During my last year at the FBI, I submitted my research and findings on deception, including a review of the literature for the previous 40 years. This led to the FBI publication of an article entitled “A Four Domain Model of Detecting Deception; an Alternative Paradigm for Interviewing.” In that article, I presented a new model for the law enforcement and intelligence community for detecting lies, based on the concept of limbic arousal and our displays of comfort and discomfort of which I have previously blogged.
Simply put, The Four Domain Model suggested, based on the research I had done, that when we are telling the truth and have no concerns, we tend to be more comfortable than when we are lying or worried about getting caught because we harbor “guilty knowledge.” The model also shows how we tend to emphasize when we are comfortable and truthful, and when we are uncomfortable, we don’t. Lastly I reflected on “perception management,” such as “I am a good Catholic, I would never do that,” which police officers often noted coming more from liars than truthful individuals.
This model is currently being used worldwide along with other techniques for detecting deception. Although its purpose was to train law enforcement officers to detect deception during criminal investigations, it is applicable to any type of interpersonal interaction - at work or at home, or for that matter anywhere in which differentiating dishonesty from truth is important.
The article remains cogent because of its proven emphasis on the comfort / discomfort paradigm of which I talk at length about in my book, “What Every Body is Saying.”
Detecting deception is really about looking for discomfort at three critical junctures in an inquiry. The first is when the person first hears the question and how they respond to hearing that question (is there comfort or discomfort). The second part has to do with how they process that information, how long they take to answer it, and how troubled they are to think about the answer. The third phase has to do with how they answer the question; are there speech errors, hesitation, vocal inflections indicative of distress, discomfort displays or lack of emphasis. In all three of these critical phases, depending how well the question is formulated and asked, we have an opportunity to assess for comfort and discomfort.
Having laid this information out, I would caution that the best we can say, unless we actually know the truth, is this: if the person did poorly in all three areas (hearing, processing, and answering the question), there are likely issues there that need to be explored because their behavior, lacking so much discomfort, is suggestive, but not conclusive of deception. I would be reluctant to call someone a liar merely because they respond poorly in all three areas, but I would certainly pursue the topic further to see what caused this behavior.
For additional articles look for them on my web site at www.jnforensics.com or follow me on twitter at: navarrotells.
