I wanted to share with you these very interesting and informative documents, (1) & (2). After reading this, I invite you to review the interview given by the couple Jacob. Of course, this is not an interrogation in the proper sense of the term, i.e. under the conditions of police custody. However, these articles can be useful in other criminal cases as well.
🔹 Are Marcel & Jacqueline Jacob lying ?
In 2017, 200 questions were asked to Marcel & Jacqueline Jacob. While his wife has kept her right to silence, - "Holding on for forty-eight hours is impressive", comments a source familiar with the case. The old lady would be tough. -, Marcel spoke a bit more. He denied everything, of course.
However, in over 30 years and given the premeditation of the crime, these two people had plenty of time to “tune their violins” (agree on an alibi & what to say in case). Interviews with investigators will always fail until satisfactory evidence shakes their absolute confidence.
When he was summoned by Maurice Simon, Marcel is said to have told his daughter: ‘If it goes wrong, don’t let us down.’ And Jacqueline to have written: ‘Life is too short, you have to forgive, your mother who loves you.'
'Why all that, that day, if they have a clear conscience?' asks Valérie.
In June, however, the gendarmes found a testament letter at the Jacob's: ‘In the Grégory Villemin case, I am 100% innocent.’
A few lines written by Marcel in 2009, when the authorities undertook a vast campaign of DNA samples. Was he afraid of being involved?
In a previous post, I only shared the sequence with Dominique Rizet, but this interview was also carried out with other journalists. Indeed, some elements tend to show that they are lying. First of all, the speech, repeated word for word, sometimes in unison. They try to minimize the truth about the conflicts and the hatred of the Jacob family towards the Villemins.
The interview was dramatized, including in the decor.
The curious will have noticed the portrait of Eugène Dieudonné in the office, innocent sent to prison and rehabilitated by the famous journalist Albert Londres. The symbol is strong and not trivial.
The second portrait behind the Jacobs is the anthropometric photograph of Christian Ranucci, sentenced to death in 1976. File marked by significant controversy, and on which suspicions of miscarriage of justice had arisen.
By Michel St-Yves & Joe Navarro.
Since humans know how to communicate, they seek to discover (and hide) the truth by all means.
In China, a millennium BJC, people suspected of having lied were forced to chew dry rice before spitting it out: if the rejection was dry (due to lack of saliva), they were deemed to have lied. In the Middle Ages, judges used a similar method. They made the defendants swallow flour in order to identify those who had dry mouths. If an accused had a dry mouth, it meant that he had'nt told the truth.
Since then, a large number of techniques, more or less scientific, have emerged. From the rice used in antiquity to the polygraph used today, what have we learned about lie detection? Does the Pinocchio effect exist?
This text takes stock of what science has taught us about lie detection, by observing verbal and non-verbal signs, as well as the myths associated with them, and above all, the limits linked to the detection of lies.
The function of lying
Lying is normal (to some extent) and (often) necessary behavior. A child learns to lie from the age of 3, first in a playful way, then, at the "age of reason" (around 6-7 years old), his lies can be sufficiently well constructed and credible to deceive an adult (Vrij 2000). We can't blame them, because we are often responsible for their ability to lie (St-Yves, Pilon and Landry, 2004): [the phone rings] “Shhh, dad isn't here”.
We deliberately lie for all kinds of reasons: to enhance ourselves, to hide emotions, out of hatred, to avoid a consequence, and even sometimes, for fun or to please. People lie on average once or twice a day (DePaulo, Kashy, Kirkendol, Wyer and Epstein, 1996), but this average would be influenced by a small group (barely 5%) of habitual liars (Serota, Levine and Boster, 2010).
It's not easy to lie
We do not detect the lie, but rather the anxiety it generates. In some individuals, the mere thought of lying will generate anxiety, while in others, lying will cause little anxiety and, therefore, be less apparent. Hitler said “a lie repeated ten times, remains a lie; repeated ten thousand times, it becomes a truth”. A recent study has indeed demonstrated that lying can be trained and that repeated lying will end up generating less cognitive effort and will be more difficult to detect. (Hu, Chen and Fu, 2012).
Several researchers, including specialists in functional magnetic resonance imaging, have demonstrated that lying is more difficult than telling the truth (Vrij, Fisher, Mann, & Leal, 2006; 2008). While telling the truth happens spontaneously, constructing a lie is both intentional and thoughtful, and therefore requires mental effort. According to Vrij and his colleagues (2008), the liar must invent his story while ensuring it's believable and coherent in all aspects to what the interviewer knows or could learn. He must remember his story and his previous remarks as faithfully as possible, so as to remain as coherent as possible. By doing so, he will also tend to recite his lie using the same words, without adding or changing the structure. It is the equivalent of a text learned by heart. As for sincere people, they tend to retell their story using different words and sometimes changing the structure. (Morgan, Mishara and Hazlett, 2008). The liar must also make efforts to appear honest in the eyes of the interlocutor. This control over one's conduct is very demanding on the cognitive level. He will probably be more attentive to the reactions of the interviewer. (Vrij 2014).
Nonverbal signs of distress, discomfort … and lying?
Since the work of Albert Mehrabian on the importance of words in communication, many authors claim, erroneously, that non-verbal behavior represents up to 93% of the message (see Mehrabian, 1972). Others believe that the position of the eyes (up, down, left, right) – an idea from the methods of communication taught by neurolinguistic programming (NLP) – can also reveal what is going on in a person's head, in particular whether she is telling the truth or lying. However, many studies have shown that there is no correlation between eye direction and lying (see Vrij, 2008)[1]. This is the case for facial micro-expressions (see Ekman, 1992). But can these behaviors really help detect lies?
Over millions of years, the brain has developed a very sophisticated system, called the limbic system, through which we process threats, dangers and emotions, and on which authors such as Gavin DeBecker (1997), Daniel Goleman (1995) and Joseph LeDoux (1996) have written numerous books.
The role of the limbic system is to act as an early warning mechanism for survival as well as feeling control. The response of the limbic system to a threat or a disruptive element results in three mechanisms, immobility, escape or fight, often wrongly oversimplified and called the fight or escape response. In addition, certain types of calming behaviors (what Ekman calls adaptive gestures) usually occur after a response from the limbic system. It is for this reason that when a child has a sudden fear, he cries and asks to be comforted (Navarro 2007).
The limbic system of the brain keeps us alive by responding effectively to threats and emotionally charged events. It channels what we feel and communicates it through outward non-verbal messages (Panksepp 1998). For example, if a baby does not like a food, his limbic system will react and he will show it to his mother as follows: he will move away from the food in question, will wince, will stiffen or will purse his lips. Similarly, if a person faces a dog that is growling, their limbic system will cause them to stand still, run away if the dog chases them, and fight the dog if necessary. In each case (immobility, escape, fight), the person expresses in a non-verbal way what he feels by an inactive, anxious, frightened, irritated, desperate or determined behavior (Navarro 2008).
For millions of years, before humans knew how to communicate verbally, a threat to one individual was a threat to everyone. Thus, our body has evolved to display physical signs of emotions, discomfort or danger in order to communicate what we perceive (Navarro 2007).
The reactions of the limbic system, which represent emotional reactions in themselves, are in fact universal (Ekman 2003, p. 21). When a person has furrowed brows, wide-eyed because they are afraid or recognize what they see, clenched jaws, tense face and neck muscles, tight lips, difficulty swallowing or breathing, we can say that he is showing non-verbal signs of distress and discomfort.
When the brain hears the question, the nonverbal behavior of two individuals (innocent and guilty individual) will be different, even if they do not answer the question. As soon as the interviewee hears the questions, verbal cues awaken the limbic system and signs of distress immediately begin to show. These signs mainly include the following: opting for avoidance (changing the subject), staying very still, moving your hands or arms very little, pulling your feet in, keeping your distance or stepping back, closing your eyes or pointing your feet towards an exit. Deeper discomfort may be expressed by the individual if he rubs his forehead rapidly while thinking about the matter, if he massages the front of the neck with his fingers, if his lips thin to the point of disappearing, if his muscles tense, if he rubs his hands together, or if he squints (Navarro 2010). Verbally, the person may respond less directly, have a tremolo in their voice, or speak in a higher pitch due to stress.
As the feeling of distress subsides, the individual manages to calm down (one can think of a child sucking his thumb after falling and crying), either by exhaling through the mouth at the point where the cheeks swell, or by touching. He may, for example, touch or massage his neck, rub his temples, rub his hands together, lick or bite his lips, rub his pants with the palms of his hands, etc. Humans engage in these behaviors several times an hour when faced with stressful situations. A trying moment, a near miss or an emotionally charged confrontation will trigger the need to calm down (Panksepp 1998). It's through them that the brain manages stress in real time.
It's still remarkable that over the past 30 years, very little effort has been made to try to define what lying is, taking into account personality disorders and the experience of life. At the FBI, agents will prefer not to negotiate with an individual who has barricaded themselves, or interrogate a suspect, without understanding their personality. It is thus easier for them to determine the type of behavior the individual will have in addition to knowing the ease with which he manipulates his interlocutor, dodges questions or lies.
In many cases, this technique mimics what a polygraph tries to do, which is to detect physiological changes to a specific question or signal and nonverbal reactions, rather than detecting lying.
Lying “is a tool for social survival”; everyone lies and, in the end, we never know the whole truth. We can observe things in order to determine if there are some problems or concerns or to find out what we are trying to hide or conceal. To this end, body language can help us, but often no more than flipping a coin.
Reliable indicators of a lie
The report on lie detection drawn up so far shows that few observable indicators are reliable. Moreover, the speech would contain more interesting indicators than the non-verbal language. When the liar speaks, his speech usually contains more hesitations, fewer words, fewer contextual details, more omissions. His answers are more evasive, less plausible, less structured and sometimes lack consistency.
Also, they include a more detailed description of what did not happen (DePaulo et al., 2003; Newman et al., 2003; Porter and ten Brinke 2010; Vrij 2007; 2008). Likely resulting from cognitive overload, a decrease in verbal rate and longer pauses are also observed when the liar speaks (see De Paulo et al., 2003; Matsumoto, Hwang, Skinner, & Frank, 2014; Newman et al., 2003; Vrij, 2008; 2014).
For its part, non-verbal behavior is mainly limited to fixed behaviors, such as the reduction of body movements and fixed gaze (no blinking, looking straight in the eye) (De Paulo et al., 2003; Hurley et Frank, 2011; Matsumoto, Hwang, Skinner and Frank, 2014; Porter et al., 2012; Vrij, 2008; Vrij 2014). These non-verbal (frozen) behaviors would also be linked to cognitive overload (a sudden and greater cognitive demand) induced by the complexity of this mental operation that is lying (Ekman, 1997; Vrij, Fisher, Mann and Leal, 2006 ; 2008).
How to detect lying
Most people who lie experience negative (unpleasant) emotions when they do so. These emotions are associated either with the fear of being discovered or with a feeling of guilt. It sometimes happens that some people feel positive emotions (which often have the upper hand in the habitual liar); they experience pleasure in lying, that is to say in convincing fallaciously with the utmost naturalness. This type of liar becomes master of his emotions to the point of communicating fake emotions as easily as real ones (Vrij, 2008).
Here are five strategies to better outsmart a liar:
1. Adopt an attitude of openness and support.
The accusatory style is the least effective. Studies have shown that showing support for the interviewee during the interview facilitates conversation and encourages cooperative witnesses (i.e. truthful witnesses) to provide more information (Fisher 2010). Consequently, the interviewee is more likely to deliver clues of lying in his speech.
2. Use open-ended questions and let the person speak.
Lying is a complex task. Truthful people tend to give more details than people who lie (Johnson, 2006; Geiselman & Fisher, 2014). Liars have to build their lie, make up details, which makes it harder and more likely to betray them. They therefore find themselves in a dilemma, because providing brief answers arouses more suspicion. To appear credible, the liar therefore adds information that cannot be verified or that will turn out to be unfounded. It is for this reason that open-ended questions make it easier to distinguish the true from the false: “Tell me about everything you did today”.
3. Create a rule of engagement.
Asking someone to promise to tell the truth makes it harder to lie, because lying in itself is already a violation of the unspoken rule of engagement: to tell the truth. Talwar and colleagues (2002) observed that simply asking children to promise to tell the truth increases the likelihood that they will be honest. Swearing on the Bible (or promising to tell the truth) in court therefore probably had its raison d'être...
4. Create cognitive overload.
The interviewer can impose cognitive overload during the interview (make the interview process more difficult for the interviewee), either by encouraging the interviewee to say more or by asking unexpected questions. Planned lies are easier to cover up than spontaneous lies. The liars prepare for the interview. They do this by anticipating answers for questions they expect (see Hartwig, Granhag and Strömwall, 2007). This strategy is effective because planned lies have fewer signs than spontaneous responses (DePaulo et al., 2003). However, preparing responses has limitations. This only succeeds if the liar has correctly foreseen the questions put to him. Investigators can take advantage of this limitation by asking questions that the liar does not expect. Although the liar may refuse to answer and say “I don't know” or “I don't remember”, such answers obviously arouse suspicion if they relate to essential elements of the interview (Vrij, 2014). In an interview, it is very likely that the liar has ready answers to the questions provided and can undoubtedly answer them with many details. However, in the event of an unexpected question, he would have no prepared answer to offer and therefore would have a hard time providing a detailed answer (Lancaster, Vrij, Hope, & Waller, 2013; Vrij, 2014; Warmelink, Vrij, Mann, Jundi and Granhag, 2012).
You can also ask the interviewee to tell their story again, but backwards, or by requiring eye contact. These two instructions create cognitive overload and can help discriminate truthful people from liars (Vrij 2014). Asking the interviewee to tell their story another time by making a sketch of the scene can also help detect signs of lying. Sketches of truthful people generally contain more detail than sketches of liars (Leins, Fisher, & Vrij, 2012; Vrij, Mann, Leal, & Fisher, 2012).
5. Use evidence strategically
Lying suspects and truthful witnesses typically employ different interview strategies (Granhag & Hartwig, 2008). Liars are prone to use a strategy of avoidance or denial. For their part, truthful witnesses are generally more communicative and tell things as they really happened (Hartwig, Granhag and Strömwall, 2007). Also, the accounts of innocent suspects will more closely match the known intelligence than the accounts of lying suspects (Granhag & Hartwig, 2008).
Recent research by Granhag and colleagues (2013) showed that revealing evidence in a gradual method, starting with indirect information (e.g., “Information reveals that you recently went to the train station.”), and then moving on to more direct and specific information ("We have a video recording that shows you were at the station that day...") would allow for more evidence of lie (and more serious) than presenting only direct and precise information. Confronted with circumstantial evidence, suspects are inclined to provide an alibi to adjust to this evidence ("Indeed, I went to the station to..."), but given their propensity to tackling and denying, their alibi will generally deviate from the facts revealed by direct evidence ("... buy me a ticket for the train the next morning"). Once confronted with direct evidence, the suspect therefore has no choice but to modify his provided alibi to adapt it to these new facts (in Vrij, 2014).
Train with good indicators
A recent study by Matsumoto, Hwang, Skinner and Frank (2014) with FBI agents showed that you can improve your performance by 10% with good training. Thus, the success rate varies between 60 and 65% (compared to the usual threshold of 50%) (Bond and DePaulo, 2008; Vrij and Mann, 2001). It seems that better results can be achieved if participants are able to ask the right questions at the right time – this is a dynamic process and not passive observation (Levine, Clare, Blair, McCornack, Morisson and Park 2014). In addition to formulating good questions, you must use reliable clues.
Although cognitive overloads seem to represent good observable clues of lying, especially when the body freezes, researchers have recently observed the opposite (Van Der Zee, Poppe, Taylor and Anderson, 2015). By using a "full-body motion capture" combination, they discovered that body movements could make it possible to detect lies with more precision (between 75 and 82% depending on the questioning strategies), regardless of the cultural differences. These results suggest that the body does not always freeze when a person is lying, but rather activates otherwise.
Why are people so bad at detecting lies?
The fact that most people focus more on nonverbal behavior than on speech to make a diagnosis could explain, at least in part, the poor results of the observers: the equivalent of the coin toss. Indeed, the problem is not with the error rate, but rather with the fact that those who have undergone training in lie "detection" are more confident in their diagnosis (see Ekman, 1992 and Vrij, 2008). They are therefore more vulnerable to the trap of tunnel vision (see St-Yves, 2014).
The lack of objectivity also explains, in large part, why the rates of false positives and false negatives are numerous. A large number of studies carried out on lie detection show that people's opinions are often erroneous and based on subjective, stereotypical and unscientific indicators (see Vrij, 2008).
Also, many subtleties sit between the true and the false and the lie is often hidden in a portion of the truth, which makes it more difficult to detect. Hartwig and Bond (2011) concluded that the observers' failure was that the differences between liars and truthful people were too small, making the task unfeasible. This is why training people to detect lies by teaching them the “symptomatic signals of lying” does little to achieve results (Frank and Feeley, 2003; Vrij, 2008).
Some liars also do countermeasures, they try to hide certain clues that could reveal their lie. This translates from facial expressions that look truthful (forced smiles, stares, etc.) to the use of sedatives to look or stay relaxed. We know that when we talk to psychopaths, habitual criminals or members of organized crime, they can tell a lot of lies, and we can detect only a few. Why? Because these people have to live a lie to survive; they survive if they master deception. And we have the modesty to admit that some liars are masters in the field.
Conclusion
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