Statement Analysis is the process of examining a person's words to determine exactly what the
person is saying. This includes determining if the person is being truthful
or deceptive, discovering additional information within the statement, and
seeing if the person is withholding any information.
Statement Analysis is based on three things:
1. Definitions
2. Grammar
3. Research
Definitions
The majority of the Statement Analysis techniques are based on word definitions.
Every word has a meaning. When you combine this with the fact that people mean exactly what they are saying,
it then becomes possible to determine what a person is telling you and if the person is being truthful.
Look at the following statement which was given during a job interview. Is this person being truthful
or deceptive?
"You know, I am trying to be as honest as possible."
In this one sentence, there are three things which tell us what this person is saying. Can you find them?
The subject starts off saying "you know." The subject expects us to take for granted that he is being honest.
The problem is he has not told us he is being honest. He did not state "I am being honest."
He states "you know" but we do not know. We cannot believe he is being honest unless he tells us he is honest.
The subject goes on to say, "I am trying to be as honest as possible."
The word "trying" means attempted, failed, didn't do it. The subject is clearly
telling us he is not being honest. He is only attempting to be honest.
He ends his statement by saying "I am trying to be as honest as possible."
The words "as possible"
mean the subject has a limitation to his honesty. He can be honest up to a certain point.
Apparently at this point in the interview he reached his limitation.
When you first glance at this statement, it appears the subject is sincere and being forthright.
However, upon close examination of the words he uses we see that he is being deceptive and that he is not very
good at it. Even though he wants us to believe he is being
truthful, his language clearly tells us he is not being honest.
Grammar
A portion of the Statement Analysis techniques are based on the rules of grammar.
For example, if a person is describing an incident he is required to use past tense language.
It does not matter if it occurred 10 minutes ago or 10 years ago, the person must describe the
incident speaking in the past tense. Deceptive people who are making up a story will sometimes
use present tense or future tense language. For example:
"I was sitting in my car when a man walked up to my window. He points a gun at me and tells me
to move over."
The subject starts out using past tense language, "I was sitting" "a man walked up." However, the subject
then switches to present tense language; "He points a gun at me and tells me to move over."
If this was a truthful story, the subject would have said, "He pointed a gun at me and told me to move over."
Another grammar technique has to do with articles. The articles "a" and "an" are used to identify someone or
something that has not been previously recognized. The article "the" is used to identify someone or
something that has already been recognized. Consider the following statement from an alleged kidnapping:
"A man pointed a gun at me and told me to get in the car."
"A man pointed a gun at me." This is a proper introduction of the man and the gun since the subject
allegedly does not know who this person is and has never seen this gun before. However, we have a problem with
the last part of the statement "and told me to get in the car." "The car" at the very least means the subject recognizes the car. It could also mean the subject is making up the story which was the case in this situation. If this was a truthful story,
the subject would have said, "and told me to get in a car."
Research
Another portion of the Statement Analysis techniques is based on research that myself and other experts in the
field of linguistics have conducted. For example, deceptive people will try to convince you they are telling you the truth.
Studies have shown that they will sometimes do this by using phrases such as "I swear to God" "I swear on my mother's grave" "Honest to God" "Honestly" as well as several other phrases.
Several years ago Al Davis, the owner of the Los Angeles Raiders, was asked if he was going to move his football team back to Oakland, CA. He responded, "I don't know what's going on, so help me God." The very next day he signed the paperwork for the team to move back to Oakland! Al Davis knew what was going on and we know he knew what was going on because of the phrase "so help me God."
Studies have also shown that the number three is a liars number. When deceptive people have to come up with a number, they will often choose the number three. "There were three men that attacked me." The one exception is when dealing with alcohol. We all know what that number is. "Officer I only had two drinks!"
In a shooting, if three shots were fired, then a truthful witness will tell us he heard "three" shots.
Just because someone uses the number "three" or says "I swear to God" does not automatically mean he is lying. It is
only an indication of deception and is just one more thing within the statement to take a closer look at.
These a just a few examples of the language and sentence structure that you should look for when analyzing a statement.
Take a look at some of the other examples of the Statement Analysis techniques found on the home page.
