Truth is the most valuable thing we have, so I try to conserve it. ~ Mark Twain
Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Frequent liars get good at it. With practice (and judging by the study cited here, not that much), the delay involved in fabricating an untrue response shrinks dramatically so that, for the adept liar, the difference in reaction times between telling the truth and telling lies disappears.
Our brains are naturally better at telling the truth than lying, but repeated lying can overcome our tendency for veracity, making subsequent lying easier – and possibly undetectable.
Neuroimaging studies have shown that people’s brains show considerably more activity when they are lying than when they are not, particularly in the prefrontal cortex, suggesting that lying requires extra cognitive control and inhibition of truth-telling. Lying also takes measurably longer than telling the truth.
To test whether the brain’s so-called "dominant truth response" can be changed, Bruno Verschuere of Ghent University in Ghent, Belgium, and colleagues studied three groups of students…
Continue here: The more you lie, the easier it gets – health – 08 February 2011 – New Scientist.
