There was no way to know when I started out to study deceit just what I would find. Claims were contradictory. Freud claimed: “He that has eyes to see and ears to hear may convince himself that no mortal can keep a secret.
If his lips are silent, he chatters with his fingertips; betrayal oozes out of him at every pore”. Yet I knew of many instances of quite successful lying, and my first studies found people did no better than chance in detecting deceit.
Psychiatrists and psychologists were no better than anyone else. I am pleased with the answer that I have found: We are neither perfect nor imperfect as liars, detecting deceit is neither as easy as Freud claimed nor impossible.
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