aspire to be rather than the person we truly are. However, while our minds are preoccupied with these fantasies, numerous signals are inadvertently revealed. Our conscious mind only governs approximately 5% of our cognitive function, including communication, while the remaining 95% occurs beyond our awareness. According to the literature on reality monitoring, stories based on imagined experiences differ qualitatively from those based on real experiences. This implies that fabricating a false story about a personal topic requires effort and results in a distinct pattern of language use.

The utilization of linguistic text analysis has facilitated the identification of four common patterns in the subconscious language of deception. Firstly, individuals who are lying tend to reference themselves less when making deceptive statements. Instead, they tend to write or speak more about others, often using the third person to distance themselves from their lie. This technique makes their statement sound more false, for instance, "Absolutely no party took place at this house" versus "I didn't host a party here." Secondly, liars tend to be more negative as they feel guilty about lying on a subconscious level. For example, a liar might say something like, "Sorry, my stupid phone battery died. I hate that thing." Thirdly, liars typically explain events in simple terms as our brains struggle to build a complex lie. Judgment and evaluation are complex things for our brains to compute. As a U.S. President once famously insisted: "I did not have sexual relations with that woman." Finally, even though liars keep descriptions simple, they tend to use longer and more convoluted sentence structures, inserting unnecessary words and irrelevant but factual sounding details to pad the lie. Another President confronted with a scandal proclaimed: "I can say, categorically, that this investigation indicates that no one on the White House staff, no one in this administration presently employed was involved in this very bizarre incident."

To illustrate the application of linguistic analysis, let us consider the example of seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong. When comparing a 2005 interview, in which he had denied taking performance-enhancing drugs, to a 2013 interview, in which he admitted it, his use of personal pronouns increased by nearly 3/4. Note the contrast between the following two quotes. First: "Okay, you know, a guy in a French, in a Parisian laboratory opens up your sample, you know, Jean-Francis so-and-so, and he tests it. And then you get a phone call from a newspaper that says: 'We found you to be positive six times for EPO."

Secondly, Armstrong expressed that he had lost himself in the situation and was unable to handle it, despite being accustomed to controlling every outcome in his life. He acknowledged that others may have struggled as well. In contrast, his previous denial involved deflecting the situation onto someone else. The use of personal pronouns can be an indicator of deception. Another example is former Senator and U.S. Presidential candidate John Edwards, who used convoluted phrasing and avoided naming the other parties involved when denying paternity. However, when he later admitted to being the father, he addressed the child by name and expressed his commitment to providing love and support. It is important to be aware of telltale signs of deception, such as minimal self-references, negative language, and simple explanations, in order to avoid potential harm in various aspects of life.