Repetition or requests for you to repeat yourself are not just signs that a person is hard of hearing; it may indicate they’ve lied to you. Liars will either repeat a question asked of them or request that it be repeated, as if they didn’t hear it, in order to buy time for themselves. Again, lying results in cognitive overload and requires a great deal of thinking on one’s feet, so people will use these verbal extenders to give themselves ample time to “perfect” their story or do what they can to move the conversation further away from the lie. Similarly, the person may also rephrase the question when providing their answer to mask the fact that they’ve run out of things to say to hide their deception.
The use of repetition is a common method used ultimately to prevent probing and shift the conversation to another topic, so be wary of those who employ this technique.