Master of Deception

The two mediums I used were face to face and instant messaging. I had to lie to my friend via the leaner media which allowed for some planning to be done before the story was told. In face to face, I told my friend about my trip to Disney World and via instant messaging, I talked about an experience to Hong Kong. Since I had to lie about a travel experience, I chose a rather far away country that I knew a little about but knew the other person had never been before. I told the two stories to the same friend and was probed each time. At the end, I asked my friend if he could tell whether I was lying or not in my stories. He said that both stories seem valid and that he couldn’t really think of anything that would say otherwise.

When I told the story face to face, it was easy since it really did happen. I pulled specific memories out and was able to explain it in fairly precise detail. I talked with a happy face, looking up at the ceiling occasionally to recall descriptions; think about certain place I’ve been to while I was down in Disney World. I was not sure if he had been to Disney World before, so in the beginning of the conversation, I asked him of his travels. That was also where I found out he had never been to Hong Kong before and let me begin creating an outline for the lie I was about to tell in the future.

Since I had some information about Hong Kong from my own experience, it was not hard for me to come up with a story that was entirely fabricated. I talked about my family there, the little that I could remember, and some of the places I went to. I left out a lot of the details but would focus on one or two occurrences that “happened” where I explained probably more than I needed to. I think the part that really helped was pretending to recall the smells that I did “remember” in one of those occurrences which I thought was effective.

I think the truth bias played a big factor in my story telling. I have known this friend for a couple of years now and he didn’t have much of a reason not to believe me. We communication every day via both instant messaging and face to face interactions so the mediums I used for the assignment were the norm. Even via instant messaging he did not think I was lying because I know him in person and therefore shouldn’t need to lie about a travel experience.

My experience did not correlate directly with any of the theories we have learned thusfar. While I did choose the richer media of the lean mediums, this was more out due to the norm of our conversations. However, I did lie about the feelings I had on the trip to Hong Kong because I knew that if I convey certain emotions of the trip, it would not be questioned as often because it was understandable to the other person. What I really tried to not do was over embellish the tales because I didn’t know too many details about it since it was fabricated and there would be less chance of me telling a story that may not be in sync all the way through. There was a little more planning involved and I had to be more conscious of what I was saying and making sure the story jived all the way through. Response time was normally a little delayed because he thought I was working on homework so it allowed for me to think of descriptions for the experience and word it in a manner that would not be suspicious.