There are reliable ways to tell if someone is lying to you – but they’re rarely the ones we think of using
We are in dangerous territory as courts encourage jurors to discern untruth from body language. In fact, the words are far more revealing
TL;DR
- A 1994 English jury consulted a Ouija board to determine a defendant's guilt, highlighting the absurdity of relying on non-evidence-based methods.
- Judicial directions in Scotland and England advise jurors to consider witnesses' body language and demeanor, which is scientifically untrustworthy.
- Commonly believed body language cues for deception, such as lack of eye contact, eye direction, mouth covering, and nose scratching, lack scientific basis.
- Facial-feature bias, where attractive defendants receive lighter sentences, shows influence of appearance over factual evidence.
- Lying is a cognitively challenging linguistic act, and liars have less control over word selection, grammar, length, and style.
- Linguistic cues to deception include self-correction (e.g., "I ... we thought") and a lack of sensory-perceptual details in fabricated narratives.
- The context and goals of a speaker are crucial in determining truthfulness, and courts should prioritize linguistic analysis over demeanor assessments.