According to a new study, children who are ‘good liars’ also have better working memories, especially verbal memories, compared to ‘bad liars’.

The study has been published in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. According to researchers, reason behind this could be that some skillful verbal maneuvering is required to keep one’s lies straight. This indicates that lying may represent a capable brain in children.

The research team conducted the study on 6- and 7-year-old kids by taking a trivia quiz, which included three questions, printed on index cards. The researchers were reading the question, and after the child answered they turned the card over to tell them the answer written on the back. In the third question that was completely fictional, name of kid in Spaceboy, a fake cartoon, was asked.

After that the researcher left the room after either telling or not telling the child not to see the answer. According to study author Tracy Alloway, “It takes mental effort to keep in mind what you know you did, what you think the researcher knows, and plan a way so you don’t get caught”.

She said good liars and bad liars behaved differently when they were tested. According to her, “When we watched the videos, we could see clear differences in their responses based on their working memory skills”.

She said those who had poor working memory would keep on working to remember when answering, whereas those having good working memory would even gave explanations regarding their answers about the cartoon Spaceboy.