I am not a good liar. This fact was unequivocally determined through a practical exercise in my “Interviewing Strategies Through Statement Analysis” class. Instructor Special Agent Kevin Daley asked all of us if we thought we could be deceptive about an incident and fool the class. Seven of us volunteered to give it a shot and were escorted out of the room to await instructions.
We had to randomly pick cards to determine if we would be truthful or deceptive. I drew a red card which meant I had to fabricate an incident. I was called in first and sat in a single chair in front of the room and was asked this question (of which I had no prior knowledge):
“Tell us about your last vacation.”
Now, this might seem like a simple question if you are being truthful. You might have to think for a few moments if your last vacation wasn’t very recent but it certainly would not be challenging to draw up that memory. I tried to remain calm while I told the class that my family and I went camping for our last vacation. Those who know me will find that extremely comical as I’m more of a 5 star hotel vacationer. I recognize the irony in this and quite frankly, I have no idea why I blurted out “camping”. I was asked questions about my “vacation” and I did my best to explain the details. I tried to visualize what a camping experience might be like and I thought I did pretty good fabricating the event. I shouldn’t have pat myself on the back too soon because when it came time to analyze my performance, 6 people thought I was telling the truth and the remaining 17 decided I was being deceitful.
There are non-verbal movements that are universal while being deceptive. Most people cannot read these clues unless trained to do so, but they are nearly foolproof. A person’s language changes when they are lying as well. We watched videos of interviews with convicted killers and the same clues of deception were glaring in all of the video clips.
I had advanced interview and interrogation training while I worked as an Investigator but it never delved into statement analysis as deeply as it has here at the National Academy.
I plan on using this on my kids. And everyone else. And I’m still never going camping.
A snapshot of my genius instructor in action.
Physical Training is mandatory for all of us. We spend one hour in the classroom and the other hour working out with the PT instructor (kinda like a drill sergeant but nicer).
He informed us today that humans have different muscle fiber types. Type 1 are red muscle fibers and they are slow twitch. This means that people with this type are fatigue resistant because they have a high oxygen capacity. In short, they have more endurance.
Type 2 are white muscle fibers and are considered fast twitch. This type fatigues more easily but they can go for short bursts.
I have no evidence to support that I’m a Type 2 but that’s what I’m going with to explain why I’m such a slow runner.
Onward and upward.