Links

In Vino Veritas … At Least Untill You Have To Pee

Who would have thought the lies we tell are more convincing when we need to pee.

I’m watching out for sentences like this in the news: ?

[…] complained they were subjected to ‘forced urination’ before they were interrogated by the TSA.

The actual paper.

Abstract: The Inhibitory-Spillover-Effect (ISE) on a deception task was investigated. The ISE occurs when performance in one self-control task facilitates performance in another (simultaneously conducted) self-control task. Deceiving requires increased access to inhibitory control. We hypothesized that inducing liars to control urination urgency (physical inhibition) would facilitate control during deceptive interviews (cognitive inhibition). Participants drank small (low-control) or large (high-control) amounts of water. Next, they lied or told the truth to an interviewer. Third-party observers assessed the presence of behavioral cues and made true/lie judgments. In the high-control, but not the low-control condition, liars displayed significantly fewer behavioral cues to deception, more behavioral cues signaling truth, and provided longer and more complex accounts than truth-tellers. Accuracy detecting liars in the high-control condition was significantly impaired; observers revealed bias toward perceiving liars as truth-tellers. The ISE can operate in complex behaviors. Acts of deception can be facilitated by covert manipulations of self-control.

Moral parents, moral babies

Ars again covers interesting research on the psychology toddlers. This time: toddlers with parents with lower tolerance to injustice show stronger differences in EEG-readings when watching prosocial vs. antisocial behavior.

It also has a discussion on how difficult it is to do a “psychological” assessment of toddlers’ behavior and derive concrete explanations or conclusions from them.

White Space As Unused Advertising Space

Nathan Froyd has a few points on why it’s stupid to think of all white space as unused advertising space.

[Look,] here is an “inefficient” use of space that could instead be used to “inform” the public of “opportunities.”

It’s interesting to see how one of the most wasteful industries of our society claims to make things more efficient by wasting people’s time and cluttering up everything.