Crash Course in Lie Detection

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I just got control of my old account again! No more sXeZombie!





Ok, so this is how to detect lies, Lie to Me* style. There is evidence that it works but it is not scientific fact. It'll help you detect lies, but never 100%. I will be using the example of a missing child investigation.

This is also all I've read an learned, so if anything's wrong it's not my fault, but I don't THINK there is. Hey, I'm Autistic, body language and expressions aren't my strong point.

Things to look out for:

VERBAL
Deflections: This is when someone doesn't answer the question you've given them in a straightforward way.
Detective: Is there any reason you'd want your daughter to be missing?
Mother: Who would want their child to be missing?
The mother is using deflections to avoid lying, this means that she is hiding something.

Repeating: When the person who you think is lying repeats, almost word for word, what you've said to help them lie.
Detective: Is there any reason you'd want your daughter to be missing?
Mother: No, there is no reason I'd want my daughter to be missing.
This is repeating, so it could be a lie.

Lack of contractions: A contraction is when a word or phrase is shortened, so like "I'd" instead of "I would." or "You'll" instead of "You will."
Detective: Did you take their daughter?
Suspect: No. I did not take their daughter. I would not have done that.
A truthful person would've more likely have said "No, I didn't take their daughter, I wouldn't have done that."


BODY LANGUAGE

Microexpressions: Microexpressions are a small flash of the real emotion behind a lie. This may be hard for us because we have problems reading facial expressions as it is, not these almost invisible flashes. They'll more than likely be the seven universal emotions.
Happy: REAL happyness involves the eyes and cheeks in the smile. The top of the cheeks will press on to where the eyes are and the eyebrows and forehead will go up. A fake smile only involves the mouth. In a microexpression, keep an eye on the corners of the mouth, cheeks and eyes.

Sad: Sadness, like happiness, involves the eyes. The head goes down, the shoulders may scrunch up if the person is crying. In a microexpression, the eyes will help you. The eyebrows will descend in to a slant or a straight line across the eye.

Anger: Anger is quite an easy expression to read, if you know what you're looking for. The chin and eyes are what to look out for in a lier. The chin may be tilted up or far down, eyebrows low down, the cheeks scrunched in to the eyes. The person may be red or sweaty as well in real anger. Suprise: This is a quick emotion anyway. Suprise generally lasts for no less than a second. The eyebrows go far up, the eyes are wide and the head may make a sudden movement. If there is a lag between what happens and the emotion, if it lasts for more than a second or if the eyes are not involved they might be faking it.

Guilt: Guilt involves the hands. A hand may come up and touch the temple and the forhead, casting a shadow of the eyes and face. The person will be looking down, the head tilted down. In a microexpression keep an eye on the hands. If they go near the eyes like described the person is actually guilty, but not always of what you suspect.

Disgust: The eyes look similar the anger, but it's the lips to watch. one side of the lips may raise up, showing some teeth on one side. It looks a bit like a one-sided fake smile. In a microexpression, keep your eyes on the corner of the mouth.

Contempt: Researched believe that the facial expression is VERY similar to Disgust.

Another thing to watch is manipulators. These are, in it's simplest form, stimming. Hands may clench, they may swallow more often, rubbing the back of the neck, scratching their nose, little things that happen when they are lying are manipulators. To find these out always try and get a visual baseline for the lier, when they're telling the truth and when they're lying. If this sort of thing doesn't happen when they're telling the truth but it does when they lie, remember them and it'll be much easier. For example, when I lie my mouth tightens in to one side of my face without me noticing. One thing that may come in handy is the shoulders. These are great for when people pretend they know more than they do. If someone is talking about something with no confidence at all, they may give a tiny, TINY shrug of one shoulder during or just after they're said it. They won't notice it, but you will.

Ok, that was a VERY basic tutorial in lie detection. C me etc. etc. etc. Based on the works of Doctor Paul Ekman.

i do all these things randomly all the time wether im lying or not.

Yeah, this is generally intended for use with NT's, not Autistic people, as we don't follow the same rules.

That's a pretty good list. A few things to mention...

On the verbal side: You can also listen for paralinguistics, or tone of voice. You'd listen for changes. Someone who speaks at normal conversational level may suddenly drop or raise their volume when being deceptive. They may also mumble when previously they were clearly understood.

On the nonverbal side: Happiness also involves a narrowing of the eyes, but with the eyelids relaxed; there should be no tension visible in them. Anger also involves a narrowing of the eyes, but it's more of a squinting quality because of tension in the eyelids. Disgust is actually best seen by watching the nose; it's the only expression that involves wrinkling the nose, as if the subject just smelled something bad. Surprise and terror are similar in expression, but in surprise the lips will part naturally, or slightly more than normal, while terror involves the corners of the lips being drawn back; they both involve the eyes becoming larger.

You can also look for defensive gestures. These imply the subject is trying to "protect" him/herself. This could involve crossing the arms, legs, or ankles. There are also escape gestures, which imply the subject wants to "escape" the situation. This could involve the subject suddenly leaning back, angling his/her body away from you, or turning their feet toward the nearest door.

The key thing is to have that baseline established when talking to the subject about nonthreatening topics. You also don't really want to rely on any one gesture or cue to base an analysis on. You want to look for clusters of gestures; in deception you'll usually find a cluster of deceptive gestures.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the reason these are "deception indicators" is because they indicate the subject is experiencing stress at that moment. It may be that they are being deceptive, or it may be that the topic just brought up is very stressful to the subject. It's also important to note that these gestures may suggest or indicate the subject is being deceptive, but they can't tell you why.

It's also important to remember the context of the gestures/verbal cues being observed. These techniques can be very accurate, but they're presuming the subject has more-or-less normal neurology, i.e., they don't have any conditions that could affect the way they display their emotional state. For example, someone with autism. Someone under 9 years of age may not be able to be read accurately, either, because of their psychological development. Similarly, drugs and alcohol can impact the reliability of these techniques.

I posted a couple of video clips I found in the "Non-Verbal Dictionary" thread in this forum that demonstrate some of this.

I hope I don't kill this thread like just about every other thread on body language I've posted on.

No, you haven't killed it. My post was intended as the basics, but your post is extremely helpful as well! I wrote all my post from memory, otherwise I'd have covered defensive body language etc.

Paralinguistics aren't as helpful in lie detection as say microexpressions because it can happen naturally, tone fluctuates in normal convosation, whether or not the subject is lying or not.

This whole thread should be taken with the same level of seriousness as a polygraph, which never 100% detects LIES, just the phenomenon surrounding lying (I.E increase in sweating, heartbeat speeding up when compared to the baseline control question results etc.)

i just watched the first episode i like it a lot. and tim roth is really cool he should get more good roles.

ppl must think im lying all the time because im always giving off these cues like the ones in the show. they explain ppl do it because of anxiety/stress not always becuase they are lying. so i wasnt really showing these cues random.

elderwanda,

You bring up a good point. Something that I don't think was mentioned is that these tools are not really meant to be used in isolation. You're not going to rely on just verbal deflections or just nonverbal cues. What the investigator is going to do is find inconsistencies between verbal and nonverbal cues. For example, a detective asks a mother, "Is there any reason you'd want your daughter to be missing?"* If the mother responds, "Who would want their child to be missing?" in an angry, indignant tone, expressing anger with her face, and leaning forward in an aggressive manner, then that would indicate a "typical" response by a mother who is genuinely concerned about her missing child, doesn't know where she is, and is frustrated by the line of questioning. However, if the mother said the same thing, while leaning back (escape gesture), casting her eyes down (guilt/shame gesture), and speaking much softer, it may indicate she knows something about why her daughter went missing. Or, if the mother responds and presents the microexpression for happiness, that could suggest the mother is glad the daughter is missing, and may know something pertinent.

It's all about the context and the big picture of what's going on. Another thing is that a good investigator will not act on these observations by themselves. They will corrobate it as much as possible with the available evidence; again, big picture and context.



*[FYI, this question would not likely be asked unless there was some evidence to at least suggest the mother was involved]

wow, this is so good. thanks so much for posting!

And occasionally, I've been falsely accused of lying (even though I wasnt) because i didn't follow the conventional body languages when speaking..

I do most of these things telling the truth under the best of circumstances...

It's vital that police are aware of how much we differ in these ways. I sometimes think that if I ever were to be questioned over something, then they'd be likely to think I lie since my body language differs and I never keep eye contact.

I have no idea what I do when I'm lying. I wonder if I stiffen even more. Not sure.