Have you ever told a lie? If you answered no, then you're at it again.
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Child psychologists suggest children develop the capacity to deceive at the age of four, but some may be particularly advanced.
We all lie, from so-called white lies such as ''your hair cut's great'' to ''preparing this five-course meal was no trouble at all".
These lies are so we can avoid hurting someone else, or to make us look good.
Other lies are for personal gain or the avoidance of suffering.
When we lie, we might deliberately leave out information, present false information as the truth, or tell the truth with humour to infer there's no way it's the truth.
Research suggests that we both underestimate the frequency with which we lie and overestimate our ability to detect liars.
Most of us think we're pretty good at weeding out a lie, but research suggests we're all no better at this than chance.
Women are better than men at detecting lies from strangers, but otherwise there are no differences between men's and women's abilities.
Those best at detecting lies are intelligence agents because they have had training. They look for body language that's inconsistent with the story being told.
They check facial expressions and micro-emotions, and listen for pauses, stammers and changes in voice pitch.
But the truth is, we still don't have a test as obvious as Pinocchio's that can reveal when people are telling lies.
