How to tell if someone is lying to you by their facial and eye expressions. Obvious signs that a person is lying
Telling the truth is easy and pleasant. Lying is difficult. And figuring out a lie is even more difficult.
Well, nothing. People over there somehow manage to understand the Chinese language, fundamental physics... Are we really not going to learn to spot deception?
Behavior of someone who wants to mislead the interlocutor
If you yourself try to search for literature on the topic, you will probably come across references to the research of Professor Paul Ekman. This is one of the most famous Western experts in recognizing human emotional states.
In the book “The Psychology of Lies. Fool me if you can" (Peter, 2016) Paul Ekman names the main difficulty in detecting lies:
There is too much information to consider at once. There are too many sources of it - words, pauses, the sound of the voice, facial expression, head movements, gestures, posture, breathing, perspiration, blush or pallor, and so on.
This is the first thing. Secondly, it is not easy to correctly identify deception because the manipulator monitors his own behavior. He consciously tries to dispel possible suspicions. Do you know that a liar's eyes should move? The liar himself knows this, therefore, he will try to catch your gaze.
And - the third big “but”; Natalya Chernetskaya and Natalya Terentyeva write about him in the article “Why do people lie” (“Innovative projects and programs in education”, No. 3, 2008):
There are no signs of deception as such - there is not a single gesture, facial expression or involuntary muscle contraction that alone and in itself would mean that a person is lying.
For example, beads of sweat appearing on the forehead are guaranteed to indicate only internal discomfort and anxiety. Try to guess what caused it. You can sweat, even from the fear of exposure, even because of thoughts about the iron not being turned off, or because of the sudden operation.
How to tell by facial expressions that a person is lying
We usually read emotions from the speaker's face. Deceivers themselves are guided by this principle, and therefore try with special zeal to fake the movements of the facial muscles. This is real, but not 100%.
The emotional reaction is involuntary. Even a very experienced liar demonstrates his real feelings for a split second before he manages to portray an imaginary reaction.
An attentive listener has a chance to notice the signs:
- guilt;
- fear;
- inspiration (to understand why these feelings come to the fore, read).
Intellectual tension leaves its mark on facial expressions. “Liars should have good memories,” says the English proverb. The liar needs to remember all the details of the invented story in order to avoid logical contradictions, and use it to the fullest.
In N.B Abdigapparov’s publication “The Lies of a Criminal: Nonverbal Signs” (collection of articles of the International Scientific and Practical Conference “The Role of Science in the Development of Society.” “Aeterna”, 2015) we read:
The fear of being caught in a lie automatically manifests itself in the raising and contraction of the eyebrows, the raising of the upper eyelid and the tension of the lower, which can cause a so-called tic, which will become obvious when looking closely at the face of the criminal.
Such facial expressions are typical not only for a seasoned criminal, but also for a child who accidentally broke his mother’s favorite vase and then decided to declare Tuzik guilty.
Sometimes you can tell a lie by looking at it.
When a person is deceiving, he sometimes blinks more than usual, looks away, or, on the contrary, holds eye contact for too long.
Posture and gestures of a person who is deceiving
Hiding body movements is much easier than imitating facial expressions. However, mid-ranking deceivers, as a rule, do not think about the need to pay attention to gestures. Keep this in mind.
The following signals help to catch a liar:
- change of posture, fidgeting - the body seems to want to be somewhere other than here, but it is not allowed to escape;
- crossing arms or legs, which indicates a desire to close;
- attempts to put your hands under the table and hide your legs under the chair;
- non-functional movements of the hands;
- self-manipulation, self-contact behavior (touching the neck or nose, stroking the chin, rubbing the eyebrow, scratching the earlobe or wrists, covering the mouth with the hand, winding a curl of hair around the finger, tugging at buttons on clothes, etc.);
As in the case of shifty eyes, you need to remember about the ambiguity of signs. One liar will fidget in his chair, and the other. on the contrary, it will take an unnaturally stable position. The flip side of excessive gesticulation is stiffness in gestures, and so on.
Fine. We have more or less figured out the visible signs. But it’s not always possible to notice them. There are communication situations in which we do not look at the interlocutor.
Is it possible to understand that a person is lying on the phone? Is he telling a lie, shouting something into the kitchen from the hallway?
Voice characteristics and speech content
A liar is given out:
- hesitation;
- frequent use of interjections (“uh”, “hmm”, “mmm”);
- repetitions of words;
- short and unfinished sentences;
- monotonous intonations;
- raising or lowering the tone of voice;
- very rare self-references (“I”, “me”, “me”);
- high proportion of common words (“everywhere”, “everyone”, “nobody”, “never”);
- high or too low speech rate;
- long pauses between the question heard and the answer spoken, as well as between one’s own remarks.
I will repeat once again: behavior associated only with deception does not exist in nature.
To draw conclusions, you need to know well the usual communication style of a particular person. For example, the talkativeness of someone who likes to scratch his tongue for the sake of the process means nothing, and the excessive talkativeness of a silent person is a suspicious phenomenon.
Marsha Petri Sue points out the redundancy of the liar’s speech (“Toxic People”, Uright, Alpina Publishers, Moscow, 2010):
A lot of unnecessary details or details may mean that the person has thought a lot about how to get out of the current situation and has constructed an elaborate lie as a solution.
Valuable information leak - reservations.
D.V. Deulin, senior researcher at the department for planning and coordination of research and educational work of the Academy of Economic Security of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, talks in the article “Diagnostics of false testimony in written and oral speech based on slips and reservations” (“Legal Psychology” , No. 4, 2011) an interesting story: “Once I attended a presentation of a collection, where one of the speakers, reflecting on the scientific nature of the collection, unexpectedly asked the question: “What will the price of the collection be?” And here I corrected my reservation to “value”. Thus, we can assume that the questioner was more concerned not with the scientific value of the material, but with the utilitarian benefits of its sale on the market.”
Exposure techniques
An individual suspected of deception should be encouraged to talk.
Doubt the veracity of someone's words - take the initiative. Lead the conversation, don't go with the flow. Ask the person to repeat what was said, ask more clarifying questions - of course, not in the style of a strict investigator, but in a veiled manner. Try to blame your own carelessness and forgetfulness. It’s not a fact that a liar will get entangled in the web of his own invention, but he will definitely worry. Anxiety will cause him to give non-verbal signals.
Watch your tongue. Don't casually give away important information that a liar can use to prove that they are right. Don't let him understand what information you already have.
Professional lie test, or Is it possible to fool a polygraph?
When people lie, many physiological reactions change. It is quite possible to record these changes using special devices. The most common among them is the polygraph.
Here is its description given by Y.V. Osipov (“Modern technical means of lie detection,” “Bulletin of the St. Petersburg University of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia,” No. 4 (56), 2012):
A modern polygraph is a portable personal computer with a sensor unit and sensors for collecting information. In the sensor unit, signals are collected from sensors showing physiological processes, the signals are amplified, filtered and converted into digital code for transmission to a personal computer.
Several sensors work at once, main and auxiliary. The main ones are three:
- upper (thoracic) and lower (abdominal) breathing;
- electrodermal conductivity (galvanic skin reflex and skin resistance);
- cardiovascular activity: pulse, pressure, blood filling of blood vessels.
The polygraph is sometimes called a lie detector - erroneously.
The device only detects excitement, one of the explanations of which may be the spoken lie.
Maybe you should get such a thing and always keep it on hand? This hardly makes sense. Conducting polygraph tests requires serious preparation. Without a good knowledge of the peculiarities of the regulatory mechanisms of the human body, you still will not be able to correctly interpret the data.
The matter is so complex that even professionals sometimes come to the wrong conclusions.
Aldert Fry, mentioned above, says that in 1986, a certain American television company asked for help from four companies that performed polygraph testing. Specialists were told that an expensive camera had allegedly been stolen and suspicion fell on a specific employee of a specific organization. Each inspector was given a new name of a potential criminal. The “criminals” were instructed to deny the theft. They were promised a reward of $50 for their efforts. As a result, each of the four inspectors confidently identified lies in the words of the innocent “suspects.”
The devices, however, are being improved. For example, in 2002, the production of thermal cameras began, capable of recording in an IR image the exact temperature of the peri-ocular spaces (it is known that a person who deceives someone has blood rushing to their eyes). This device itself processes the received data and issues a verdict. Not only a psychophysiologist will be able to use it, but also, for example, an ordinary customs officer. According to research, in 80% of cases the device actually recognizes a lie.
Another, no less interesting, technology is being developed. When we think to ourselves, the brain sends language control signals. They can theoretically be recorded and deciphered, translating into real speech units. So far the device's vocabulary is quite poor; inventors are trying to expand it.
I do not rule out that in our lifetime, devices for detecting lies will improve so much that books and articles about signs of deception will lose all relevance. Is this good or not? It depends.
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Have you ever met an absolutely honest person in your life? Hardly. Each of us once had to lie, but someone could simply embellish events or, on the contrary, leave something unfinished, and someone purposefully deceives others. So how can you tell if your interlocutor is lying to you? Let's try to figure this out together.
First of all, the deceiver is given away by his body language. No matter how a person tries to change his gestures and control his body movements, in 99% of cases it will still look funny and unnatural. What a person tells you will clearly be at odds with how he behaves at that moment. Liars usually try not to show the palms of their hands, fiddle with the edges of their clothes and try not to let go of any objects from their hands, be it a pen or a lighter - it doesn’t matter. During a conversation, the deceiver's voice often becomes higher and louder, and the timbre unnaturally speeds up or slows down. Observe the facial muscles of your interlocutor; liars may twitch their eyelids or eyebrows. If you can hide other emotions behind a smile, then the eyes most often tell only the truth. It is impossible to control their expression. A person who tells a lie can hardly look his interlocutor in the eyes; during a conversation, he tries to look away and often looks at the floor. At the moment when the deceiver is lying, he may stop blinking, and then, on the contrary, blink more often than usual. If your interlocutor often touches his face with his hands, or tries to cover his eyes or ears, there is a high probability that he is a liar. In addition, he may bite his lips and touch his nose - this is also evidence that the person doubts his words.
At all times, people have been interested in the truth. We want to find out whether it is true that the husband stayed late at work, and the wife stayed late at a friend’s house. How honest are children with us? Should we believe the words of a politician? In a word, how do you know that a person is lying?
There are times when it is simply necessary to know the truth. But for various reasons (and not always selfish ones), a person can hide it, giving you completely different information. If you decide to expose the liar at any cost, the flag is in your hands. There are many ways to detect lies. So, how do you know if a person is lying?
How to find out that a person is lying: we can do it without a lie detector
Of course, no one can give you a complete toolkit for exposing a liar. But you can stop attempts to deceive instantly. This will give you self-confidence and give you a chance to be in control of the situation. So how can you look into a person’s soul and read his thoughts? You will be able to give an objective assessment of the veracity of the interlocutor’s statements.
Professionals can detect lies by looking at their faces
People tend to hide their real attitude towards a particular person. Should we know the truth? Complex issue. Most would answer now that a sweet lie is worse than a bitter truth, even if it was told for the good.
Be that as it may, deception is a natural phenomenon. According to statistics, a person lies on average 3 times during a 10-minute conversation. Such double standards: we ourselves want the truth, and at the same time we recklessly and needlessly deceive others. How to detect a lie by facial expressions and gestures?
How to spot a lie: exposure by external signs
No matter how paradoxical it may sound, lying is a unique type of stress that creates physiological reactions that are later perceived by scientists as markers of lies. But for now there are few of them. Yes, people have learned to lie competently. Our face has 43 muscles and 10 thousand expressions. To know exactly when a person is lying, you need to learn them all.
According to statistics, men lie one and a half times more often than women.
But if you don’t want to memorize, it doesn’t matter! African natives do not bother about this at all. They simply use a kind of “lie detector” - an ostrich egg. The man answers questions and holds it in his hands. If the egg bursts, it means you are a liar. The liar involuntarily squeezes the “detector” harder, as a result of which the shell cannot stand it and bursts.
In civilized countries everything is much more complicated. Curious, but Women are better at detecting lies than men.. They can even read the emotions of animals. That's how the female brain works. ? Experienced psychologists assure that there is no one hundred percent indicator of lying. This requires a comprehensive analysis. But there are objective signals of insincerity. For example, you can tell a lie by the eyes.
Seasoned liars are not shy about lying straight to your face
What can your eyes tell you? When a person confidently defends his lie, he maintains eye contact with the interlocutor. Looking deeply into your eyes, he seeks confirmation that you believe his lies.
Incredible facts
Everyone always lies. The ability to deceive is an ability that is inherent in human nature. Throughout our lives we deceive even themselves.
Lie can be harmless, sometimes even to our salvation: we deliberately say the wrong things in order to protect a person close to us from the bitter truth.
But sometimes the lie is not so harmless . It can seriously harm someone and lead to trouble.
To minimize the possible negative consequences of someone's lies, learn to recognize a liar.
Here main signs, indicating that there's a liar in front of you:
How to spot a liar
1. He covers his lips or covers his mouth
When a person cheats, they often touch the face, especially the mouth area. Such movements are performed on a subconscious level, as if the liar is trying to hide any further conversation about something.
If it hand covers mouth- This is an absolutely clear sign of deception.
2. He looks closely and for a long time at the interlocutor
This is classic behavior from a liar who is very likely deliberately trying to deceive you. It is likely that a liar will look at the interlocutor for a long time and intently, without blinking.
Thus, the liar wants to divert any suspicion from himself and demonstrate real honesty.
However, statistics tell a different story:
According to studies, people who tell the truth maintain eye contact for a little more than half of the entire conversation. While a liar will stare at you throughout almost the entire conversation.
3. He blinks quickly
Another situation may arise: people who feel uncomfortable blink faster and more often. As a rule, a liar commits 5-6 blinks in a rowd.
This reaction may be a manifestation of stress. There is another explanation for such frequent blinking: it is quite possible that this is a sign that the person telling a lie is trying to be more convincing.
One way or another, you should pay close attention to the person who is blinking frequently. This may be a signal that they are trying to deceive you.
How to recognize a liar in communication
4. He uses pointing gestures
Liars gesticulate actively. This can be expressed either physically or verbally. Thus, they try to distract the interlocutor from their lies, focusing his attention on another topic.
He may also be trying to shift the blame and protect himself. The liar moves his finger and becomes aggressive.
All this proves that a person who tells a lie feels that he can be caught in a lie and tries to distract his interlocutor to the last.
5. He pays attention to detail.
A person who lies spends a lot of time on unnecessary details and provides the other person with more information than necessary.
Too much information can be a clear sign that someone who talks too much does not have a clear conscience.
Perhaps the psychology of a liar works like this: the more eloquent he is in a conversation, the more open and honest he seems to the interlocutor.
Signs of lying by gestures
6. Fidgeting and nervousness
We can all feel restless or a little nervous from time to time. But if the nervousness of your interlocutor is too obvious, then this may be a clear sign that this is a liar.
While fidgeting, he can perform many different actions, indicating that the person is currently lying.
For example, a liar straightens his clothes, loosens his tie, fiddles with jewelry, tucks locks of hair behind his ear, wipes his glasses, fidgets with his fingers, cleans his nails, straightens his notebook, twirls a pencil, or wipes sweat from his forehead.
All these actions and some others indicate that the person is currently uncomfortable due to the fact that he is telling a lie.
Nonverbal signs of lying
7. Convulsive throat, sore throat and pursed lips
Is your interlocutor swallowing saliva convulsively, trying to clear his throat, or pursing his lips? Everything indicates that the person is anxious and stressed.
When we are in this state, our body slows down its saliva production mechanism. This causes your mouth to feel dry and uncomfortable.
A liar can be identified by the fact that he begins to quickly swallow saliva before saying anything.
He purses his lips, keeping his mouth closed.
8. Inconsistency between verbal and nonverbal gestures
Typically, our physical actions correspond to the words we speak.
For example, when we agree with someone, we nod as a sign of agreement, and if we disagree with something, we shake our heads from side to side, as if saying “no.”
Inconsistency can manifest itself in the following moments: a person waves his head negatively, saying “yes,” or nods his head, but says a negative “no.”
These contradictory actions are a clear sign that the person is not telling the truth.
Signs of lying by voice
9. Change in voice
Depending on the situation, a liar is able to change the intonation in his voice. He may speak quickly or suddenly slow down, speak quietly or raise his tone, or speak louder than usual.
It is likely that the liar will begin stutter when trying to remember details. If he tells the truth, he is able to remember the necessary information without much effort.
“Better the bitter truth than a sweet lie” - we often hear this common, but sometimes contradictory expression from people. But more often it happens that a lie can actually be a salvation. Finding out the truth sometimes ruins people's lives, especially spouses. Well, for example, a man accidentally cheated on his wife, she found out the truth, the family fell apart, it was impossible to understand and forgive, but they could have continued to live as before. But some wives are itching to find out if her husband is lying to her - they say, I don’t want to be a fool in the eyes of others. Well, it is for such curious women that this article was written.
Most often - from distrust in the family. Or to save your loved one from the bitter truth, because some problems are just temporary.
For example, my husband is having troubles at work. But everything can be resolved. The wife finds out what is going on and realizes that the husband is a liar because he swears to her that everything is fine, but something is wrong.
What does the wife do? He calls his colleagues, finds out his spouse’s lies, runs to his boss, threatens him with all sorts of authorities and carries out his threats. What does the boss do? He fires this poor fellow under the article, depriving him of financial benefits. What does the husband do? He is left without a job, it is difficult to find a job, his family is in poverty, his wife is hysterical.
And the problem would have been solved if the wife had not been running around in search of the truth. And the man, knowing his wife’s quarrelsome character, could not trust her with something that he could easily deal with himself. But this is not the only example. There are many: the desire to meet with friends is “veiled” by being busy at work. If you want to buy a new game, you make a nest egg. Mistrust is the main enemy of the family!
Physiognomy lesson
“I can see in your eyes that you are lying” - this is a phrase parents often say to their children, realizing that their child is a little liar. It would seem that such a trick would not work with adults. But no. Anyone who is at least a little familiar with physiognomy can understand where the lie is and where the truth is. Even in voice and gestures. Well here are some examples.
Eyes
Someone who is calm and does not intend to deceive looks like this:
- right-down (a sign of confidence);
- right-straight (memory of sounds);
- right-up (visual memory);
- left-down (memories of sensations and smells).
Anyone who wants to lie will look like this:
- left to top (a sign of fantasy, unrealistic pictures);
- left-straight (about to voice the deception).
And only straight-looking eyes are a sign that a person is listening carefully to his counterpart. By the way, at this time a man can study your view of lies and truth.
It is much easier to recognize a liar by general facial expressions than by just the eyes alone. But sometimes the facial expressions of male liars are much more “eloquent” than female ones. For example, men, unlike the weaker sex, often scratch their nose when cheating. This is due to the fact that men have an excitable receptor zone in their nose, unlike women. Do you remember this fairy-tale guy - Pinocchio? If he lies, his nose grows.
But here are more secrets of deceitful facial expressions:
Pursing his lower lip indicates that the man is unlikely to keep his promise. Biting your lips is clearly a lie hiding somewhere. A person seems to hold back his unnecessary words, fearing that thereby he will be caught in deception. A crooked smile at one corner of the lips is an insincere emotion in a man. Tense and slightly trembling corners of the lips are a sign of gloating.
A raised (crumpled) chin means that a man feels anger and annoyance towards you, no matter how much he smiles. By the way, such a deceitful smile can also be given away by “non-laughing” eyes that do not narrow at all.
If you told him some news, and the man is surprised for more than 10 seconds with violent emotions and facial expressions, then this is a sign that he already knew everything in advance. Since after 10 seconds a truthful person needs to comprehend the news, which means the emotion will change.
And the most famous sign, coupled with everything described above, is the redness of the cheeks and ears of liars. They are ashamed that they are lying. However, this has nothing to do with those who are naturally capable of blushing due to some external influences, for example due to the weather.
Fragment from the film "Liar, Liar"
arrow_left Fragment from the film "Liar, Liar"
Gestures and body movements
You've probably noticed how a naughty dog behaves when it's caught next to a chewed shoe? He tries to turn away, step back, hide. He is immensely ashamed, but he cannot say anything to lie. Liars behave in much the same way, with the only difference being that they can still lie.
The deceiver will hide his eyes, as if he is distracted by something more important, and will want to turn away, step back. Body movements are slightly nervous, especially the shoulders - they twitch a little, as if the person wants to throw off the burden of an unpleasant conversation. Hands will tug at your collar, neck, tie—the lies begin to choke you.
By the way, pay special attention to gestures, everything secret is hidden there. Hands that hug a loved one, hidden in a pocket or behind the back, fingers clasped in a lock - all this indicates a lie. The person does not want to thereby reveal his excitement in case his shaking hands reveal it.
By the way, in a lying person, who has already become incensed and is foaming at the mouth to prove that he is right, his gestures simply begin to dance. Either he shakes his index finger, supposedly threatening, then he sharply lowers his hand with his palm down, supposedly suppressing his counterpart, but all this is again a kind of defense.
Almost everyone lies. A politician speaks from the podium about how much good he will do for the people - everyone understands that he is lying, but they hope for at least a crumb of truth. The lawyer lies when defending his client, but that is his job. Professional liars do this competently, you can’t find fault with them. But this is more difficult for an ordinary person to do.
A person telling the truth will not speak in general terms: “Everyone is talking about this!” To the question: “Who exactly?”, he will not repeat: “Yes, that’s it!” He will specifically name the person. And in general, his entire story will be brief, without unnecessary details. Some little things in the story are a red herring. Moreover, these details can be said in dubbing two or three times: “So I went out, I went out, and when I went out, I met her.”
But specific things that interest a woman will be crumpled and missed. For example:
Well, in general, this aunt, what’s her name, left, and then, imagine, I decided not to go by car, but while it was light outside - the sun was shining hot, the birds were chirping, the weather was super, I decided to take a walk.
The “what’s her name” is crumpled, but there are so many details about the weather!
When talking, there are two options to hide a lie: either a person proves his “truth” quickly and excitedly, or he controls every word when he is confused in his testimony. There is an opportunity to bring it to light - let the “truth teller” tell his version exactly the opposite way, that is, starting from the end of events and before its beginning. It is unlikely that, having become entangled in lies, he will succeed.
Do you need the truth?
And further. By “twisting” yourself, you risk turning into a bitch. Like the one described in detail in the article. Men don't like people like that. In the end, you will, willy-nilly, teach your own spouse to lie, and thereby destroy the family yourself. So follow the golden rule:
The less you know the better you sleep.
Finally - an unusual technique
Let's do a thought experiment.
Imagine that you have the superpower to “read” men. It’s like Sherlock Holmes: you look at a man and you immediately know everything about him and understand what’s on his mind. You would hardly be reading this article now in search of a solution to your problem - you would not have any problems in your relationship at all.
And who said that this is impossible? Of course, you can’t read other people’s thoughts, but otherwise there is no magic here - only psychology.
We advise you to pay attention to the master class from Nadezhda Mayer. She is a candidate of psychological sciences, and her technique has helped many girls feel loved and receive gifts, attention and care.
If interested, you can sign up for a free webinar. We asked Nadezhda to reserve 100 seats specifically for visitors to our site.
