Surname 1

Communication Essay

Student’s Name

Instructor’s Name

Course

Date
 Surname 2

Truth cues and non-verbal indicators of deception: Pamela Meyer's TED Talk Video on

how to spot a liar?

Introduction

Nobody wants to be fooled, but as Pamela Myer asserts, more than often people become

susceptible to deceit. Essentially, a liar is an individual who deliberately misrepresents the truth.

Generally, deception is motivated by different factors, for instance, as a defense mechanism of

avoiding trouble or even protecting a person from the hurtful truth. Regardless of the motive, it

still remains a lie. Sometimes it is easy to tell when someone is lying while other times it is

increasingly hard to distinguish a lie from the truth. Learning and mastering the basics of

spotting a lie is vitally important for people interested in distinguishing the truth from the lies

that individuals tell. Lie sporting approaches and techniques are useful in the modern age as

majority of interactions comprise of deceiving information. Truth cues and non-verbal indicators

of deception are crucially important in detecting if a person is lying.

Truth cues provide essential indicators of the truthfulness or the deceptive nature of an

individual. Myer argues that a good lie spotter can easily tell if a person is telling the truth or not

through identifying truth cues in their speech and body language. Details help spot these cues, in

that the provided details are easily are highly detailed and easily verifiable. A deceptive person

provides scanty details and is never keen to details. Myer uses the police detectives approach on

regularly asking suspects to recount events inversely to exemplify that a lying person cannot

effectively give verifiable information because their information is incorrect thus are often

inconsistent (Meyer, 2011). Truthful individuals are often relaxed and their composure is

evidenced through smiling regularly. Similarly, a person telling the truth is involved extensively

in a conversation, unlike a lying person who avoids conversations as they do not have the basic
 Surname 3

facts of supporting a fruitful dialogue, preferring to talk only when questions are posed to them.

Additionally, the speech of an individual speaking the truth follows a logical structure, with

conciseness and chronological flow of information. However, Meyer warns that people who are

overdetermined in their denial are often lying, in what she refers to as non-contracted denial.

Similarly, some wording and terminologies when used in particular contexts are useful in

spotting lack of truth in a person. Terminologies such as ‘in truth’ and ‘honestly’ are regularly

used by liars in their bids to exonerate themselves from their lies.

Truth cues are integral in establishing whether a communication is honest or deceptive.

Trust is highly useful in settings with a predomination of honesty and where the cost of being

deceived is not harmful. However, the vast majority of the human communication scenarios are

characterized by circumstances where deception is more probable than trust. Meyer notes that in

almost every setting, from marriage, at workplace and even in the world news, an individual is

most likely to come across deception (Meyer, 2011). On this note, keenness to the identified

truth cues is vital in detecting lies, enhancing a person’s chances of not being duped

Non-verbal communication is a frequently used form of passing on information by

everyone. Typically, people are accustomed to everyday use of nonverbal communication

primarily because it not an artificially acquired technique. It is noteworthy that contrary to the

general assumption, non-verbal communication is not simply sign language, but rather a more

comprehensive mode of expression. According to Pamela, to become effective in lie spotting, it

is vital to understand that people engage in various forms of non-verbal behavior. In the same

vein, Vrij (2008) posit that the emotional reactions, cognitive effort as well as attempted

behavioral control factors influence non-behavioral cues to deception 38. In this regard the body
 Surname 4

react to a lie, making it possible to use the non-verbal communication as an indication that a

person is lying.

While speaking candidly about ‘how to spot a liar’ Pamela Myer, provides crucial

insights on using nonverbal communication in sporting if a person is lying. She thus emphasizes

on the need of paying close attention to a person’s body language as a way of detecting if they

are lying. In so doing, she provides a number of tips of identifying a lying person. For instance, a

lying person does not make a direct eye contact and if they do so, the contact is too long, wary

that they may be found out. Such a person is a nervous of what their eyes reveal and thus

completely avoids direct eye contact or strive to force a non-existent contact. In most cases

people like to smile as a way of conveying honesty and sincerity. On the flipside, some liars

smile to disguise their deceit. Pamela advises that fake smiles are relatively easy to point out,

primarily because a person can consciously contract the muscles of the cheeks, but the eye

muscles cannot be consciously contracted. As such a con control the shaping of their mouth but

they cannot smile with their eyes, thus evident that they are lying

Pamela identifies fidgeting as one of the commonest ways of spotting a liar. A lying

individual normally finds something to do with their hands such as frequently adjusting their

clothing, touching their noses, fidgeting with their hair or even squirming in their seats. Lying is

generally uncomfortable and such kind of mental discomfort leads liars to addressing small

physical annoyances with increased frequency. On the same note, Vrij (2008) adds that guilt,

fear and excitement significantly the behavior of a liar differently. For instance, guilt could lead

to gaze aversion in moments of barefaced lie. Additionally, fear arousal leads to physiological

arousal leading to increased cues such as eye blinks, speech hesitations and errors.
 Surname 5

Notably, some non-verbal communication behaviors are strongly linked to emotions or

high stress. In this regard, Vrij (2008), validates Meyer’s claims by providing that it becomes

relatively hard controlling non-verbal indicators. Anger for instance, leads to different cues such

as the narrowing of the lips. Majority of the people cannot voluntarily narrow their lips, but do so

automatically when angered. Such a reaction can hardly be controlled, hence can indicate

deception when a person tries to hide a feeling of that kind. Vrij (2008) also adds that people

cannot be non-verbally silent. It is noteworthy to mention that on a more general way; people a

are unaware of their behaviors in ordinary daily circumstances, as we hardly see ourselves unless

through the mirror, hence are mostly unaware of personal non-verbal communication responses.

Secondly people exchange information primarily through words, hence more focus is put on

speech outcomes and not on the verbal cues.

Pamela Meyer is a revered certified fraud examiner whose well-rehearsed presentation

compliments academic and scholarly works on lie detecting in regards to proven techniques of

detecting deception. The essay has extensively outlined key areas that her presentation

compliments vital learning areas. On the other side of the spectrum, there are some parts of the

speech that seem mythical. For instance, in her presentation, she claims that on any particular

day, a person is lied to between 10 to 200 times, with the clues of identifying such claims being

unreasonable and inconspicuous. Whilst I enjoyed her presentation I found such a claim mythical

because it is relatively hard to understand the yardstick used for substantiating such specific

figures. Additionally, through the use of comparison and contrast of different scenarios, Meyer

argues that all lies can be spotted. Detecting deception is practically possible and different

indicators of deception exist, detecting every lie is a myth, as I believe no human has been
 Surname 6

scientifically proven to detect all lies. On the other hand, a vast majority of her presentation

seems in tandem with the class learning.

Conclusion

Truth cues and non-verbal indicators of deception are integral in detecting if an

individual is lying. Essentially deception prevalence is not a new phenomenon as it has existed in

the society for years, and it continues to prevail in various settings. Over the years’ people have

sought ways of detecting lying, though no one particular approach that has been deemed as 100%

effective. Pamela Meyer delves into this deception issue, providing vitally important clues and

insights in dealing with deception by learning how to spot a liar. Truth cues and non-verbal

indicators of deception are some of the issues that Meyer passionately talks about, positioning

one into a good lie spotter. It is essential that people embrace the truth cues and non-verbal

communication in detecting deception, to help transform the society into a truthful world,

characterized by trust and honesty

References

Meyer, P. (2011). How to spot a liar?

Vrij, A. (2008). Detecting lies and deceit: Pitfalls and opportunities. John Wiley & Sons.