Lying is a daily part of life， but how can you identify the liars around you？ A psychology professor outlines the top tips.

谎言是日常生活的一部分，但怎样才能识别出身边的说谎者呢？一位心理学教授概述了最重要的技巧。

Whether it’s an innocent white lie， or a deep dark secret years in the making， lying is very much woven into the fabric of society.

无论是无辜的善意谎言，还是酝酿多年的幽暗秘密，谎言在社会中无孔不入。

But， when you’re not dealing with an obvious deception， filled with plot holes and bizarre twists， how can you tell someone is lying？ The answer lies in psychology.

但是，当你面对的并非充满情节漏洞和离奇曲折的明显欺骗时，你怎么能确定一个人在说谎呢？答案在于心理学。

We spoke to Richard Wiseman， a professor of the public understanding of psychology at the University of Hertfordshire， for an episode of the podcast Instant Genius1. He gave us insights into how to better understand a liar.

在播客《即时天才》的一集中，我们采访了赫特福德大学教授理查德·怀斯曼，他的研究领域是公众对心理学的理解。他给我们提供了关于如何更好地理解说谎者的洞见。

Are there any tells that can help us identify when someone is telling us a lie？

有什么线索可以帮我们识别出一个人在说谎？

I did an experiment with the BBC where we would interview politicians on the radio. Some would lie and some would tell the truth with audiences phoning in to say who’s lying. Unsurprisingly， no politicians wanted to do it.

我在BBC广播节目里做过一个实验，打算由电台采访政界人士。一些政界人士会说谎，另一些则会说真话，而听众会打电话来辨别谁在说谎。不出所料，没有政界人士愿意参与。

We got in contact with a big political interviewer of the time and he agreed to do it instead.

我们联系了当时做政治访谈的一位名人，他同意来做这一试验。

I interviewed him twice， each time about his favourite film. Once he lied to me， once he told the truth. We put them out live on TV. We ended up with about 30，000 calls and what we saw was that the public did the same on television as they do in the lab experiments， which is they were roughly 50/50. In other words， as a group， they couldn’t tell when he was lying.

我采访了他两次，每次都是关于他最喜欢的电影。其中一次他说的是谎话，另一次说的是真话。这两次访谈在电视上进行现场直播。我们最终接到了约3万个电话。我们看到，公众在电视上与在实验室里的表现一样——猜对和猜错的人基本上各占一半。换句话说，总体上无法识别出他什么时候在说谎。

We also ran the transcript in a newspaper and put the audio on the radio. When we stripped away the visual cues， you suddenly saw this big increase in people’s lie detecting ability.

我们也在报纸上刊印了文字记录，并以广播形式播放了节目内容。剥除视觉线索后，你会突然发现，人们的测谎能力大幅提高。

The visual cues are highly controllable. How we gesture， smile and look， that’s under our control. When you get to the words we say and how we say them， it’s not really something we think about very much. And that’s where the good cues sit.

视觉线索是高度可控的。