Lying is such a central characteristic of life that better understanding of it is relevant to almost all human affairs — Dr. Paul Ekman ( Telling Lies, Page 23).
In my journey in the field of human engineering, I explored various aspects of this field one of them is lie detection, and while I was learning about this science I came across various myths which people believe are the reliable sign of deception but it is not.
The most common one is, if the person is not looking directly in the eyes of observer then he is lying, as we all usually get this one ” look me in the eyes and tell me”. This is not true, this is the biggest lying myth among all and the reason is, in order to form any sentence or access our memory section, eyes has to roll to some direction for example if the person is right handed, for him to access any visual content he has to look up towards yours right, if something is pretty obvious he may just blink and give you the answer and if something the person is not aware of he may roll his eyes 360 degrees in order to find info about it and that’s how our mind works.
Another is if the person is scratching is forehead, cheeks, or rubbing his nose or if he is covering his mouth, he is lying. Again not true and why, because first of all, we can’t rely on just one indicator there has to be many and this could mean anything, he may be having itchy nose or forehead etc.
People often thinks that if someone is stuttering he is lying, well may be but it could also mean that the person is not able to find the right words to express his thoughts or may be his emotional state is not right.
If someone is smiling or laughing while speaking, he is lying. Not true again because may be he just recalled some funny moment inside his head.
The reason why I wrote this article is : It is better to believe in a lie than disbelieving the truth.
Source : Chirag Singla