Exercise

FIND OUT IF HE’S TELLING THE TRUTH.

According to Gary Pearlman, author of the article “How to Spot a Liar”, there are concrete ways to find out if your guy is telling the truth. Pay attention to these cues:

Liars tend to move their arms, hands, and fingers less and blink less than people telling the truth do. Liars usually do not use their hands much, and they often fold their arms together in front of them or position items such as books, cups, or other things between themselves and the person asking the questions.

Liars’ voices can become more tense or high-pitched. The extra effort needed to remember what they’ve already said and to keep their stories consistent may cause liars to restrain their movements and fill their speech with pauses. People shading the truth tend to make fewer speech errors than truth tellers do, and they rarely backtrack to fill in forgotten or incorrect details. .

People who lie tend to favor bold facts. Liars tend to string together very simple actions and avoid details.

Sadness is very hard to fake. When someone is genuinely sad, the forehead wrinkles with grief and the inner corners of the eyebrows are pulled up. By contrast, the lowering of the eyebrows associated with an angry scowl can be faked by almost everybody. If someone says they are sad and the inner corners of their eyebrows don’t go up, they are likely faking it.

People who are uncomfortable or lying often repeat the question you ask them.

When we smile genuinely we move more than just our mouth, the orbicularis oculi, the muscle around the eye that gives us “crow’s-feet,” also moves. Liars tend to just move their mouths. It takes only two muscles, the zygomaticus major muscles that extend from the cheekbones to the corners of the lips to produce a grin.

Liars may also feel fear and guilt or delight at fooling people. Such emotions can trigger a change in facial expression so brief that most observers never notice. These split-second “micro-expressions” are emotional clues as important as gestures, voice, and speech patterns in uncovering deceitfulness.

A liar’s speech pattern changes. Liars may mispronounce words, mumble, and take longer pauses between a question and a response than honest people. This happens because the liar is not sure where they’re going with the lie or might be having trouble following through with the lie.

Looking down while talking may indicate someone is embarrassed or does not know, looking to their right (your left) would indicate that they are constructing or making something up.