Tag Archive for Cues

Summary – Chapter 16

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We began this chapter knowing full well that lie detection through nonverbal means was difficult at best. However, we did cover a huge amount of clues that can help us by raising suspicion and provide us with leads to delve further. We began the chapter by looking at the reasons for lying which includes hiding feelings, preferences and attitudes. We found that lying is used to reduce disagreements and hurt feelings and is a useful skill in impression management. We listed the nine reasons people lie which are to avoid punishment, to gain access to a reward, to protect another person or one’s self from being punished, to win admiration of others, to avoid awkward social situations, to avoid embarrassment, to maintain privacy and to gain at the expense of others.

We found that by grilling someone for the truth it is often enough to cause someone to feel stress thereby creating the behaviour instead of uncovering it. Contrary to popular belief we discussed that eye contact can often increase during lying rather than decrease due to “duping delight” where a person receives a charge from pulling one over on someone else. We learned that lying is hard work so should expect that when someone is caught with difficult questions that they should exhibit more nonverbal leakage and might even ‘appear’ to be thinking harder. Nervousness and guilt was touched on which showed that at times liars can give themselves up through a higher pitch, faster and louder speech, speech errors or stuttering, blushing, an increase in blink rate, fidgeting, dilation of the pupils or sweating, but that these cues only reveal liars that actually feel guilt, and not all do. Liars can also tend to “freeze up” and reduce movement and we related it back to professional poker players. Next we looked at how liars remain uncommitted to their lies, and thereby use less exuberant gesturing, and can stop or reduce touching when they lie.

Next we looked at the “truth bias” which shows that an average of sixty-seven percent accuracy is found when detecting the truth, whereas forty-four percent is found while detecting deception because people expect to be told the truth so have adapted to detect it. We found in this chapter that truth tellers (and liars) are sometimes less cooperative, but not always, and looked at the FACT or the facial action coding system as another way to detect lies. “Microexpressions” were defined as facial expressions that flash across the face in 1/25 to 1/5 of a second and can betray liars because they are difficult to consciously control and appear more honest. We discussed that while lying requires fabrication, telling the truth can be just as difficult since details must be recalled from memory. Police officers, we found, are fairly good at detecting lies, but this is in spite of what they are taught rather than because of it. Lying language in children was discussed and then we classified the major gestures that are usually associated with lying, but that aren’t always actually indicative of it. Our aim in doing so was to avoid doing them so we can avoid being mislabeled as untruthful by others. These commonly associated gestures include touching the face and ears, scratching the neck, pulling at the collar, touching the eyes, mouth, or nose and closed body language. We also examined eye patterns in lying, verbal and paraverbal cues and nervous body language as they relate to lying. We discovered that machines such as the fMRI, thermal scanners, eye trackers, pupillometers and stress sniffers had a much greater success rate when compared to people, but were also expensive and impractical.

We finished up the chapter by examining true success which is achieved by the experts; the CIA who scores seventy-three percent, sheriffs sixty-seven percent, psychologist sixty-eight percent and the secret service who scored sixty-four percent as well as techniques for actually detecting lies by comparing the baseline of a person as they shift from comfort to discomfort based on questioning or other stimulus.

Setting Someone Up To Be Read

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The following is a sequence by which lying can be more effectively read as outlined by Joe Navarro in his book What everybody is saying. Navarro follows a more interrogative style which will work in some circumstances, but it limited in others.

When trying to read someone for truth-telling, have an open view of their body to be able to see any signs of comfort and discomfort as they may arise.

When trying to read someone for truth-telling, have an open view of their body to be able to see any signs of comfort and discomfort as they may arise.

1. Get a clear unobstructed view of the person you wish to read so you don’t miss any pacifying behaviours. If possible put people in an open space.
2. Expect some nervous and stressful body language especially pacifying behaviours. People are expected to calm themselves at all times even when no lying is being done.
3. Expect initial nervousness. When someone is questioned they will feel tension regardless of their level of guilt.
4. If possible have the person you wish to read to first relax. With time everyone relaxes, even guilty people so if you can put off asking important questions or build rapport, do so.
5. Look to establish a baseline. This is especially important if you don’t know the person you are questioning all that well. Look for cues they use normally especially mannerisms and pacifiers.
6. As you begin questioning, watch for an increased use of pacifiers. This will be especially telling when they seem to increase dramatically during specific questions or when certain topics arise. When they arise, it will provide clues as to which information requires further investigation.
7. Pause frequently after asking questions. It is important to avoid putting out too many questions all at once because it will only serve to create stress. Give the person you are trying to read enough time to think and answer questions so as to avoid false positives.
8. Stay on task and maintain focus. When people feel stress they often want to change the subject matter or avoid questions. If a person gets the opportunity to change the subject their will emit fewer nonverbal tells of deception because when people speak they get to choose and control the topic.
9. Chatter is not truth. Listening to one side of the story often produces a bias and on the surface, the more we listen to people, the more we tend to trust and believe what they tell us. Advertising campaigns work through a similar mechanism as the more we hear the message, the more we think it to be true. Eventually, if we hear messages enough time, they work into our subconsciousness to become “ours”, they re-write our reality. When people present a huge amount of information about a topic, they appear to be telling the truth, however this is not always the case as even creative liars can go at lengths to produce elaborate and believable lies. It is not the amount of information provided that matters, but rather the accuracy of the information which can only come through verification of the facts.
10. Stress in and stress out. There are two times when stressful nonverbals are emitted, once when the question is asked which can appear like distancing behaviours such as arms and foot withdrawl and then again when pacifying is needed to calm. These come out as neck touching, stroking the hair and so forth.
11. Isolate the cause of stress. Is stress due to being asked stressful questions, or because someone is being interrogated. Not all stressful nonverbal language is due to lying and often people that are honest, show nervous language.
12. Pacifiers tell us a lot. Pacifying body language tells us when someone is stressed which tells us which scenarios, questions or information has created it. It therefore follows that pacifying cues tell us which areas require more thorough investigation.

Comfort and Discomfort Body Language

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Comfort on the left side of the image, discomfort on the right.

Comfort on the left side of the image, discomfort on the right.

We have covered many signals of comfort and discomfort throughout the book and have even eluded to their use in lie detection. To simplify things, I wanted to take the time to cover the cues we can use to detect lying as it relates to comfort and discomfort. We have seen how open and closed language can signal a desire to allow access to the body. Ventral displays shows that a person is open and trusting of someone and this sort of response is difficult when we feel we are hiding emotions. Comfort is displayed through proximity and people do this by moving their torsos closer or leaning inward rather than away and will remove objects that impede their view so as to establish more intimacy.

Comfortable bodies open up and spread out.

Comfortable bodies open up and spread out.

Comfortable people will hold their bodies loose rather than rigid, and their body will move with fluidity. They will gesture with their speech instead of freezing instantly or awkwardly, called “flash frozen.” Sometimes people will slow to catch their thoughts, but this will be obvious to the body language reader and will come at appropriate times and in context when thought is actually required to produce accurate answers. Comfortable people mirror others around them instead of avoiding synchrony. Their breath rate will be similar and they will adopt like postures instead of showing differences.

Bodies show discomfort by increased heart rate, breath rate, sweating, a change in normal colour in the face or neck, trembling or shaking in the hands lips, or elsewhere, compressing the lips, fidgeting, drumming the fingers and other repetitive behaviours. Voices often crack when under stress, mouths might dry up producing noticeable swallowing, “hard swallows”, or frequent throat clearing. Liars might use objects as barriers. They might hold drinking glasses to hide parts of their face or use walls and chairs while standing to lean against to gain support. Liars might engage in eye blocking behaviours by covering their eyes with their hands or seem to talk through them or even squint so as to impede what is being said from entering their minds. The eyes might also begin to flutter or increase in overall blink rate showing an internal struggle.

Drumming fingers, fidgeting, kicking feet and so forth are burning off nervous energy - discomfort.

Drumming fingers, fidgeting, kicking feet and so forth are burning off nervous energy – discomfort.

We’ve hit on the fact that stress creates nonverbal language such as preening to show detachment from a conversation (picking lint), energy displacement gestures such as scratching the body or rubbing the neck or wiping the side of the nose. Palm up displays show that a person has some doubt, and indicates a desire for other to believe them while palm down displays show confidence and authority. Microexpressions can also be particularly revealing since they happen instantaneously and subconsciously. Watch for movements that happen first especially if they are negative in nature as these are more honest than positive body language. Positive language is used by people to appear more in control and polite instead of appearing vulnerable. Fake smiles are an excellent example of an expression that can sometimes be put on to appear to disguise stress. We know smiles are faked when they seem to last for much longer than what would be considered natural.

Lack of touching, or touch reduction also signals discomfort and a divergence of ideas. When people’s ideas differ they find it hard to come close to others as part of the natural fear response. Head movements that are inconsistent with speech such as slightly nodding affirmatively though making a denial or vice versa, or delaying head nodding until after speech is made such that speech and gestures lack synchrony can give liars away. When gestures are done out of sync they tell us that a person is adding the gesture on as support for their statement. The entire affair appears to be out of the normal order of flow in communication which liars can often do. When affirmative nodding happens during denial statements such as nodding “yes” while saying “I did not do it” usually happens very subtly, but is obvious to the conscious observer. Keep in mind while reading these cues that they do not indicate lying per se, but rather indicate discomfort and stress. The job of the body language reader is to decide why a person is stressed. Are they stressed because they are being put on the spot, because they fear being mislabeled, or because they are actually telling lies?

How To Accurately Read Lies

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By now we know that liars are practiced, we all do it, and we do it regularly. Sometimes we don’t even realize we do it and other times those around us don’t care to know. What we do know is that most liars feel only mild feelings of guilt and fear. Thus, we should only expect very subtle clues to deception and nothing more. It has been shown through the research that looking for full blown signals of lying is both misleading and even unhelpful. Liars as it were, are only slightly more apprehensive than truth tellers with both feeling nervous and anxious when faced with scrutiny.

My advice to read people is to watch for the little stuff, the microexpressions, the small gestures and the ones that happen instantly, and then hone in on it. Keep in mind too, that you won’t be able to detect lies much better than about seventy-five percent of the time anyway, which is on par with the CIA minus of course various lie detection machines which we discussed as being impractical and requiring cooperation that you are very unlikely to garner, even if provided with access.

The top lie detectors all seem to have one trait in common, and that is skepticism. They know or assume that someone is lying so they view them through that window being careful to watch and recall any cues that tip the scales toward deception. Looking at the world through rose-coloured glasses will lead to rose-coloured predictions about people and this is all just dandy, if you aren’t interesting in uncovering bad things around you. You also must be aware of a person, from their face to their toes and be willing to look them over and actively observe them. If you’re goal is to make friends, then by all means avoid filtering and analyzing the body language around you. In fact, I would advise body language readers to relax their skills when around family and friends, or at least keep it secret!

It is not safe to immediately peg someone a liar based on one or even a handful of cues just by the nature of the trade. Reading lying correctly is a long term comparison of the facts seeded with emotional, fearful and stressed body language from one moment to the next that can only happen over time. Success will come by looking at the full picture and comparing the parts to the whole and digging deeper when discrepancies happen between expressive behaviours and the words said. No doubt, lie detection is difficult, but the body language in this chapter coupled with how it is framed, that is the lie detection theory and it’s limitations, will help increase your odds significantly.

Nervous Body Language – The ‘Other’ Cues

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As we know nervousness plays a big part in lie detection so we habitually connect the two sentiments. Therefore, by this nature, we assume that any of the following could be associated with dishonesty. Here is a nearly comprehensive list of all cues that could be tied to lying or else associated with lying from the general public. While they don’t necessarily uncover a liar they will be tied to dishonesty and persons that perform these cues will be mistrusted. They include increased eye blink rate, stuttering, dilated pupils, fidgeting, appearing unfriendly or tense, facial fidgeting, shaking, postural shifts or unrelaxed/reserved postures, twitches, shrugs, head movements, playing with objects, sneering, scowling, frowning, smiling, biting the lower lip, pressing the lips together, wrinkling of the nose, increase in perspiration, blushing or turning pale and increased swallowing.

Verbal And Paraverbal Cues

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At times verbal and paraverbal cues betray the liar and these are cues tied directly to the words in which they speak. Although they fall outside the realm of body language at large, they do complete this chapter with regards to cues associated with deception which is why they have been included. These cues are, as always, related to the stress of fibbing so can be confused with nervousness of any other source. Some however are the direct consequences of lying such as the telling of an implausible story or using more negative comments or statements, which has been shown to increase during lying.

Here are the cues to deception as they relate to our verbal dialogue: Vocal tension, hectic speech, faltering speech, improper structure or grammar, implausible story, inconsistent story, superfluous details, describing feelings rather than events such as “I felt this way when I did this” or “I must have felt this way because of this” etc, adding qualifying statement such as “This is what I am about to say” then saying it, word or phrase repetition, using less contractions saying “I did not” instead of “I didn’t”, using the persons name in sentences instead of saying “he” or “she”, for example “Bill went to the store” rather than “He went to the store”, the use of clichés, blocking access to information, evasive responses or desire to change the subject, speech is less compelling, less personal and with less or too much detail, expressing self doubt, negative complaints or statements, defensiveness or aggressiveness, changes in pitch (high low or monotone), shaky or soft voice, stuttering, false starts, silent pauses, filled pauses, delayed response, appearing to be thinking, admitted lack of memory, tentative construction of sentences, clearing the throat and spontaneous corrections.

Microexpressions

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Micro

Microexpressions, such as this furrowed forehead (a negative thought indicator) are called “leaked” because they happen quickly and last only fractions of a second before disappearing. Because they are difficult to control, they tend to be reliable indicators of truly felt emotions.

 

Microexpressions are facial movements or expressions that flash across the face at such a fast rate that they are barely perceivable. Slow motion replays of high speed videography easily shows what is difficult to see in real time. The persistence of these cues range from 1/25 to 1/5 of a second. It is the study of microexpressions that assumes that certain aspects of facial expressions reveal this duplicity to betray the liar. The research was originally pioneer by Guillaume Duchenne in the 1800s as we saw in an earlier chapter who discerned the difference between real and fake smiles from the use of the zygomatic major muscles which pull the corners of the mouth upward and the orbicularis oculi, the muscle around the eye that pulls the cheek up while lowering the brow. This was the true smile and in the same way, other unconscious microgestures reveal negative emotions. Presumably it is more difficult to prevent a felt emotion in addition to creating a false emotion than to simply neutralize the face. The term “masked” refers to any facial emotion that is either replaced by a different falsified expression, or is neutralized with no emotion present. This is when microexpressions should be most evident.

Microexpressions, on the other hand, are tied to leakage in so much as they are an attempt to hide our true feelings. When we tell a lie, and if we hold any remorse for that lie, repressed or otherwise, our faces should reveal these cues through facial expressions. When a deceiver tries to repress an emotion caused by lying, the result is a micro display that briefly comes across the face instead. Other times these cues happen at a much slower rate and are perceivable by the naked eye. Those that can intuitively detect lies often score high on the ability to recognize microexpressions.

Lies can be betrayed by signs of emotions as they relate to microexpressions or in other words, it is difficult for a liar to create emotions that don’t exist. For example, it is difficult to consciously narrow the red margins of the lips so this can be an indicator of feigned anger. Rarely do we detect these fake emotions though, which is partly due to the fact that we simply don’t care to know the truth as it serves no useful purpose to us; there is no reward or incentive.

A study conducted in 2008 by Stephen Porter and Leanne Brinke of Dalhouse University who examined microexpressions through the examination of high speed video cameras found some, but incomplete support, for their use in detecting feigned emotions. In fact the emotions they did uncover occurred over a much longer time which could suggest that they might be easier to detect than previously though. They also found that it was far easier to neutralize the face (show no expression) than to create an artificial emotion. In the neutral face, they found a lower blink rate, possibly due to the effects of claming up, but where a masked face appeared, they found increased blinking likely due to the stress associated with faking a face. Other studies suggest that liars increase blink rate, as we recall. They also found that all participants showed at least one inconsistent emotion during deception showing that leakage might be ubiquitous, but the overall success rate was still only sixty percent. Confusing the findings further, they found that microexpressions were found throughout positive emotions.

To date very little study has gone into microexpressions which is surprising given the widespread attention is had been given. It is currently being utilized as a massive foundation for the U.S. transportation agency to help identify suspicious passengers. While the science is incomplete with regards to microexpressions, it is important to realize their existence, real or not, because the next time we wait to board a plane, the eye in the sky and the personnel on the floor are eagerly watching for our nervous ticks for the opportunity to pull us aside for more questioning. The rational of course is that while nervous ticks might not accurately betray a liar all the time, it does form a basis to increase the level of investigation even if there are occasional misses. The (not too?) distant future might hold recognition software that reads all levels of being, from gait to blood pressure, voice inconsistencies and perhaps microexpressions. Most experts agree that this technology, due to its complex nature, won’t be in production for some time though.

Remaining Uncommitted

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When people tell the truth they will usually show extra enthusiasm and commit to their story. Liars often start off the same way, but quickly trail off.

When people tell the truth they will usually show extra enthusiasm and commit to their story. Liars often start off the same way, but quickly trail off.

Liars have been noted to be uncommitted to lies. That is, because they have nothing vested in the lie, they remain less than exuberant in their convictions. In other words, the subconscious mind of liars doesn’t allow them to carry forward with enthusiasm. Instead of smashing a fist against a table and raising a voice saying “I didn’t do it!”, liars will instead make much duller motions and use less commitment to them. It is not as if they want to lie, it is the limbic mind that won’t allow them to.

Liars will motion without emphasis, or describe events by trailing off or use weak statements. They might limit arm and hand movement by clasping them together or locking them down on an armrest with such force they turn their knuckles white. The hands might be put out of sight in pockets or under a table where they can’t be read. Reduced movement can be seen throughout the body, not just in the hands. The entire body including the head, arms, feet, and torso can seem to lock in place. People that are telling the truth spend a lot of time and energy in efforts to make the facts known which comes across in their body language and gesturing. Truth tellers are happy to spend as much time as necessary to get everything right. They will often add more detail than required and go over it again and again if necessary. Not emphasizing is linked to the freeze response where the mind clams the body shut and reduces movement so as to draw less attention to it. What is important in lie detection is to compare cues from a baseline. That is, if someone suddenly drops emphasis then you know they’ve lost interest in the topic or are lying. In either case, it will have provided useful information to the body language reader.

In writing this passage, I had just reviewed a video (see bottom posted on the web of a baseball game in which a player leaped head-over-feet clear over the catcher as he came to homeplate to score a run. The catcher, stuck in a fear response, failed to tag the runner. Baseball has an interesting tradition where it is customary for the runner to body-check the catcher at homeplate as he tries to tag for an out. While the catcher braced and ducked with his elbow up to make the tag, the runner jumped over the catcher landing on home plate. The catcher stuck with his elbow up in defense could only convince his mind to bring his arm just close enough to miss the tag! Because his mind feared the body check, he wasn’t able to follow through with what he intended. While this is an interesting fear based response what follows is even more interesting since it helps us read liars. The catcher, realizing he failed to get the out, quickly turns to pursue the runner. One must ask why he would track the runner down if he made the tag? Obviously he hadn’t! But more important that this, is that we know that he knows that he didn’t make the tag! This means that any nonverbal language following the lack of tag, should he dispute it, is read as lying language. To state his case, the catcher chats with the umpire by raising his arms showing how he made the tag. What is revealing, however, is that the catcher only slightly raises his arms instead of doing it with emphasis. Instead of showing the gesture over and over again, the catcher just raises his arms once as if to make a casual rainbow motion with his arms. When his coach shows up with arms flaying and talking with enthusiasm, the catcher quietly exits! The catcher knows that he can’t make a case and so doesn’t put any effort into trying. The difference between the coach and the catcher, is that the catcher knows he’s lying, while the coach isn’t sure. Once more, the coach isn’t actually lying anyway, since he wasn’t there to feel the contact or lack thereof of the catchers mitt and the runner, he’s just acting out an inherent bias – he’s playing the role he was hired to do. Lack of commitment is an important cue to watch for when detecting lies so be careful to watch for it.

Nervousness And Guilt In Lying

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"Talking out of the side of the mouth" came about because we feel that liars don't speak to us straight; in plain terms.

“Talking out of the side of the mouth” came about because we feel that liars don’t speak to us straight; in plain terms.

One of the most reported cues of deception includes fear and nervousness. These include higher pitch, faster and louder speech, speech errors or stuttering and indirect speech or talking out of ‘the side of the mouth’ or in worse cases, the liar might even sound unpleasant. We might also see blushing of the face, neck or ears, an increase in blink rate, fidgeting, dilation of the pupils or sweating. In theory, the greater the apprehension of getting caught or the greater the stakes, the more evident these fear cues should be. As an increase in the possibility of punishment or with an increase in the severity of punishment we should also find an increase in nervous body language. The studies tell us that people who lie about something they’ve done wrong, termed a ‘transgression’, the more likely they were to show more deceptive cues presumably because they felt guilt more strongly.

We should also be cognoscente about the motivation of the liar. If they aren’t particularly vested in the lie, they might not show nervousness at all. Someone presenting a ‘white lie’ about who they were with the night previous, or their preference for chocolate versus vanilla ice cream, should be expected to show minimal nervousness. More experienced liars show very little nervousness, because, not only are they practiced at lying, they rarely get caught, so have little to worry about effectively destroying the hypothesis that nervousness specifically increases because of lying. Conversely, poor, but frequent liars, get caught so often that the consequences of their lies fail to bother them, so they also lack nervousness. We should also predict that lies told to close friends or family whom the liar cares for, should make them more susceptible to nervous body language. Here we might in fact see lower pitch, softer and slower speech and a downward gaze as they battle their consciousness. The stick in the spokes of this theory though is that sometimes telling the truth can causes guilt just the same as telling a lie, especially when it is known that the truth might hurt someone. Other times, telling the truth causes even more distress because of the shame of revealing possible shortcomings or mistakes to others. Thus, it’s a pretty safe statement to say that liars don’t always feel guilty about their lies and truth tellers don’t always feel good about their honesty. In fact, many liars justify their lies to prevent distress in other people!

Being unable or unwilling to embrace their lies is what makes lie tellers appear less truthful and convincing. So by this theory we should expect a liar to face more negative emotions when lying which truth tellers don’t face which in turn leads to at least faint feelings of discomfort which then leaks out through the body. However, again we find data to the contrary. It has been noted by researchers that liar can have less vested in their claims primarily because they haven’t actually occurred. This is counter what was presented thus far because instead of appearing more emotional, they may in fact appear less emotional. Lest we forget too that liars can present fearful emotions when they lie due to the chances of getting caught! If you haven’t gotten the point by now, you are starting to. The point is that emotions are intertwined with the fear of getting caught, anguish of lying and telling the truth and a myriad of other factors directly and indirectly related to lying.

As we know, when truth tellers speak, they are backed with an accumulation of knowledge, experience and wisdom from an event, whereas a liar is only acting out of his own imagination. This can provide clues to his deception. Therefore, the liar might offer fewer details, present their story with less emotional investment, provide less evidence to stake their claims, act less compellingly, appear less forthcoming, less pleasant and more tense. It is also important to note the motivation or context of the lie as well, as this will provide us with clues to watch for, be it nervousness, fear of getting caught and the guilt or the shame of either lying or not lying as the case may be.

Lying Is Hard Work?

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Is she constructing a lie or trying to recall the facts?

Is she constructing a lie or trying to recall the facts?

Some researchers argue that deceptive messages requires more mental processing because one needs to create facts instead of simply recalling and describing them. In truth tellers emotion flows effortlessly, but those who are faking it, have to foster theirs and while liars are playing a role, truth tellers are just living. With an increase in pressure, such as one might experience during cross-examination in law proceedings, liars might be faced with an unexpected question catching them off guard. Pathological liars are constantly having to mentally catalog their lies and then entwine them with lies told previously which is confusing. This makes liars who are caught off guard more likely to delay responding and increase pauses as they attempt to create information while simultaneously comparing it to information otherwise presented. They must also compare information to possible information already known to the listener. It has been said that for every one lie originated, two to three other lies must be created to back it up. This can become mentally taxing and is a process not required of truth tellers. While pauses in speech are not definitive cues to deception by itself, since remembering the truth is sometimes difficult as well, pausing, when it is obvious that the answer should be known, can serve to betray a liar.

Thus, we can expect that when someone is caught with difficult questions that they should exhibit more nonverbal leakage and might even ‘appear’ to be thinking harder. Some researchers therefore have linked avoiding eye contact, or looking away to think as a signal of mental processing and lying. However, as we have seen, looking away sometimes helps us recall real to life events so this, in and of itself, is not an indication of lying. Using eye direction was outlined in an earlier section, but it’s important to note that baselining must first be accomplished for this to be anywhere near accurate. Right and left handed persons will look in different direction depending on whether they are creating information or recalling it.

A way liars use to reduce the work to carry out lies is to prepare the details in advance. In this condition we should expect more eye contact, gestures and overall movement because less stress is put on the mind, and so the body should appear more relaxed. When a liar is not afforded the time to prepare to tell a lie their movement should be less fluid and their behaviour should exhibit changes in frequencies especially nervousness. Liars that prepare their lies in advance will have fewer inconsistencies in their stories, but might appear overly rehearsed whereas liars that can’t prepare will seem to be over thinking. Thus when truth telling, there should be an inherent fluidity about the conversation. Other research tells us that liars are less forthcoming than truth tellers and tell less compelling tales. The stories they tell also have fewer ordinary imperfections and unusual contents.