Why couldn't Alexandria & Defiant "get a read on" Skitter?

Question

In Cell 22.6 of Worm, Defiant says to Skitter:

“But the mistake, the tragedy in all of this, was that she didn’t get an accurate read on you. Much, I expect, for the same reason my lie detector could never seem to. She was working with bad information, and she...”

1) What situation is he referring to when he says his lie detector couldn't read Skitter? The only times I recall him using his lie detector on her are

1) when they met on her first night out
2) when she talked to him shortly before the bank robbery
(both back when he was still Armsmaster)

And after re-reading I don't see any indication in either of those sections that his lie detector was having trouble.

2) Why wouldn't they be able to read her? What bad information is he referring to?

Answer 1

According to Wildbow, Skitter foils thinkers reading her due to the way her mind works, including offloading emotions into her swarm, and her vast multitasking ability.

Answer 2

I do not have solid textual evidence for it, but:

1. While those might be the only times that he's explicitly noted using the lie detector, there were other times that she spoke with him and still managed to put one over on him, such as the fundraising dinner.

2. As for why they might have trouble reading it, I think it has to do with her shard. To quote the wiki, "She has a secondary ability which gives her increased mental multitasking - allowing her to give specific orders to individual bugs in her swarm simultaneously." Both Defiant and Alexandria were interpreting Taylor as a human girl, with predictable thought patterns that they could pick up on. In actuality, though, she is a hivemind, and those surface thoughts that they were picking up were just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. They acted on what they believed was her main train of thought, while she was still plotting below the surface.