Nonverbal

Communicatio
n - Deception • Fall 2022

Fall 2023
Turana A. Aliyeva,
MA, MSW, PhD
Lying Behavior

Can you tell from people's

nonverbals whether people are
lying?

People think that they’re good at

it.
People have their own theories about how liars behave:

Maybe people look up and to the

left when they are about to lie?

Maybe they fidget more?

Maybe they pause before they start

speaking?
 Researchers have their own theories
Theories about deception:

about liars Emotional approach, proposed

by Paul Ekman (1985)

Burgoon and colleagues

proposed cognitive approach
(Burgoon et al., 1989)

DePaulo’s attempted control

approach (DePaulo, 1992)
The This perspective suggests being deceptive
causes certain
high blood physiological reactions such as:
pressure
emotional and
increased heart rate.
approach
(Paul
Ekman, These reactions are the result of
1985) heightened arousal associated with
guilt, fear or perhaps excitement.

It is also this arousal which is thought to

affect nonverbal behaviour.
Burgoon et al., 1989

Being deceptive is a There is a reduction in

cognitively complex the overall amount of
task – due to cognitive movement, slower
load body language speech, and more
gets neglected. pauses in speech.
DePaulo’s attempted control approach or
self-presentation perspective (1992)

Deceivers will try to control their behaviour and

their behaviour appears more rigid and inhibited.

Hesitation is taking place.

These three approaches all predict that different,

and sometimes contradictory, behaviours are
markers of deception.
 Emotional & Attempted
Emotional cognitive control

Speech Movement &

Movements
disturbances speech
Lying behavior

Gaze, smiling, shifting position

are not really reliable
indicators of deception
 Voice pitch – is a
reliable indicator
of deception.

Lying It tends to go up
behavior when people are
lying

It is difficult to
control voice
 Bond and DePaulo reported an
average lie-detection accuracy
for regular people of 54%

Now it's not just regular people

though (people who work in
Lie law enforcement, such as police
officers and customs officials,
detection also perform at chance levels
(as shown in research by Kraut
& Poe, 1980)

Exceptions: secret service

agents and some members of
the intelligence community
WHY?
• Part of the reason for this is because
people think a bunch of things are
associated with deception

Body Speech
movements disturbances

Voice Speech
pitch latencies

Gaze
aversion
Rate how good you think you
are at telling when someone is
lying to you

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Questions
1. What is your favorite music
group/musician?

2. Tell us something about your religious

beliefs

3. What is one of the worst movies you’ve ever

seen?
If you were correct above in
detecting the truth or the lie,
what were you paying attention
to? If you were incorrect, why do
you think you made a mistake?
 Now you’ve participated in the activity
and made your judgments, rate yourself
again on how good you think you are at
telling when someone is lying to you

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
 • Establish a baseline

• Look for clusters that

include both
differences in baseline
Lie behaviors as well as
common lying
detection indicators.

• If there is an indication
you are being lied to,
dig deeper for the
truth.
 A baseline is a snapshot of how
the person behaves and sounds
in a normal situation when they
are under no stress and have no
reason to lie

Ask the person some questions

The they have no reason to lie
about, like the weather, a
baseline recent movie or sporting event
they may have seen

Then you start to pay attention

how they normally look, talk,
and the words they use when
they are not lying. Start with a
physical baseline.
 The areas to look
at are:
The The face
The head
Physical The torso
Baseline The arms and hands
The legs and feet
 • During audio baseline
make note of how they
sound and the words used
during a normal non-
stressful conversation:

The Audio • tone,

Baseline • volume,
• word choice,
• speech patterns, umm
and ahhs, and anything
else that seems
unusual.
 To do the emotional
baseline ask the person
questions like you did in
step one, but this time
you ask questions that
Emotional you know will either get
the person excited or
baseline upset so you can get a
physical and audio
baseline when they are
in a more emotional
state.
 Emotions on face & spoken
words don’t match.
Nodding yes when saying no, or
vice versa.
Touching the nose or mouth.
Grooming or other self-soothing
Spotting behaviors.
Asymmetrical movements like
Differences the single shoulder shrug.
Blocking or distancing behavior.
and lying Especially touching the ears or
mouth when speaking.
cues Long pauses or inclusions of
umms or ahhs when speaking.
Saying things like “To tell you the
truth”.
They seem to be thinking a lot
harder than they should.
 To dig deeper ask
open ended questions
(what did you mean
when you said…?, or I
would like to hear
more about…)
Dig
deeper If you are discussing a
story with a timeline
ask them questions
that don’t allow them
to begin at the
beginning.
 The three F’s of
Biological nonverbals
basis for
nonverbal - Freeze
behavior - Flight
- Fight
 The most
“honest” part of
our body Feet
Comfort/discomfort & pacifiers
Direction of feet
Feet
QUESTIONS,
QUESTIONS, QUESTIONS
Assigned Readings

Required: class lecture