I found the relationship of verbal blunders and law enforcement to be quite interesting. Erard states in chapter 3 how liars will begin to blunder in the beginning of their story but make fewer mistakes or blunders the more they tell it and the more confident they become. He discusses further the typical behaviors of liars “…toss their hands, twirl their pens, scratch their heads, talk more quickly.” (pg 70). But then says we can’t we use verbal blunders and behaviors such as these to determine deception because people who aren’t lying have also been known to sound and act like the liars in that study. Why then, are we told that hand gestures, hesitating, repeating words and slips sounds genuine and trustworthy? And that speaking naturally or “smooth” sounds insincere or dishonest? I would have thought that the more a person uses the words “uh” or “um”, or any other pause or blunder would indicate lying, especially in an interrogation room. Aren’t we taught to speak fluently with few pauses limiting the use of “um” or “uh” in order to present ourselves in a respectful and intelligent manner? For example interviews…but that is another issue I will leave open for others to discuss. Still, one final question I have is: Are liars more aware of verbal blunders by rehearsing a lie, like others may rehearse and prepare for an interview?
Comments (1)
After reading this chapter in Erard, I too was left with questions concerning verbal blunders and lie detecting. My first reaction would be the same as yours; if a person is stumbling over their words in an interrogation, then it would seem that he/she is trying to cover up something. However, Erard made a good point by citing studies that say people who are experiencing high emotions also make these verbal blunders. So, now this leaves us with a dilemma. Verbal blunders are not a sure fire way to determine if a person is in fact lying. This seems to rule out using verbal blunders. Well, what about gestures? Now, gestures are a lot more voluntary; therefore, they're probably controlled by an expert liar. With all of this issues, determining if someone is lying seems to be impossible. I guess that's something we'll have to leave up to individuals with natural talent.
Additionally, take verbal blunders outside of the interrogation room. Those who stumble are thought to be sincere, the exact opposite of those under questioning. This suggests that verbal stumbling and using umm... just increases as people are more emotionally involved in something- the proposal example that Erard used. Both instances are times of high emotions. This higher level of arousal probably draws away from the attention placed on verbal processes, resulting in the mistakes and slip ups. Therefore, these blunders are viewed as person being emotionally invested in what they're saying and consequently, genuine.
So why then are we taught to speak smoothly without interruptions? I suppose that has to do with the social aspect of language. We view intelligent people as having perfect, sophisticated speech and unintelligent people as having choppy, broken speech. With these established stereotypes, we don't want to fit into the unintelligent category by stumbling so then, we're instructed to speak smoothly. But back to why is stumbling considered honest and genuine? There seems to be a double standard. Well, I guess we separate the two into different types or maybe it depends on the situation. There seems to be no easy solution. I guess the only fact we can take away is that language is very important since we place so much emphasis on it.
Posted by Megan Petroccia | February 9, 2008 10:58 PM
Posted on February 9, 2008 22:58