A study can “show” this if it appears in, say, 55% of a large population tested. And if a study did show this, it wouldn’t mean much in real life. That being said, I’d need to see a good study before attaching even academic credence to the idea. It sounds plausible, but probably not a big enough difference to make any conclusions in real life.
I do something odd when communicating. I tend to look people directly in the eye when having a conversation, until they are someone who I know well and am very comfortable with, in which case I will talk whilst doing other things.
However - if I feel threatened and am about to go into “fight or flight” response, I will start looking away and/or down. I guess maybe I’m looking either for a weapon to bash your skull in, or the nearest exit. 
Yes it works, the left vs right could be flipped, and some questions should be asked to establish which way is reaclling thought and imagining thing. Also any one Visual (looking up), audio(looking sideways) and feeling (looking down) could be fliped.
When I say flipped I mean if for most people up and left = X, then some people might be consistantly up and right = X. It is consisistant in a person.
A very interesting one to watch was B. Clinton, if you have the privlage to watch any of his speaches you can easily tell when he lied watching his eyes (hint he lied more then he told the truth)
I can’t find anything to back this up. It’s a little dangerous to decide someone’s lying based soley on which direction their eyes are looking. If you believe a person is truthful because they look you in the eye, you’re asking for trouble, imo.
Ever heard of a guy named Charles Manson?
Oh, for pity’s sake, people, use your critical thinking skills for a minute. If it were actually the case that truth could be distinguished from falsehood, up to and including the statements of a highly polished professional speaker like Bill Clinton *(didn’t notice manhattan’s sticky note at the top of the forum, there, k-bird?)[/size], then virtually every aspect of existence, from criminal justice to contract negotiation, would be completely revolutionized. Got a suspect in a case? No need to put him in a room with a one-way mirror and sweat out a confession. Just videotape the interview, repeat the questions a few different ways, and show him the tape later, demonstrating the authorities’ awareness of which statements were untrue. Trying to decide who to vote on? The networks would simply analyze the candidates’ appearances, publishing a comparative graph of eye movements shortly after each speech and debate.
Look, we all want to believe we have a leg up on our competition. We all want to think we know something everybody else doesn’t know. It’s what keeps the Holocaust deniers and Moon-Hoax proponents in business; their audience wants to feel superior to the general population about being aware of something the average Joe isn’t.
The fact that “eye movement analysis” hasn’t infiltrated all aspects of society is enough to prove, as far as I’m concerned, that this supposed factoid deserves as much respect as dowsing and spoon-bending.
Funnily enough I was watching a program tonight about the SAS and counter-interrogation techniques. One of the first things that the british army counter-interrogation trainer mentioned was about people lying looking to the left and people being honest looking to the right. He actually mentioned six different directions you can look (top L, top r, bottom l, bottom r, straight left and right) and the different meanings for each. Not an absolutely solid gold cite but I reckon there must be something to it.
Dowsing and spoon-bending? Hmmm… I wonder what Randi and his cohorts’ opinion on this and other forms of body language is.
a little sidenote…Our family has a running joke about my son’s ears when he lies, they unfailingly turn bright red. It is nearly foolproof thus far… It would be more logical to think that one’s behaviors when lying, depend on the individual and there may be a majority of deceptive behaviors but IMO, no absolute where this is concerned.
Therefore, I would have to agree with CERVAISE, if this were a SOLID form of detecting truth or dishonesty, it would be much more widely used in all aspects of today’s world…and it is not. The fact that you could very well avoid looking that way whilst lying, and look the appropriate honest direction instead, corrupts the theory entirely. I do wonder if lie detectors observe eye direction during their interviews/tests though???
Cervaise I 1st learned about this method in truth detection from one of one of Tom Hartmans books which deals with NLP (a method of reprograming a person, commonly used by salespersons). Tom Hartman, who has an internet radio show weekdays 1-3 est, mentioned the BIll Clinton eye movement example, and T. Hartman is a flaiming liberal. After hearing about Bill, I saw some of the tapes involving 'I did not have sex with that…" and so on. The pattern is obviouse.
I’ve read a bit about it and it’s not something cut and dry/all or nothing. It certainly isn’t something that should be used for testimony but it can give an interrogator some decent clues. The general principle is that if someone is looking up and to the right they are accessing visual memory while if they look up and to the left they are constructing a visual memory. Try it yourself - Try to picture an object that you know like your car or something - Do you find it easier to access that image when you look up/right or up/left? Of course you have to try it while actually visualizing the object, not when your evaluating whether it worked or not (not as easy as it sounds). Auditory memory is accessed while looking to the right or left with no vertical element and kinethetic “memory” is associated with looking down.
Interesting.
Here in Vegas, land of the Probationary release, I was let go from two different jobs, one after only a month, the other just prior to the point where I would have become eligible for insurance. In both cases, when the firing manager told “you’re not meeting the standards of service” (the standard line), they looked off to their right, but it wasn’t just an eye thing. They both turned their heads and looked away from me. In the first case I was the only female craps dealer on the shift in a casino that was known for not liking women craps dealers, in the second, I had learned that replaced another dealer who had been fired just shy of his nintieth day, as had the dealer he replaced… when I asked for specifics, the first manager, again looking away from me, said “there have been complaints”. When I contacted H.R., the complaints were either completely false or of a trivial nature, nothing more than the normal kidding around that co-workers engage in, blown out of proportion to create an excuse for getting rid of me. In the second, the manager looked away from me and mumbled “dealing ability and customer service.” In point of fact, I dealt the game better than half the people in the joint, many of whom had been there for more years than I had been dealing, and most of them didn’t even make pretense of giving service.
I really don"t see how turning the eyes in a particular direction would be a sign that someone was lying, but if someone who is not a highly skilled liar flat out looks away from you when he tells you something, chances are what they’re telling you is not the truth.
I searched Randi’s (the magician) site, but I didn’t find about this subject. Funny though, he does seem to believe in body language. It’s mentioned in the intro to a couple of his articles. He also mentions “facial expressions”.
I didn’t read any of them. Too lazy, I guess. (They bore the hell outta me.)
Also, next time a cop interrogates you, watch his/her eyes. They (cops) lie.
err, that’s kinesthetic.
To add, there is a reason why untrustworthy people are called “shifty-eyed” and I think it’s more than just avoiding eye-contact. Try this: Do an impression of a shifty-eyed person saying “Uhhhhhhhh” while figuring out what to say. I just tried this with my whole family and they all looked left though one looked left then right. A family doesn’t a sample make but it’s kind of food for thought.
Huh. I was just trying it on myself, and when I’m intentionally watching over myself, I don’t move my eyes at all - to fabricate or remember things.
In fact, I’m fairly sure - at least for me - that looking up in either direction is social conditioning. I don’t seem to do it naturally.
Remembering something obscure, or something that people don’t expect you to immeadiately remember, right away, can make people uncomfortable. I developed a habit of saying “ummmm…” and looking up to the left or right in such an instance - people seem to feel a lot more comfortable when you appear stupid.
Generally, as far as body language goes, as far as I can tell, looking off up and left or up and right can be a sign of thinking - how much is social conditioning and how much is physiology I’m not sure.
Well, isn’t that spiffy. Real science doesn’t seem to agree with you. All I ask for is a few simple peer-reviewed papers in reputable journals. No silly little anecdotes, no “I heard dat itz da troof, hyuk hyuk hyuk.”, no “I seen it on TeeVee so itz gotta be troo, hyuk hyuk hyuk.”
I want to see the real science.
I just went digging through Medline, myself, and found nothing to back up these contentions. So show me the real science.
I really think that there are no hard and fast rules for being able to tell if a person is lying.
I’ve read a couple of books on the subject, and some of the things that were cited as indications that a person is lying were things that I do when I’m telling the truth. Stuff like, if a person needs a few moments to think of the answer to a question, he/she is lying, because a truthful person would have the answer on the tip of their tongue. I have a slower mental processing speed than most folks, and it just takes me a bit longer to search my mental files for factual information than your average Josefina, but someone who had read The Book would naturally assume I’m lying.
Also, supposedly if someone gets really defensive, or if they “overexplain” when the questioner falls silent to see what the questionee will say, it’s a sign that the questionee is lying.
Nope. It’s a sign that the questionee was raised in a household where he/she was blamed for everything bad that happened, and was constantly being falsely accused of a wide assortment of misdeeds. Having parents who are constantly making accusations can cause a person to instinctively become defensive even if they’ve done nothing wrong. I know this because I was raised in such a household, and to this day, anytime I hear the words, “The boss wants to talk to you,” I assume I’m in for an ass-chewing and prepare to defend/explain any and all of my actions dating back to 1943, and I’m only thirty-six years old.