As may microexpressions and other things of which we’re not often consciously aware. This doesn’t go to the level of a single photograph, but the (badly-named) truth wizards can “observe a videotape for a few seconds and amazingly they can describe eight details about the person on the tape.”
I followed this link, and found the blog of one of the “truth wizards” from the study. She writes about the Amanda Knox case. It seems to entirely focus on Amanda Knox.
This has been mentioned before; I’ll reiterate my reaction in more detail here.
First of all, there is very little “Truth Wizard” analysis of Amanda Knox on that blog (whatever one thinks about the strength of such evidence in the first place). There are several posts about the case, but in only one of them does the author actually attempt to apply her own “lie-detecting” skills to Knox. (In particular, the most recent post on the case just consists of the author’s commentary on someone else’s argument that Knox is a sociopath; contrary to orthonormal, there is no claim by the author that she herself has detected sociopathy.)
The one post where the author does analyze Knox concerns her statement at Guede’s trial, of which only audio (not video) is available. (Of Knox’s videotaped testimony at her own trial, the author says: ”...without hearing the questions asked of Knox, it is impossible to identify if she is lying.”—emphasis added.) Thus, there is no data about facial expression, which is apparently an important component of the author’s technique. Hence confidence in this analysis must be presumably be lowered from what it would be if the author were working from a video recording.
But in any case, the reasoning in that post is awful. To the extent the author is skilled in detecting lies, she is obviously not particularly skilled in explaining how she arrives at her conclusions. Here is an example:
Does this make any sense? She couldn’t remember because she was tired? It was the middle of the night? Does anyone believe this is a good reason for a lack of all memory? When Amanda is telling us this, a year has passed from the crime, so why doesn’t she elaborate more in this statement? Why isn’t she setting the record straight for the judge here and now?
The author seems to be expecting Amanda’s memory of an incident to improve over time. Now, I’m not an expert on memory, but this is directly contrary to my understanding of how it works. In fact, (to invoke my own memory here) I distinctly recall Eliezer mentioning once that memories are re-created each time we remember something. If this is true, it implies that memories—even if they become more vivid! -- would become less entangled with reality over time, not more; which is anyway what you would expect from....physics.
Here is another, well, “red flag”, concerning Knox’s account of being hit on the back of the head by a police officer:
So, what ended up happening was.… the fact that I had been pressured so much, and I was....(sigh), I was hit in the back of the head by one of the police officers...who said she was trying to make me...help me remember the truth.
She was pressured so much that she was hit on the back of the head? Does that make sense? Why does she change “make me” which is a strong statement to “help me”, which is much softer? I find this odd. If someone is hitting me on the back of the head, they aren’t “helping me” do anything. They are making me forcefully and brutally react. Why aren’t her emotional memories matching her story?
The author completely misses the obvious interpretation (in the absence of prejudice), which is that the phrase “make me” reflected Amanda’s emotional interpretation of the situation, but that she corrected it to “help me” in order to more accurately recount what the officer(s) actually said!
This kind of shoddy reasoning is, I regret to say, characteristic of the author’s (rather limited) discussion of the case. Whatever truth-detecting skills she may possess, I don’t think her posts have provided us with very much useful information at all.
Finally, I will point out that the author (who by the way links to True Justice but not to any pro-Knox site) claims not to have made an incorrect judgement in 5 years...and yet now lists this case among her “successes”! Obviously, that’s more than a bit problematic. (It should be noted that not only is the appeals process ongoing, but the conviction only intensified the controversy, if anything.)
Signaling may play a significant role in this.
As may microexpressions and other things of which we’re not often consciously aware. This doesn’t go to the level of a single photograph, but the (badly-named) truth wizards can “observe a videotape for a few seconds and amazingly they can describe eight details about the person on the tape.”
We communicate more than we think.
I followed this link, and found the blog of one of the “truth wizards” from the study. She writes about the Amanda Knox case. It seems to entirely focus on Amanda Knox.
This has been mentioned before; I’ll reiterate my reaction in more detail here.
First of all, there is very little “Truth Wizard” analysis of Amanda Knox on that blog (whatever one thinks about the strength of such evidence in the first place). There are several posts about the case, but in only one of them does the author actually attempt to apply her own “lie-detecting” skills to Knox. (In particular, the most recent post on the case just consists of the author’s commentary on someone else’s argument that Knox is a sociopath; contrary to orthonormal, there is no claim by the author that she herself has detected sociopathy.)
The one post where the author does analyze Knox concerns her statement at Guede’s trial, of which only audio (not video) is available. (Of Knox’s videotaped testimony at her own trial, the author says: ”...without hearing the questions asked of Knox, it is impossible to identify if she is lying.”—emphasis added.) Thus, there is no data about facial expression, which is apparently an important component of the author’s technique. Hence confidence in this analysis must be presumably be lowered from what it would be if the author were working from a video recording.
But in any case, the reasoning in that post is awful. To the extent the author is skilled in detecting lies, she is obviously not particularly skilled in explaining how she arrives at her conclusions. Here is an example:
The author seems to be expecting Amanda’s memory of an incident to improve over time. Now, I’m not an expert on memory, but this is directly contrary to my understanding of how it works. In fact, (to invoke my own memory here) I distinctly recall Eliezer mentioning once that memories are re-created each time we remember something. If this is true, it implies that memories—even if they become more vivid! -- would become less entangled with reality over time, not more; which is anyway what you would expect from....physics.
Here is another, well, “red flag”, concerning Knox’s account of being hit on the back of the head by a police officer:
The author completely misses the obvious interpretation (in the absence of prejudice), which is that the phrase “make me” reflected Amanda’s emotional interpretation of the situation, but that she corrected it to “help me” in order to more accurately recount what the officer(s) actually said!
This kind of shoddy reasoning is, I regret to say, characteristic of the author’s (rather limited) discussion of the case. Whatever truth-detecting skills she may possess, I don’t think her posts have provided us with very much useful information at all.
Finally, I will point out that the author (who by the way links to True Justice but not to any pro-Knox site) claims not to have made an incorrect judgement in 5 years...and yet now lists this case among her “successes”! Obviously, that’s more than a bit problematic. (It should be noted that not only is the appeals process ongoing, but the conviction only intensified the controversy, if anything.)
Link (1:44) for those interested in trying the video experiment on themselves in the present context.
For a much more extended sample, see here.