Become a better liar

In the study, which will soon be in the journal Consciousness and

Cognition, psychologists found that people lie more convincingly when they need to pee. The connection between suppressing truth and urination comes down to self-control and, actually, makes a lot of sense.

Here’s why: From passing up nachos to blocking out a scarring experience, a wide array of emotional, cognitive, memory-related and motor challenges force us to practice inhibition. And, while these assorted processes have distinct neural bases, they all involve overlapping brain networks. Previous studies have demonstrated that inhibitory processes individually strain cognition. But, there’s evidence that simultaneously performing two otherwise unrelated inhibitory tasks, according to a theory called Inhibitory Spillover Effect (ISE), makes it easier to do both of them.

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