# (Lie to Me) Training in spotting Lying **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 8, 2009, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lie-to-me-training-in-spotting-lying/495773 "2009-05-08T18:43:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2009, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lie-to-me-training-in-spotting-lying/495773/1 "2009-05-08T18:43:19Z")
If I wanted to get training to do what Dr. Lightman does in the show ‘Lie to Me’, what would I need to study? ---
**Author:** ![SiXSwordS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/49beb7/32.png) [@SiXSwordS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SiXSwordS)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2009, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lie-to-me-training-in-spotting-lying/495773/2 "2009-05-08T19:04:20Z")
The character is _loosely_ based on [Paul Ekman](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Ekman). > [@](#): > > Ekman found that facial expressions of emotion are not culturally determined, but universal to human culture and thus biological in origin. I guess that would mean that you should study psychology, although there is some anthropolgy in the idea quoted above. Too bad his ideas aren’t better suited to the message board format! ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2009, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lie-to-me-training-in-spotting-lying/495773/3 "2009-05-08T19:17:49Z")
Well I know psychology obviously, but I was wondering if there were a particular specialization I could pursue. ---
**Author:** ![SiXSwordS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/49beb7/32.png) [@SiXSwordS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SiXSwordS)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2009, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lie-to-me-training-in-spotting-lying/495773/4 "2009-05-08T20:03:49Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > Well I know psychology obviously… [sidetrack]Is there something that makes this obvious?[/sidetrack] [size]sorry if I’m missing something[/size] ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2009, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lie-to-me-training-in-spotting-lying/495773/5 "2009-05-08T20:15:23Z")
I think that spotting lying would obviously be something that falls under the purview of psychology. I dunno, it seems obvious to me. ---
**Author:** ![Maastricht](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a88e57/32.png) [@Maastricht](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maastricht)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2009, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lie-to-me-training-in-spotting-lying/495773/6 "2009-05-08T20:16:04Z")
There’s a [book](http://www.amazon.com/Never-Lied-Again-Conversation-Situation/dp/0312186347/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1241813726&sr=1-2) for everything. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2009, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lie-to-me-training-in-spotting-lying/495773/7 "2009-05-08T21:10:17Z")
It’s mostly based on microexpressions. Warning: you can’t unlearn this. Once you know how to spot them it will affect all your relationships. Ask yourself, do I really want to live in a world of total honesty? Because it’s not pretty, really. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2rb7pAP7hk](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2rb7pAP7hk) [http://www.mettonline.com/](http://www.mettonline.com/) [http://www.eyesforlies.blogspot.com/2005/03/micro-expressions-test-yourself.html](http://www.eyesforlies.blogspot.com/2005/03/micro-expressions-test-yourself.html) ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2009, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lie-to-me-training-in-spotting-lying/495773/8 "2009-05-08T21:32:48Z")
**TruCelt** I already live in that world to a degree. I am very good at spotting a lie, and I can read microexpressions, so it wouldn’t be a matter of learning something new as it would be refining my already existing talent. I have already come to peace with the fact that people are lying constantly. Certainly I might learn more and see more lies, but it would be a matter of degree and not of kind for me. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2009, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lie-to-me-training-in-spotting-lying/495773/9 "2009-05-08T21:39:39Z")
> [@TruCelt](#): > > It’s mostly based on microexpressions. Warning: you can’t unlearn this. Once you know how to spot them it will affect all your relationships. Ask yourself, do I really want to live in a world of total honesty? Because it’s not pretty, really. > > [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2rb7pAP7hk](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2rb7pAP7hk) This one is hard to watch because they reveal it immediately without giving a chance to spot it. So I got disctracted by the subtitle. It was interesting though, I definitely saw what they were pointing out. > [@](#): > > [http://www.mettonline.com/](http://www.mettonline.com/) Thanks for this link. > [@](#): > > [http://www.eyesforlies.blogspot.com/2005/03/micro-expressions-test-yourself.html](http://www.eyesforlies.blogspot.com/2005/03/micro-expressions-test-yourself.html) Cool blog. ---
**Author:** ![Cagey\_Drifter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@Cagey\_Drifter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cagey_Drifter)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2009, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lie-to-me-training-in-spotting-lying/495773/10 "2009-05-08T22:15:03Z")
Paul Ekman also runs courses if you want to learn. Check his website. ---
**Author:** ![Lakai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9de0a6/32.png) [@Lakai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lakai)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2009, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lie-to-me-training-in-spotting-lying/495773/11 "2009-05-08T22:48:32Z")
Catching a lie is a lot harder than the show makes it look. To be clear, this post is about catching a liar just by listening to them. Catching a liar by investing them is a lot easier. What you need to do in order to catch a liar like Lightman is to spot nonverbal signs of deception. This skill includes being able to spot micro-expressions, but isn’t limited to it. Micro-expressions are brief (a fraction of a second), involuntary expressions of what you are really feeling. They are useful because you supposedly have no control over them and they reveal what you are really feeling despite your efforts to hide it. In addition to reading micro-expressions you also have to be able to read normal expressions. You have to know that nervous people can be nervous because they are hiding something and because you have accused them of something they did not do. This is all part a being able to spot nonverbal signs of deception. The people that can do it at a rate that is higher than 50% are very rare. One [study]([http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6249749/?GT1=5472\](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6249749/?GT1=5472%5C)) that tested how well people detected liars found that out of 13,000 subjects, only around 30 were experts. Experts meaning that they could achieve a rate of around 80% accuracy. The person that writes the Eyes for Lies Blog is one of those very few experts. Here is an in depth [article](http://www.gladwell.com/2002/2002_08_05_a_face.htm) about a few more human lie detectors. Here is a [post](http://eyesforlies.blogspot.com/2008/12/improving-your-detection-skills.html) from the Eyes for Lies blog describing how she detects lies. It appears that what these human lie detectors know how to do is read people’s emotions. They can look at a person’s expressions and know what they are thinking. They figure this out by observing people over the course of their life time. Here is how Eyes for Lies describes it: > [@](#): > > Understanding human behavior is where my strongest talent is, even today. Deception detection is just a sub-skill of that. > > All my life, I loved to ask people “What are you thinking?”, “How are you feeling?”, “Why do you feel that way?” to the point I drove my friends when I was younger INSANE. I always wanted to know the who, what, why, where, and when [sometimes the how]. I just had to know. I was beyond curious! Even when we made up after an argument, I had to understand why they felt and acted the way they did, even if they were right. Of course, being a child in this quest for knowledge made it easier to be so nosy. > > On the first day at my new job as a “professional” after graduating from university, the woman who was assigned to show me the ropes stopped me in the middle of my introduction to some equipment and said, “What is this 20 questions?” in a very exasperated tone. > > Mind you, the 20 questions were not about the equipment before us, the company or my job, they were about her, personally. > > Yes, that’s right, no one was exempt from my desire to be understood. There was never a predicament that I found myself in where I didn’t seek to understand the other side. I wanted to walk in their shoes, if only for a second. I wanted to understand them, to the core. If you read the other article posted above you’ll notice that the other two lie detectors possess the very same drive and curiosity. They intensely want know what people are thinking at all times and they love observing people’s behavior. If you do this for fun for long periods of time what starts to happen is that you’ll notice behaviors that match prople’s thoughts. You’ll be able to see an expression you’ve seen a hundred times before and know exactly what is causing it. Because the last hundred times you’ve seen the expression you’ve asked people why they were making it. If you haven’t spent a life time doing this, then you’re screwed. Some people say the ability to detect nonverbal signs of lying can’t be learned, that you can only be born with it. I disagree. I think it is possible, but extremely difficult. A person needs to get to know people very personally over and over again. No one will do this unless they naturally enjoy it. That’s why some people mistake this for only a natural talent. The point remains that it is very hard to detect nonverbal signs of lying. Here is only one [article](http://www.truthaboutdeception.com/detecting_deceit/public/nonverbal_cues.html) describing why. Remember that reading emotions only give you clues. You have to be able to connect the dots yourself. There is no universal emotion or signal for lying. Just signals that tell you the story doesn’t add up. So if you want to be like Dr. Lightman or the very few Truth Wizards out there, start obsessing about human behavior. Once you’ve developed your understanding of people, beef that up with the latest psychological research on truth deception and you’re golden. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2009, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lie-to-me-training-in-spotting-lying/495773/12 "2009-05-21T14:05:22Z")
> [@Lakai](#): > > Remember that reading emotions only give you clues. You have to be able to connect the dots yourself. There is no universal emotion or signal for lying. Just signals that tell you the story doesn’t add up. Yeah, I think the biggest misconception is that it will somehow give you the answer as to what the truth is. No, it doesn’t make you psychic. You will simply develop the joy of wandering through life knowing when you are being lied to, and wondering what the truth really was. ---
**Author:** ![SiXSwordS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/49beb7/32.png) [@SiXSwordS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SiXSwordS)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2009, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lie-to-me-training-in-spotting-lying/495773/13 "2009-05-21T18:28:52Z")
> [@TruCelt](#): > > You will simply develop the joy of wandering through life knowing when you are being lied to, and wondering what the truth really was. Sometimes, people believe the lies they tell and then you don’t really notice that they are lying. Other times, they act agitated or twitchy when they are telling the truth. We tend to feel superior if we catch someone else in a lie (or if we get away with telling one), so we think others are lying when they aren’t. I tend to worry most about the lies that are told with a certain emphasis that makes it clear that the liar _wants_ the lie to be true. ---
**Author:** ![Jormungandr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a6a055/32.png) [@Jormungandr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jormungandr)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2009, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lie-to-me-training-in-spotting-lying/495773/14 "2009-05-21T20:59:03Z")
I remember former FBI agent John Douglas saying something similar to Lakai’s statement. A criminal Douglas interviewed claimed he could fool people into think he had a mental illness and other claims (I think it was in his first book, “Mindhunter” Correct me if I’m wrong). The only thing that Douglas found that could trip up the man was to bring up the man’s father, a dead veteran, who he respected. One wouldn’t know that without research.