Liar Liar Pants On Fire

Today we will be discussing the history of, as well as some current events, surrounding humans' attempts at detecting lies.

So although many stories, comic books, shows, and movies have told tales of telepathy, we can't read one another's minds.

We don't know whether people around us are telling the truth or lying.

So long before the polygraph machine was invented...

The so-called experts of the time have been attempting to find a way to figure out whether someone is telling the truth.

So in ancient China, they used the rice-chewing test.

A person was made to chew a mouthful of dry rice or rice powder and then spit it out.

They thought that fear and anxiety suppressed the nervous system, which reduced saliva production.

So if the rice came out dry, it meant the person was lying.

If it was wet, they were telling the truth.

In ancient India, they used the stabled ass test.

A sacred donkey was placed in a dark room, its tail coated in black soot.

Suspects were sent in one by one with instructions to pull the donkey's tail, and they were told the donkey would bray if pulled by a lyre.

The logic was that innocent people would pull the tail, causing the donkey to make noise, and guilty individuals fearing divine retribution or the donkey's magical detection would avoid touching the tail or turning with clean hands.

And then in medieval Europe, they used the trial by ordeal, which had a few different versions.

There was the trial by fire where the accused individuals held red hot iron or walked across hot coals.

Their hands were bandaged and after a few days, uninfected.

healing indicated innocence and if it was infected then they were guilty and then the trial by water where suspects were bound and tossed into a body of water the belief was that the pure water would reject the guilty causing them to float while the innocent would sink and you know the logic was that god would physically protect the innocent from harm Obviously, none of those were, you know, logic ways of detecting lies.

But in ancient Greece, they actually used observational clues.

So Greek physicians and orators, they were the scientists of the time.

They observed nonverbal behavioral cues and monitored involuntary physiological responses.

So they tracked breathing patterns, heart rate, sweating patterns.

and speech variations, these are actually what the modern polygraph machine attempts to detect.

Well, they monitor those in order to try to detect deception.