Body Talk

Lying

The Book of Tells written by Peter Collett, the Big Brother psychologist and presenter of The Secret Language provides the basis for much of the analysis of the everyday body language used by us all that reveals what we are really thinking - Tells. In this edited extract he reveals the best indicators of lying...

Talking tells

Most people believe that liars five themselves away by what they do, rather than what they say or how they say it. In fact it's the other way round - the best indicators of lying are to be found in people's speech rather than in their behaviour. Aldert Vrij from Portsmouth University has suggested that when people try to catch liars they pay too much attention to their non-verbal behaviour and not enough to speech. This, he points out, if reflected in the tendency to overestimate the chances of detecting deceit by watching someone's behaviour, and to underestimate the chances of catching liars by listening to what they say.

Several features of talk provide clues to lying. Some involve the verbal content of what people say, others the way that people articulate what they're saying:

Circumlocution. Liars often beat about the bush. They tend to give longwinded explanations with lots of digressions, but when they're asked a question they're likely to give a short answer.

Outlining. Liar's explanations are painted with board brushstrokes, with very little attention to detail. There's seldom any mention of time, place or people's feelings. For example, a liar will tell you that he went for a pizza, but he probably won't tell you where he went or what kind of pizza he ordered. When liars do provide details they are seldom in a position to elaborate on them. So, if you ask a liar to expand on his account, it's very likely that he'll simply repeat himself. When a truth-teller is asked the same question, he usually offers lots of new information.

Smokescreens. Liars often produce answers that are designed to confuse - they sound as if they make sense, but they don't. Examples of remarks that don't make sense include Bill Clinton's famous response during the Paula Jones harassment case, when he was asked about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky, and answered, 'That depends on what the meaning of "is" is.' Another example is the justification that the ex-mayor of New York City, David Dinkins, gave when he was accused of failing to pay his taxes: 'I haven't committed a crime. What I did was fail to comply with the law.'

Negatives. Political lies are frequently couched in the form of a denial - remember Bill Clinton's famous denial, 'I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.' When a politician denies that he is going to introduce a new measure, like raising taxes, you can usually take this as a sign that the measure is about to be introduced. As Otto von Bismarck said, 'Never believe anything in politics until it has been officially denied.' Liars are more likely to use negative statements. For example, during the Watergate scandal, President Nixon said, 'I am not a crook.' He didn't say, 'I am an honest man.'

Word choice. Liars make fewer references to themselves - they use words like 'I', 'me' and 'mine' less frequently than people who are telling the truth. Liars also tend to generalize by making frequent use of words like 'always', 'never' and 'nobody' and 'everyone', thereby mentally distancing themselves from the lie.

Disclaimers. Liars are more likely to use disclaimers such as 'You won't believe this', 'I know this sounds strange, but' and 'Let me assure you'. Disclaimers like these are designed to acknowledge any suspicion the other person may feel in order to discount it.

Formality. When people are telling the truth in an informal situation they are more likely to use an elided form - for example, to say 'don't ' instead of 'do not'. Someone who is telling a lie in the same situation is more likely to say 'do not' instead of 'don't'. That's because people become more tense and formal when they lie.

Tense. Without realizing it, liars have a tendency to increase the psychological distance between themselves and the event they're describing. As we have seen, one way they do this is by their choice of words. Another is by using the past tense rather than the present tense.

Speed. Telling a lie requires a lot of mental work because, in addition to constructing a credible line, the liar needs to keep the truth separated from the lie. This places demands on the capacities of the liar, which in turn can slow him down. That's why people pause before producing a lie, and why lies tend to be delivered at a slower pace than the truth - unless, of course, the lie has been carefully rehearsed, in which case there should be no different in speed.

Pauses. Liars also produce more pauses between their words and sentences and some of these pauses are filled with speech disfluencies like 'um' and 'er'. The cognitive work involved in producing a spontaneous lie also gives rise to more speech errors, slips of the tongue and false starts, where the person starts a sentence and then abandons it for another sentence.

Pitch. The pitch of someone's voice is often a very good indicator of their emotional state, because when people get upset the pitch of their voice starts to rise. Emotions are closely connected to vocal pitch and the changes that occur when people become emotional are very difficult to mask or conceal. Although increases in pitch are fairly consistent, they are sometimes quite small, and it is usually necessary to have heard someone speaking in other situations before one can decide whether the pitch of their voice has risen.

Dr Peter Collett is a social psychologist and former Oxford Don. He has been resident psychologist on Big Brother and has co-authored two books including Gestures: Their Origins and Distribution with Desmond Morris, and is the author of Foreign Bodies: A Guide to European Mannerisms.

[ Text Only: Homepage ]
[ Graphical: Channel4 Homepage ]
[ Contact Us ]
[ Access Advice ]

[ HTML 4.01 TR Approved ]