The Art of Finding the Truth in a Labyrinth of Lies

Since humanity came into being, the fine line between lies and truth has constantly occupied people’s minds. From social relationships to the political arena, tracing lies, bringing the truth to light and not being deceived has been a subject of interest throughout the ages. From ancient Greece to ancient China, humans tried different methods to detect lies. Some drew conclusions about whether others were telling the truth by studying body language and facial expressions, while people skilled in rhetoric in particular tried to uncover possible contradictions by analysing the logical framework of a person’s words. There were even those who asked the gods for help in detecting lies.

On the Trail of the Lie: Searching for the Truth

After this brief introduction, I will take you to the first act of misleading or deception, and you will find traces of this style of misleading in many deceptions. People may lie for many reasons: generally to protect themselves or their interests, to gain prestige in business, to manipulate the other side, to prevent a family from breaking up, to keep a patient’s spirits up, to carry out intelligence activities, to avoid prison, or even to come to power.

If we look at the dictionary meaning of a lie, we find the definition “statements that are not true, made in order to deceive or mislead”. Perhaps that is why, when lies are mentioned, we usually think of the opposite of the truth or of reality. Yet deceiving, tricking or misleading is not so simple that it can be reduced to “calling white black”.

Seen this way, people can deceive not only with words that are the opposite of the truth but with their clothes, their behaviour, perhaps even their gaze. For example, a female agent of a hostile country who wants to get close to a member of the target country’s armed forces may look at and behave towards the soldier as if she were in love with him. In this way she misleads him, or lies even with her eyes. Or a greengrocer who puts fresh, good-looking fruit at the front of the stall but keeps poorer fruit on the side he serves customers from deceives the customer without saying a word, because the fruit the customer sees and the fruit he gets will not be the same. Likewise, some people, though they are not really so, may present themselves as Kemalists by wearing an Atatürk badge, as nationalists by growing a crescent moustache, or as members of a religious order by wearing a robe and turban, and profit by invoking these groups.

What If You Are Being Deceived with the Truth?

When we consider concepts such as misleading, deceiving and manipulating, lies and truth, right and wrong can sometimes become intertwined. Picking dark stones out of rice is easy, but finding stones the colour and shape of rice takes extra care.

What I mean is that the other person can deceive you not only by lying but also by telling you the truth.

When I worked as a mobile phone sales representative, a customer came in wanting to buy an iPhone 5s. I said we didn’t have it in stock at the moment and asked whether he was considering another model. Right away the regional sales manager, who came by for inspections from time to time, stepped in and, showing an Android phone, said things like: “I’d recommend this one. Its camera, memory and battery are better than the iPhone 5s. The iPhone has a bitten apple on the back. The apple isn’t even whole.” Everything he said was true, but in the end he misled the customer. Because although the Android phone’s camera megapixels and battery capacity in milliampere-hours were numerically higher than the iPhone 5s’s, it was not, in the end, of higher quality.

Imagine, for example, a country where the ruling party describes a fare increase on buses in its own municipality as a “price update” and increases in other municipalities as a “huge price hike”, or ensures the news is reported this way, and in the end manipulates the public and steers its perception by saying things that are true.

Or a girl who is with her boyfriend gets a call from her mother asking, “Are you with that boy again?” The girl answers, “Oh yes, sure, I’m with him. Mum, meeting him isn’t the only thing I do, I have a life of my own.” She is in fact saying she is with her boyfriend, but she says this truth in such a tone and manner that her mother is left with the impression that she is not with him.

The First Deception

If we said that lying or deception is older than human history, we would probably not be lying. Because according to religious sources, the first act of deception was carried out by Satan. And this first lie or act of deception took place before the first human was sent down to earth. So what did Satan say? “Your Lord forbade you this tree only lest you become angels or become immortals.” (Edip Yüksel’s translation, Surah Al-A‘raf, verse 20).

This first deception offers us a very important example for understanding a person’s motivation and subconscious. Satan builds his discourse on certain truths. He does not say things like “If you approach this tree or eat this fruit, you will become very rich, very powerful, a king, or able to understand the language of animals and plants.” Satan builds his discourse on the concepts of “becoming angels or immortal beings”. Because according to many faiths there is eternal life in paradise. Since paradise was the homeland of Adam and Eve, had that tree not been there as a test, they too would have remained there for ever.

As it is not my field, I don’t want to go into this too deeply, but here Satan carries out the act of deception with a truth, or a concept related to the truth. After all, God’s knowledge included humankind coming to earth and being put to the test. So, as it appears to our understanding, a test was needed for the two beings created in paradise to be sent to earth. Satan seems, perhaps understanding the wisdom of the tree that was the test, to have built his act of misleading on this thesis, which contains a grain of truth.

Lie Analysis and Deception Detection Today

Methods of lie detection have developed and changed over time. It is important to note, however, that developments in this field are continuous and evolutionary.

Moving from primitive observation-based methods to the present day, experts who study vocal features such as tone, rhythm and frequency of speech, and a person’s brain activity through brain imaging techniques, can form an opinion about truthfulness and deception.

In one of the striking lie-detection scenes in the series “Lie to Me”, the expert uncovers the truth by tracking which micro-expressions appear on the suspect’s face when he hears or says a particular word.

In another scene, the expert shakes hands with the suspect, tells him about a very important piece of evidence they have found, shakes his hand again and leaves. Once they are out of earshot, he tells his colleague that the killer is the person they were just with, because his hand, warm at the first handshake, was cold at the second (after hearing about the new evidence), though barely two or three minutes had passed.

In yet another scene, the FBI agent provokes the suspect’s wife over their murdered daughter, the woman shoots her husband, who killed their daughter, and the truth comes out. Watching or reading these, they may sound very far-fetched. But how many of them can we actually use with our boss, friend, child, a sales representative, a suspect, a defendant or whoever we are dealing with?

They say a liar plays with his ring. There may be some truth in that, but what if he has no ring? Or the hand he plays with his ring is under the table? Or he is wearing gloves? Everyone, from student to teacher, from cook to worker, from gendarmerie staff to prosecutor, in fact needs a more usable method.   

Former FBI agent and professor of behavioural analysis John R. Schafer calls this method, which anyone can use, Psychological Narrative (or Discourse) Analysis. To apply it you need no technological device or prior knowledge of the subject. All you need is to focus on the words the other person chooses.

In this series we will examine not only lies and truthfulness but also the psychological reasons underlying what people say, and try to discover the background and motivation of the words spoken to us.