Words are very easy to “fake,” so one thing I learned is never to listen to what a person says because it’s almost always BS, depending on the situation and person. Besides, verbal communication only represents roughly 35% or so of total communication, which is why we can get into some trouble blasting off that email which the other person interprets differently than what we initially meant.

Now you might here some neat NLP tricks out there like what direction the eyes move and such….there might be some science behind it, but forget about using it in the field because it’s just not practical enough. Instead, focus on two pattern indicators: 1) a change in voice inflection, most importantly hesitation or delay in answering and 2) eye movement.

A person has full control of their words, but they are not consciously in control of their ability to keep the tone of those words consistent. If a person uses too many “ummms, aaahs, what did you say?, or just silence,” it’s because they have to access the creative (BS) portion of their brain to come up with a plausible answer that might pull one over on you. Also, look at their eyes. Forget about what direction their eyes move and just notice if they are looking in your eyes, or if they look away. Eyes are truly the windows to the soul and an inexperienced liar will feel that you can see right through them if you are looking them in the eyes, which is why they answer without looking at you. On the other hand, experienced liars realize this and they might give you too much eye contact to compensate for this fact. The street thugs I arrested on a constant basis were very good at masking their eye language.

I could go on and on, but an important thing to remember when trying to be a human lie detector is never rely on one tip or trick that you hear from these books as your sole test for lie detection. Instead, focus your attention on patterns of behavior that indicate lying because this will be far more accurate for you. Example: not just noticing that they are not looking at you, but that they stall for more time in answering you, they are looking away, and they touch their mouth or rub their eye (another strong indicator of lying).

I’ve got a whole category on my website dedicated to body language and vocalics for those who want to research pattern behaviors in non-verbal communication.

Tristan
Synergy Institute

You’ve certainly got a point about lie detection being far from an exact science. I still think that there is a lot you can pick up from those social cues though. It might not make you positive about a lie, but can help you know when you should investigate more.

Yes. Lie detection is a well-studied thing. Start by examining the polygraph literature if you want actual research, rather than the wive’s tales that are repeated in the article.

There is a reason why polygraphs are not admissible in a court of law, because they also have a high false negative/positive rate. The only promising detection method I’ve see involves MRI/PET to see which part of the brain is active when answering. And I’d be willing to bet that those will have issues as well.

Another way is to recognize repeated patterns in behavior when someone is lying. In poker it’s called “a tell.” Whether it’s with a verbal change or physical indication, you use the tell to determine their believability.