Detecting Deception – an interview with Tom Ormerod
As part of this year’s British Science Festival, University of Sussex psychologist Professor Tom Ormerod will show how new techniques for analysing behaviour and language are challenging prejudices and improving detection of threat, vulnerability, and deception.
‘In a world of fake news and perceived threat we need science to guide us’
What first sparked your interest in science?
I met someone in a laundrette who said “You should study Psychology, it’s a laugh”. So I did. He was right: It is.
What’s it like to have a ‘eureka’ moment?
If I have a eureka moment, it is usually very small: part of a theory that provides a neat fit to some data, or an idea for an experiment that feels tidy and simple. Neat and tidy, surprising, and small – that’s a Eureka moment for me. It has happened in the bath (I didn’t jump out shouting Eureka, since it seemed so trivial at the time), on the loo, in the pub; Almost anywhere except at my office desk. The sign that I have had one is involuntary giggling.
What will the audience learn at your event?
I study expertise, and at the event I will talk about expertise in detecting deception. The audience will learn what they cannot do: despite beliefs to the contrary, people (even professional lie detectors) are really bad at telling when others are lying. They will also learn what they can do: it is possible to manage a conversation to maximise the chances of detecting deception.
What’s important about your area of research?
In a world of fake news and perceived threat (some of it real, much of it exaggerated), we need science to guide us on how best to invest money, time and political/legal/social effort in pursuit of truth. My research aims, for example, to enhance public security, identify people vulnerable to modern slavery, reveal the best candidates in job interviews, and to help people describe their symptoms in medical consultations. In principle, it impacts upon any aspect of human life in which we must make judgements about the quality of information we receive from others.
Which scientific discovery or invention has made the greatest difference to your life?
Beer. I am currently in the middle of a year off alcohol, and while my ability to finish projects has got better, I am having fewer “good ideas”.
Which scientific mystery would you most like solved?
The holy grail of psychology research for me is this: If I have perfect knowledge about everything in your head (all your skills and experiences), everything in your environment, and every desire or goal you have, how can I reliably predict what you are going to think of next? Working on it….
Which scientists (alive, dead or fictional) would you invite to a summer picnic?
I would invite my great-grandfather Richard Caton (who was the first person to discover electrical activity in the brain despite it being credited to Berger, who did at least acknowledge his predecessor), and I would ask him why he gave up working in that area before he properly published his work?
Professor Tom Ormerod is appearing at the British Science Festival in Detecting Deception.