This paradigm shifting how-to guide effortlessly teaches you how to outwit liars and get them to reveal the truth—from former FBI agent and author of the “practical and insightful” (William Ury, coauthor of Getting to Yes) bestseller The Like Switch. Unlike many other books on lie detection and behavioral analysis, this revolutionary guide reveals the FBI-developed practice of elicitation, the field-tested technique for encouraging people to provide information they would otherwise keep secret. Now you can learn this astonishing method directly from the expert who created this technique and pioneered it for the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Program. Filled with easy-to-follow, accessible lessons reinforced by fascinating stories of how to put these skills into action using natural human behaviors, The Truth Detector shows you all of the tips and techniques you need to gain someone’s trust and get liars to reveal the truth.

As a Special Agent for the FBI's National Security Division's Behavioral Analysis Program, Schafer developed dynamic and breakthrough strategies for profiling terrorists and detecting deception. Now, he has evolved his proven-on-the-battlefield tactics for the day-to-day, but no less critical battle of getting people to like you. Learn to improve your LQ (Likeability Quotient), "spot the lie" both in person and online, master nonverbal cues that influence how people perceive you, and turn up or turn down the intensity of a relationship.

For centuries, all manner of truth-seekers have used the lie detector. In this eye-opening book, Geoffrey C Bunn unpacks the history of this device and explores the interesting and often surprising connection between technology and popular culture.

Prepare to have your conception of truth rocked to its very foundation. It is the year 2004. Violent crime is the number one political issue in America. Now, the Swift and Sure Anti-Crime Bill guarantees a previously convicted violent criminal one fair trial, one quick appeal, then immediate execution. To prevent abuse of the law, a machine must be built that detects lies with 100 percent accuracy. Once perfected, the Truth Machine will change the face of the world. Yet the race to finish the Truth Machine forces one man to commit a shocking act of treachery, burdening him with a dark secret that collides with everything he believes in. Now he must conceal the truth from his own creation . . . or face his execution. By turns optimistic and chilling--and always profound--The Truth Machine is nothing less than a history of the future, a spellbinding chronicle that resonates with insight, wisdom . . . and astounding possibility. "PROFOUND." --Associated Press

In this fascinating history of the lie detector, Ken Alder exposes some persistent truths about our culture: why we long to know the secret thoughts of our fellow citizens; why we believe in popular science; and why we embrace ?truthiness.? For centuries people searched in vain for a way to unmask liars, seeking clues in the body?s outward signs: in blushing cheeks and shifty eyes. Not until the 1920s did a cop with a PhD team up with an entrepreneurial high school student and claim to have invented a foolproof machine capable of peering directly into the human heart. Scientists repudiated the technique, and judges banned its results from criminal trials, but in a few years their polygraph had transformed police work, seized headlines, and enthralled the nation.ø In this book, Alder explains why America?and only America?has embraced this mechanical method of reading the human soul. Over the course of the twentieth century, the lie detector became integral to our justice system, employment markets, and national security apparatus, transforming each into a game of bluff and bluster. The lie detector device may not reliably read the human mind, but this lively account shows that the instrument?s history offers a unique window into the American soul.

Three former CIA officers--the world's foremost authorities on recognizing deceptive behavior--share their techniques for spotting a lie with thrilling anecdotes from the authors' careers in counterintelligence.