Members in the Media
From: Scientific American

Groups of People Spot Lies More Often Than Individuals Do

Scientific American: 

A shifty gaze, fidgety stance or sweaty palms signal a liar in classic film noirs. In real life, however, it is surprisingly difficult to recognize when someone is telling a tall tale. Even among trained professionals, the lie-detection accuracy rate is only slightly better than pure chance. And courts tend to reject polygraph evidence because the tests lack standardized questions for determining falsehoods. For better odds, discussions of questionable claims appear to be the way to go. Psychologists at the University of Chicago have found that groups of people are consistently more reliable at rooting out fabrications than chance or individual judges.

Read the whole story: Scientific American

More of our Members in the Media >


APS regularly opens certain online articles for discussion on our website. Effective February 2021, you must be a logged-in APS member to post comments. By posting a comment, you agree to our Community Guidelines and the display of your profile information, including your name and affiliation. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations present in article comments are those of the writers and do not necessarily reflect the views of APS or the article’s author. For more information, please see our Community Guidelines.

Please login with your APS account to comment.