Detecting Lies
Can People Accurately Detect Lies?
Yes: In the article for the motion, James Geary claims that even though the average person isn't very good at detecting lies people can be trained to become quite good at detecting lies. He provided evidence in the form of clinical case studies. In one of these case studies, Ekman interviewed a group of college students about their opinion regarding capital punishment. The interviews where recorded and some of the students were instructed to lie. These tapes were used by Ekman to improve and test ability to detect lies. From his tests he found that most people are lousy lie detectors but certain groups of people such as U.S. federal law enforcement officers and C.I.A. I believe the writers' main intent for the article is to convince the reader that people can be trained to detect lies with a decent degree of accuracy.
No: In the article against the motion, Bella M. De Paulo claims that the average person isn't very good at telling lies and that training in lie detection doesn't greatly increase one's ability to detect lies from other people. She also provided
her evidence in the form of clinical case studies. In one of these studies, the author and a colleague showed videos of people either lying or telling the truth. The results of the study showed that most people guessed truth even though there was an equal number of truths and lies in the recordings. I believe the writers' main intent for the article is to convince the reader that people can not be relied on to accurately detect the lies of most other people especially if they don't know the person.
Yes: In the article for the motion, James Geary claims that even though the average person isn't very good at detecting lies people can be trained to become quite good at detecting lies. He provided evidence in the form of clinical case studies. In one of these case studies, Ekman interviewed a group of college students about their opinion regarding capital punishment. The interviews where recorded and some of the students were instructed to lie. These tapes were used by Ekman to improve and test ability to detect lies. From his tests he found that most people are lousy lie detectors but certain groups of people such as U.S. federal law enforcement officers and C.I.A. I believe the writers' main intent for the article is to convince the reader that people can be trained to detect lies with a decent degree of accuracy.
No: In the article against the motion, Bella M. De Paulo claims that the average person isn't very good at telling lies and that training in lie detection doesn't greatly increase one's ability to detect lies from other people. She also provided
her evidence in the form of clinical case studies. In one of these studies, the author and a colleague showed videos of people either lying or telling the truth. The results of the study showed that most people guessed truth even though there was an equal number of truths and lies in the recordings. I believe the writers' main intent for the article is to convince the reader that people can not be relied on to accurately detect the lies of most other people especially if they don't know the person.