Training Your Eyes To Assess and See Sub-Conscious Movements!
Elangovan, February 7, 2019
Lying has become as much of a habit to us as breathing is. While breathing is involuntary, we are often made to lie, either to avoid trouble, to maintain relationships, or even to make ourselves seem far superior than we are.
Deception comes with ease to some, and not so much for others. Being able to tell a liar from someone who is being honest has, therefore, become somewhat of a life skill. Even more so in the field of law enforcement.
Can you train yourself to spot a liar, though, and read body language so that you can distinguish fact from fiction?
Simply, yes!
Five Categories of Body Language!
John C. Bowden along with Michael E. Lane penned the book Interview to Confession, The Art of the Gentle Interrogation, and in it, they make five references for human behavior. They are:
- Truth
- Deception
- Positive Behavior
- Negative Behavior, and
- Indicator Behavior
Bowden in particular noticed a serious discrepancy in the classes taught on the subject of body language. Law enforcement agencies spent eight hours discussing the subject in class, and then spent the rest of the time watching interrogations and interviews on video.
Students were then expected to apply all this information to real-world situations.
The training on the subject was therefore deemed inadequate, because, according to Bowden, it was too much information to process in a very short space of time.
How can you use the five categories above to train your eyes to make assessments on behavior, then?
Truth and Deception
These first categories seem to obviously refer to whether or not a person is being truthful. You would expect, under normal circumstances that a person who is telling the truth will display little to no change in their behavior. It is not the case with liars, in most cases.
A deceptive person will often be visibly agitated. Sweaty brow and palms, and shuffling from foot to foot. It could also be, though, that a person has a naturally nervous disposition, and therefore these indicators are not very reliable.
Why?
Observing behavior based on these two categories only works if the subject is invested in the question, and if the subject under discussion causes them a measure of discomfort. If not, then this technique is redundant.
Positive and Negative Behavior
Observing Positive or Negative behavior, the next two categories, is more accurate. This is because, unlike the first two categories which depend largely on how one feels about the set of questions, these two categories look at whether the responded likes or doesn’t like the matter being discussed as a whole.
Put simply, when truthful behavior is exhibited to a negative concept, this is deceptive!
What do we mean?
Say, for example, that you were questioning a subject on the theft of a large sum of money at their place of employment. As opposed to asking the obvious questions of who stole the money, or was it you, you make the suggestion that it was an administrative mistake and that the money should come up sooner or later.
It becomes a question of how you frame the question, disarming the respondent and better gauging their responses.
If the respondent’s behavior indicates that they like the idea, this is considered truthful behavior.
Note this, though: the person is responding only to the idea that the money was not stolen, indicating deception.
Indicator Behavior
We use Indicator Behavior to determine the appropriate CBR or Coordinated Behavior Response. Seeing what stage the subject is at allows you to align your own behavior accordingly!
There are five tells when it comes to knowing if a person is being truthful. It is critical, especially in Law Enforcement, that you train yourself to spot these. Here is a breakdown of these, and should help you spot a liar.
Five Categories for Spotting a Liar
How They Answer: Harsh or soft responses? Is suspicion focused or spread? Does the respondent include or omit himself from suspicion? Are the answers direct or evasive?
Behavior: Observing the physical behavior of a subject is important. Spotting deceptive behavioral patterns, key. Isolating behaviors that are directly in response to the question, and that result from the asking of said question is pivotal. Behavior between questions could just be a person’s natural responses to being questioned!
Timing: Consistently timeous answers are what you are looking for in a truthful person. Deceptive people tend to think too much before they answer.
Eye Contact: Maintaining eye contact is a sign of truth, while broken eye contact is a sure indication of deception. Usually liars resume eye contact in order to make sure that their lie has been received and approved.
The Voice: Is the subject speaking clearly? Do the tone and pitch raise or lower? Do they become angry or remain neutral when being accused?
In Conclusion
A trained interviewer will spot sub-conscious movements easily. This is no accident, mind you. Few people are born with this ability. It is a skill that needs to be worked on, and only with sufficient practice will you be able to make the best possible summations of the subject being interrogated.
This is in no way a complete education in understanding sub-conscious behavior, though. Such a bold claim for such a short article would be irresponsible. What we will say, though, is that understanding body language is a science, and as such, there are many additional considerations that need to be made. There are details that, in the effort to be comprehensive, could not all have been included here.
Know this, though, that the above information will give you the most comprehensive starting point in knowing how to train your eyes to see sub-conscious movements, both in the interrogation room and also in life. And with this as a starting point, you will be well on your way to spotting the things few people say with their mouths.
References
John C. Bowden, Michael E. Lane, Interview to Confession, the Art of the Gentle Interrogation (2012)