Potentially counteracting these effects is that liars will tend to tell simpler stories because it is difficult to be untruthful. Simpler stories reduce the chance that fabricated details will conflict with each other. This tendency to tell simpler stories can counteract the tendency of lies to be linguistically more complex. Whether this effect dominates the direct and indirect effects just discussed is an empirical question.
Based on the above discussion, our central hypothesis is as follows (in alternative form):