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64 Deception at Work

THE BENEFITS OF RECOVERING MISPLACED MEMORY

A great deal of information which appears to have been genuinely forgotten can still be
retrieved, providing the right stimulus is provided and handles pulled. In Chapter 10, page
[xref], cognitive and other methods of helping witnesses dig deep into their memories are ex-
plained. Most are based on presenting the subject with as many handles as possible to help him
retrieve memory chunks. Similarly, by asking the right questions, we can cause a suspect to
bring disagreeable information to a conscious level, which obliges him to either tell the truth
or repress it, significantly increasing his anxiety. Either way, he is faced with a problem.

The memory is the second monkey on the liar’s back.
Liars have more memory failures than truthful people

PRACTICAL DIFFERENCES

The truth comes from memory and is consistent with the person’s unconscious deep knowl-
edge. When a person lies, he has to overrule his subconscious, wipe the truth from his memory
and draw the detail from his imagination.

Truth comes from the subconscious and memory.
Memory is recalled in the past tense

The difference between memory and imagination is true whether the lie is a falsification or
a concealment and whether the response is rehearsed or not. In concealments the liar has to
select from memory only those portions of the truth he wishes to reveal, and has to imagine
that the remaining negative detail does not exist. In falsifications he has to invent something
that did not happen. Lying successfully is very difficult, since the liar has to try to juggle a
number of connected elements (see Table 3.5).

Making sure that all of these elements are consistent, especially with the liar’s normal or
baseline behaviour and communications codes when not lying, is virtually impossible.

If there is one single indicator of deception, it is the incongruence of a person’s responses when
compared to his normal baseline behaviour

The difference between memory and imagination has a computer equivalent. The first is
similar to a computer chip that can be accessed rapidly at any point. Memory has separate
brain areas for storing visual, auditory and sensory information. Data drawn from memory
can be repeated consistently and confidently, and the visual, auditory and sensory responses
are congruent.

Imagination is like a tape that starts as a blank and records lies as they are told. The tape has
to be replayed carefully to check earlier answers each time a new question is asked. Moreover,
the tape may have no track – or a corrupted track – for visual and sensory information, and
thus responses are likely to be incongruent.