Intelligent people in general have a better understanding of their knowledge, the limits of it, and uncertainty in that knowledge. If you ask them something and they don't have an answer that they know is objectively true, they'll often respond by telling you they don't know, or they "think" something is "probably" true.

On the other hand, people that aren't intelligent have very little self-awareness in that way and will just tell you whatever they "believe" is true, even though that belief could have extremely little connection to objective reality. They believe it because "other people believe it", or because that's just what they heard, etc.

I'm sure if you combined the study's findings with an assessment of the intelligence of those same people, you'd find an extreme correlation between intelligence and the conceptual map they fall under.

Man, that first scenario is so bizarre. If Peter is with Maria, and they both aren't at the party, then why would Peter ask Maria if Tom is at the party? Is Peter thinking that Maria is checking on the Ring cameras? Texting someone currently at the party?

I am careful with the world “lie” to denote “you knew the statement was false but you said it anyway” as opposed to “you said something false because your beliefs were false”