Learning to recognize a person’s lies by facial expressions and gestures

Sometimes ignorance is bliss. The world is based on lies. To admit that in modern society the boundaries of the moral dilemma “lie-truth” are very blurred does not mean to be a cynic. This means being a realist, despite all the cynicism of such a judgment. Everyone lies: the media in pursuit of ratings, politicians to increase the number of followers, advertising to increase sales, and let’s be honest, we ourselves lie. From time to time the goal is to obtain some preferences, and sometimes this happens involuntarily.

The other side of the coin is that no one wants to be deceived. We do not want to fall for the tricks of scammers, buy a low-quality product, or enter into a deal with a dishonest person. Many of the methods used by police and forensic psychologists to detect lies can also be useful to people in other professions, for example, HR managers or employers, and anyone who does not want to be deceived.

We detect a liar by facial expressions

A combination of signs of deception shown by facial expressions and body language

1. A momentary grin reveals a liar. If your communication takes place with a person who rarely smiles, then at the moment of lying you may notice a slight grin on his face. So a liar internally rejoices when he sees that his lie is believed.
2. When a person lies, micro-tension of the facial muscles occurs, and this phenomenon lasts literally a few seconds. Only a very attentive interlocutor will be able to identify it in time.
3. Frequent eye blinking can also indicate that you are being deceived.
4. Pursed lips. The mouth becomes arched. Such facial expressions indicate puzzlement or regret. If during a conversation there are no such emotions, then pursing your lips may indicate a desire to lie.
5. The appearance of distress on the face. It manifests itself as an involuntary raising of the eyebrows and the formation of a frontal fold. Asymmetry may also occur when emotions are expressed differently on the right and left sides of the face.

From surprise to contempt: seven universal emotions

There are only seven emotions that have a universal form of expression:

- surprise, - fear, - disgust, - anger, - joy, - sadness, - contempt.

All of them are encrypted in FACS and EmFACS (an updated and expanded version of the system), so that each emotion can be found and identified by characteristic features, assessing its intensity and degree of mixing with other feelings. For this, there are basic codes (for example, code 12: “Elevator of the corner of the lip”, zygomaticus major muscle), head movement codes, eye movement codes, visibility codes (for example, when the eyebrows are not visible, you need to put code 70) and general behavior codes. which allow you to record swallowing, shrugging, trembling, etc. “There are uncontrolled, unintentional facial expressions, as well as softened or feigned expressions in which the experienced emotion is weakened, or an emotion not currently experienced is simulated,” writes Paul Ekman in his book “Know a Liar by Their Facial Expression.” Unintentional expressions always appear behind the “screen” created on the face. In this case, they can be identified by micromovements. Typically these expressions only appear for a split second, so it takes practice to spot them.

There are three areas of our face that can move independently:

- eyebrows and forehead; - eyes, eyelids and bridge of the nose; - lower part of the face: cheeks, mouth, most of the nose and chin.

For each of them there is its own movement pattern in each of the seven cases. For example, when surprised, the eyebrows rise, the eyes open wide, the jaw unclenches, and then the lips part. Fear looks different: the eyebrows are raised and slightly drawn towards the bridge of the nose; the upper eyelids are also raised, exposing the sclera, the lower eyelids are tense; the mouth is slightly open, and the lips are also slightly tense and pulled back.

Paul Ekman gives in his book a detailed map of micromovements for each universal emotion and offers photographs for independent practice. To use this book to learn how to quickly determine what feeling is expressed on a human face, you need to find a partner who will show you these photographs - completely or covering part of the image with an L-shaped mask. The book also allows you to learn to determine the degree of expression of emotions and recognize the components of mixed facial expressions: bittersweet sadness, fearful surprise, and so on.

Features of the look

1. You can also tell a liar by your eyes. First of all, this is indicated by a running glance. Undoubtedly, such a phenomenon may be a sign of excessive shyness or a feeling of confusion. However, if you note these manifestations, it is still worth questioning what your friend says.
2. Staring can also indicate that you are being lied to. In this way, the interlocutor is trying to track how you react to what he is telling, whether you believe his words or not.
3. If during a conversation you notice that your opponent’s pupils are dilating, he may be deceiving you. Unless it reflects a normal reaction to the topic of conversation.

How can you tell if your interlocutor is lying to you during a conversation?

Our interlocutors can sometimes lie to us, but in some situations this can lead to dire consequences, so it would be better to recognize lies immediately, in conversation.
Now we will learn how to easily and quickly recognize a lie.

Features of lies in the interlocutor’s speech and facial expression

Pauses
are a way to find an appropriate answer. If a person has a long pause after a question before answering, this means that he is driven into a dead end and cannot find an answer.

If you have suspicions that the interlocutor is lying to you, then you can ask an unexpected question, which may indicate a mismatch, then after a long pause you can accurately confirm the deception.

Changing intonation

– a consequence of natural fear, because during a lie a person begins to worry. If your interlocutor's voice begins to change for no particular reason, then he is most likely lying to you.

Asymmetry

- the first sign of a lie. Under normal conditions, the emotions on both sides of the face are the same, but when trying to deceive, the zygomatic muscles malfunction and begin to work incorrectly. Then emotions are expressed differently and asymmetry or different emotions can be seen on different halves of the face.

Duration of emotions

- the second sign of lying. In real conversations, people don't hold onto emotions long enough. Facial expressions can change three or four times a minute, and if the emotion does not change for more than two minutes, then this means that the emotion is not sincere. This indicates deception on the part of the interlocutor.

If you see a forced smile

, then she is deceitful, but there are also stronger emotions that do not go away for several days. Thus, depression can last a week; in depression, a person looks depressed and does not show positive emotions at all.

Late reaction

- the third sign of a lie. Sincere emotions appear instantly, and if your interlocutor, for example, laughs at a joke only after a while, then he is only simulating emotion and trying to deceive you.

Smile for no reason

- another sign of lying. A smile occurs when the body tries to relieve tension, and the presence of a smile for no reason means that your interlocutor is tense. Perhaps in such a situation the smile arises due to deception.

Look into the eyes

: Under normal circumstances, in a conversation, a person will look into your eyes most of the time, and if a person does not look into your eyes most of the time, then he is lying to you.

7 final signs of lying that will allow you to accurately identify a liar

1. Inconsistencies in stories
   : listen carefully to your interlocutor; if you begin to notice inconsistencies in the story, then he is lying to you.
2. Pause in conversation
   : As already mentioned, a person takes long pauses when he wants to come up with a plausible answer. Constant pauses can guarantee a hundred percent lie.
3. Answer Avoidance
   : Often, when a person cannot come up with an answer, he simply avoids the answer. This technique is used to avoid any inconsistencies in the story.
4. Looking away
   : When trying to deceive, people become afraid to make eye contact and therefore look away.
5. Aggression
   : when you ask a person an unexpected question, with the help of aggression he may try to hide his deception.
6. Conversation tension
   : If a person is very withdrawn and tense during a conversation, then perhaps he is just trying to deceive you.
7. Pathos and oaths
   : Liars often resort to exaggeration of facts.

Speech of the Deceiver

1. When a person lies, the intonation in his voice changes. He may begin to speak faster or slower, in higher or lower tones; it is possible that the voice will tremble, change timbre, appear hoarse or high notes, as well as stutter.
2. Reservations. During times of excessive excitement, an individual may slip into incorrect phrases. But it is not necessary that you are being deceived. In such a situation, you need to evaluate the overall picture as a whole. Thus, clauses can be of two types: semantic and phonetic. The first appear when a semantic replacement of a word occurs, the second - when one word is replaced with a similar sound.
3. Pause. If, while answering a question, a person becomes silent for a while and then expresses his opinion, then it is possible that the pause was needed in order to come up with something, that is, to lie.
4. Repeating phrases heard from the interlocutor. A situation when an individual answers you with the same words that were posed in the question. Such repetitions indicate that, most likely, in this way he is gaining time to think about his lies.
5. Excessive talkativeness, especially in a person who has not previously been observed to be so, may indicate that he is chattering to hide a lie or is uttering a memorized false text.

How can you tell from a person's appearance that he is lying?

Identifying a lie is easy and simple by observing facial expressions, listening to the voice and spoken words, and also paying special attention to the gestures and postures used by the person lying to you. Here are some examples.

One person is trying to appear before you as extremely honest, an opponent of all lies. Therefore, he constantly repeats: “honestly,” “trust me,” “I swear to you,” “this is one hundred percent true.” He doesn't believe himself and tries to convince himself.

Another, in order not to lie, will try in every possible way to evade the topic under discussion and the direct questions asked. To this end, he will convince you that he is not aware of what is being discussed. Or he just doesn't want to talk about it.

Sometimes a liar becomes outright rude and may begin to be rude and rude so as not to talk about what he has to lie about. In such cases, things can escalate to shouting, scandal and even assault.

Remember that an honest person, on the contrary, will try to tell you everything in detail, defend his position, and explain in detail the circumstances of the case. In some cases, he may simply be deliberately mistaken, but not lie.

Often you have to deceive in the name of your own salvation or to protect a loved one. This is the so-called “white lie.” This has probably happened to each of us at home in the family and at work with colleagues.

To recognize a lie, professional psychologists recommend carefully observing the eye movements of your interlocutor, his facial expressions, gestures and body movements. Despite the fact that for each person all this is purely individual.

Some try to cover their bodies, others start scratching their noses, others look around. As you know, his eyes can say a lot about a person. A liar will try not to look you straight in the eyes, he will look away and dart his eyes.

If you ask him some specific question, he will start to get confused out of surprise, stammer, stammer, blush, because... a false legend, as a rule, is not thought through to the end and has to be invented on the fly.

A person who lies feels emotionally uncomfortable, his behavior is unnatural, he may be too active or too passive. If you know your interlocutor well, you can easily determine that he is lying.

Gestures of deception

Touching your nose during a conversation is a sign of deception.
Let's figure out how you can understand from a person's actions that he is deceiving; we recognize lies by gestures.

1. During a conversation, the interlocutor touches his face.
2. When talking, an individual involuntarily tries to cover his mouth with his hands. In essence, he is trying to close it so that the lie does not come out.
3. Touches the nose, earlobes.
4. While talking to you, the individual begins to rub his eye.
5. Gestures widely with hands when it is inappropriate.
6. He behaves stiffly, his movements are constrained. There are practically no gestures. Perhaps he is ashamed of his deception. Or he is afraid to give himself away with any movement.

However, you need to understand that gestures alone cannot be the only criterion for identifying a liar. The fact is that a person can rub his eye, for example, because he wants to sleep or something has gotten there, or an eyelash has bent. This is not always a sign of deception.

How to recognize a lie in a conversation?

Every person knows how to lie. This begins with a child's tendency to fantasize, and adults, over the course of their lives, simply get used to lying to each other, even about little things. Some people do it without thinking.

However, the deceived party suffers from unreliable information and receives psychological trauma: parents deceive their children, and children of parents, spouses lie to each other, and friends mercilessly misinform their best friends.

A story made up on the fly is just as easily forgotten. If you ask a liar a second time about the same topic, he will come up with a completely or partially different version. And you will understand that you have been blatantly deceived.

Sometimes constant lies turn into real pathology. In psychology there is a concept of a pathological liar. This disease destroys the patient’s consciousness; he himself ceases to understand where the truth is and where the lie is.

Let's figure out what a lie is, and when can it become a problem not only for others, but also for the liar himself, and turn into a difficult-to-treat pathology? A lie is untrue information expressed by one person to another.

In modern psychology, there are three types of people who are prone to lying.

1) A person who wants to always look smarter than everyone else in society. He likes to take an active part in a variety of discussions, proving to his interlocutors that they have a good classical education and extensive life experience.

To identify his lies, it is enough to ask a couple of simple clarifying questions on the topic under discussion. A person who lies will immediately try to answer specific questions with general phrases, and it will become clear that he is deceiving.

2) A person who lies for selfish reasons is inclined to make a lot of different, sometimes simply inappropriate, compliments. In this way, he wants to lull the vigilance of his interlocutor and achieve his own selfish benefits from him.

This is how scammers of all stripes work, deceiving gullible and suggestible citizens. These are deceivers in the style of Sergei Mavrodi. Only your own life experience and intelligence can help here.

3) There are people who have the ability to deceive from birth. They lie “for the soul”, perceiving lying as an art. As a rule, they have good acting skills and are able to fool anyone.

Often there is no protection from them. Such a liar will put on a whole performance in front of you, rob you of everything, and you will like it. While playing, for a minute he himself believes in what he is saying. These are liars in the style of Ostap Bender.

4) Pathological liars deceive both people and themselves. They invent their own lives (test pilot, confidant of the President, son of the Prosecutor General) and they themselves believe in their fiction. In real life, such liars, as a rule, have a low social status.

If you demand proof of his words from a pathological liar, he will immediately tell a beautiful story about how he was forgotten or confused in the maternity hospital, deliberately deprived of his status, or simply burned documents at the behest of the Kremlin.

Physiology and body language

1. Profuse sweating. If you know that the person you are talking to does not sweat in everyday life, and you notice that in a particular conversation he is sweating a lot, you may be being deceived. Although it is possible that he got sick.
2. Head nods. When asking your interlocutor a question that may have a one-word answer, watch his reaction. If he answers “yes” but at the same time waves his head from side to side, he does not agree with his words. If he says “no” and nods at that moment, he’s lying.
3. Fidgety behavior, nervousness, inability to sit still, or unusual posture may indicate that the person is not sincere.
4. A person who tells the truth is turned towards his interlocutor and may lean towards him during a conversation. If he cheats, on the contrary, he will move away.
5. Rapid breathing and frequent swallowing of saliva may also indicate that a person is deceiving and is worried that his lie will be discovered.
6. Crossed arms. First of all, such phenomena indicate a feeling of discomfort. Perhaps the interlocutor is in danger from the environment, in this way he protects himself. However, if such a manifestation occurs at the moment of answering the question posed, most likely he is lying. If he stood with his arms crossed during the entire conversation, it is possible that he was simply cold or did not feel openness towards you, perhaps he did not trust you.
7. Half a turn. If an individual turns slightly in the other direction or turns his head to the side while answering a question, he may be lying.
8. Hands in pockets. An individual may hide his hands or put them behind his back when he is insincere.

The truth is somewhere on the left

A person may be overtly or covertly tense. To determine this, look carefully at the person’s left side. From a neurophysiological point of view, control over the left half is less strong than over the right. The brain, with its left and right hemispheres, controls the sides of the body differently.

• Speech, intelligence, and the ability to do mathematics are the domain of the left hemisphere.
• Imagination, emotions, abstract thinking are the work of the right hemisphere.
• Management occurs generally in the form of crossing. The left hemisphere is the right side of the body, and the right hemisphere is the left side.

For example, we communicate with a right-handed person. During the conversation, he gesticulates vigorously, using his left hand. It is very likely that this is a liar. This is most pronounced if the right hand is almost not involved in the matter. If such a discrepancy is observed, the person is definitely not sincere. If the same disorder is observed in the face, i.e. the left or right half is more active, perhaps also a lie. Particular attention should be paid to the left side.

Warnings

You can misinterpret a sign and in vain accuse a person of lying

1. You shouldn’t be overly suspicious and look for deceivers in everyone you know.
2. Remember that no method gives a 100% guarantee of identifying a liar.
3. Signs of deception can appear in groups, or they can occur individually. Therefore, sometimes it is difficult to determine whether a person is lying to you or not.
4. Remember that people are individuals. Each individual can digest information and react to it in their own way. The signs of lying shown by individual people may also differ. Some will easily deceive, while others will not be able to do it at all.
5. You may encounter a person who lies on a professional level. It will be almost impossible to recognize his deception. But even here you can try to bring the person to clean water by asking additional questions. Perhaps he will get confused in his lies.
6. You need to understand that nonverbal signals do not in all cases confirm a lie. In some cultures, for example, staring at your interlocutor is bad manners.
7. Signs of lying, manifested at the physiological level, for example, increased sweating, may not be a symptom of deception at all, but of problems with the health or physiological characteristics of the body of a particular person.

Now you know how to recognize a lie by facial expressions and gestures, behavior, words and looks. You will be surprised how often we are deceived in everyday life. Remember that lies are sometimes good. Perhaps a person is hiding something because he does not want to hurt his interlocutor. However, there are times when it is better to know that you are being lied to. It is possible that they want to harm you with such actions.

Introduction to Lie Detection

At one time, the topic of detecting lies became quite discussed thanks to the popularity of the series “Lie to me” created by S. Baum (in Russian translation “Theory of Lies.” The characters in the series masterfully investigate crimes based on observations of the behavior of suspects. The main character is a prototype of a real person, a professor Psychology from the University of California Paul Ekman, who is known for his work in the field of detecting deception using microexpressions, voice changes, vegetative signs (blushing, sweating, rapid breathing), a lie detector.

At the same time, many experts note that the series is largely idealized and hyperbolized. Psychologists who study deception argue that there is no reliable way to catch someone lying because lying is not a distinct psychological process with its own unique behavioral indicators. This aspect plays an important role, because it is difficult to determine when a person is lying and when he is telling the truth, but is nervous due to pressure and greater psychological stress. It is very difficult to recognize the edge, this should be kept in mind when resorting to the methods described below. Remember:

1. No method gives a 100% guarantee of detecting that a person is lying.

2. Do not directly accuse others of lying. Draw your own conclusions. The accusation is based on facts, not conjecture. Excessive suspicion (unless, of course, this is a professional skill) is fraught with difficulties in the communication process.

3. Nonverbal signals are not always confirmation of lies. In some cultures, staring at someone is considered bad manners and can ruin relationships.

4. Many physiological elements by which it is advised to determine a lie, for example, increased sweating or dry throat, may be present in a person due to individual characteristics.

Did you wash your hands?

If, when communicating with you, the interlocutor tries to put his hands in his pocket or close his palms, we can with a certain degree of confidence assume that he is hiding something. This feature is most pronounced in children.

Hiding your palms or keeping them open can be used against you even in a regular market. An experienced salesperson can see how your palms are positioned when you refuse a purchase and can understand how much you really need it. If you cover your mouth with your hand, then here we see a desire not to blurt out too much. This may be indicated by tension in the mouth muscles, as well as lip biting.

Posture is very important in determining a person's honesty. Let's say you observe a person in a tense or uncomfortable position. He can constantly squirm, trying to make himself more comfortable. This means that the topic of conversation is bothering him and he may not agree with it. Liars can lean and cross their legs. Usually, if a person is truthful, then his posture is relaxed and comfortable.

Why do people lie

Nobody will just deceive you. Sometimes people lie for selfish purposes, other times for good. Psychologists have identified several main reasons that push people to cheat.

Why do people lie:

To benefit. Insecure people solve problems with the help of others. If your friend cannot get a job, he will lie that the vacancies are filled or offer a small salary in order to still live at someone else’s expense. Or one colleague will slander another in order to get the desired position. To protect yourself. We have been familiar with such lies since childhood. We told our parents that we didn't break the cup, drop the plate, or offend the kids. This way we avoided punishment.

White lie. Deception does not carry malicious intent, but is done to help or not harm a loved one. This is possible in case of serious illness, departure, pregnancy and other circumstances. To attract attention. Many people make up tall tales about their personal life or work in order to interest their interlocutor. But, as a rule, such deception is revealed and only brings harm, not benefit. Lying allows you to gain control over a person. If your husband’s mother does not like his choice, then she will try to convince him in every possible way, putting you “in a bad light.”

More often, people who are insecure, infantile, or children deceive. Therefore, if you catch someone in a lie, then do not react too harshly, as you will only worsen the situation and force the interlocutor to defend himself.