Ability to Lie Diminishes with Age

The skills of lying or recognising deception in others may diminish with age according to a recent study conducted by the University of Otago's psychology department.

In the study, comparisons were drawn by researchers Janice Murray, Ted Ruffman and Jamin Halberstadt on older and younger people's ability to recognise deception in others' voices.

The lie detection test showed that listeners of all ages could more easily discern deception and recognise truth in older adults than younger people.

The participants were shown video clips of 20 people including 10 aged under 30 and 10 aged over 60 who were expressing both true and false opinions on topical issues. Each speaker was shown twice; once lying and once telling the truth.

There were two groups of listeners with average ages of 21 and 71 and each one was asked to judge whether each respective person was lying or telling the truth. The listeners also took tests to assess their ability to discern facial emotional expression and age.

The ability to lie involves skills such as memory, social understanding and planning ability. There have been similar findings on the ability of older people to detect social gaffes and some older men's tendency to wander off topic.

Professor Halberstadt said it would be interesting to follow up on older people's susceptibilty to being conned as well as their general social well-being.

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