How to Tell if Someone is Lying With Basic Lie Detection for Eyes, Body Language, Voice

Wondering how to tell if someone is lying? Lie detection is fairly easy if you know what signs to look for in a suspected liar. You can identify a liar by the movement of the eyes if lying is present, for instance. Recognizing the signs of lying takes a bit of practice, but once you've mastered these lie detection methods, life will be much easier.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Suspected Liar
• Notebook
• Pen

1. Write down the details of the suspected lie and then compare future mention of the suspected lie to the written record. You can tell if someone is lying by watching for changes in their story. The truth never changes, but the lie will evolve.

2. Watch the liar's eye movement to see if the eyes move up and to the left. Studies on liar eye movement have revealed that eye movement when lying usually involves looking to the up and to the left.

3. Look for excessive blinking when lying. Excessive blinking is common in a liar, as it is a common response to stress. Lying produces a degree of stress.

4. Watch for unusual eye contact when lying. Poor eye contact (by avoiding eye contact) is a common symptom of lying, especially in children. Many adults make prolonged eye contact when lying because they know that poor eye contact is a symptom of lying, so they'll try to deceive by maintaining intense eye contact when telling a lie.

5. Look for changes in speech patterns like stuttering, speaking slower than usual or speaking faster than usual. Speech patterns when lying tend to change from the person's normal pattern as a result of the stress associated with telling a lie.

6. Listen to the suspected liar's answers and look for your own wording. Studies reveal that a liar will often repeat the wording of the question. So if you asked, "Did you clean your room?" the liar will respond with "Yes, I cleaned my room," instead of a simple "Yes," or "Yes, I cleaned it."

7. Monitor for very detailed stories and pay attention to detail in the lies. You can identify a liar by an overly detailed story or an answer that's too detailed. A liar will try to convince you of his lie and on a subconscious level, he tries to convince you by being very detailed when telling a lie. This makes it easy to spot a liar because the details of the story will usually evolve with time (see step one).

8. Look for exaggerated hand movements and gestures or gesturing when no gestures have been used throughout the rest of the conversation. You can tell if someone is lying by looking at the gestures because subconsciously, the liar is trying to convince you of their lie and using hand gestures when lying is a subconscious effort to convince you of the lie.

9. Watch for implied answers if you suspect a liar. A liar will often lie by implying an answer, rather than telling an "outright" lie. So, if asked "Did you clean your room?" the liar may say, "What do you think?" or "I did some cleaning today," when in reality, he may have cleaned his car, not his room.

Tips & Warnings

• It's easier to tell if someone's lying when you know the person's baseline – how they appear normally, when they're telling the truth.
• Trust your instinct if you're trying to identify a liar. Many symptoms of lying are subtle – so subtle, you may not notice the signs of lying consciously. But your subconscious lie detector is always working, so trust your gut feeling if you're trying to tell if someone is lying.

Resources

• General Lie Detection and How to Tell if Someone's Lying
• Liar Eye Movements