I’m a body language expert… here’s how to spot a liar in seconds

While there is no sure way to tell if someone is being deceitful, a body language expert has revealed cues to help you spot a liar in seconds. 

Vanessa Van Edwards, a public speaker and author who teaches interpersonal skills and effective communication, spoke on The Diary Of a CEO podcast recently where she shared four signs to be aware of.

The red flags include question inflection, volume drop, words that don’t match the body and a look of disgust. 

Van Edwards told host Steven Bartlett that the average person can only spot a lie with 54 percent.  

‘You’re better off tossing a coin,’ she said.

Van Edwards said that the biggest sign is a look of disgust because they are experiencing that feeling as they deceive another person.

‘Liars typically feel dirty when they lie, so often times they’ll show disgust with themselves for lying,’ she explained. 

They may even sniff, she added, which is a ‘disgust activator.’

When people are disgusted, they crinkle their noses, close their nostrils and flash the upper whites of their teeth, providing others with a visual sign of a liar. 

‘There are certain statistical cues to deceit,’ she explained. ‘They’re cues that, over and over again, research finds liars typically do — but not always.’

‘There’s no Pinocchio’s nose. There’s no one cue that means someone is lying. But there are a couple cues that come up over and over again,’ Van Edwards said.

Van Edwards said another obvious sign is when someone says one thing, but their body shows something else.

She gave an example of asking her daughter if she cleaned her room to which her daughter says ‘yes’ while shaking her head not.

‘You will also see this with mismatched facial expressions,’ Van Edwards said. 

But there is a cultural exception to this rule. In India, Bulgaria and Pakistan, people nod differently than people in western cultures. 

Outside of these specific countries, this kind if mismatch is a common sign of lying. 

Another cue is question inflection, also referred to as Uptalk, which is when a statement ends with a question.

Vanessa Van Edwards is a public speaker and author who teaches interpersonal skills and effective communication

Here is an example: ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about, do you?’ 

‘It’s very suspicious if someone is speaking and all of a sudden they ask a question — if they’re not actually asking a question,’ Van Edwards said.

‘If all of a sudden you hear the question inflection used in a statement, or a number, or a boundary, or a timeline,’ she said, ‘That’s just a little red flag that says: dive deeper.’

A drop in volume is another sign of deception. 

‘When we’re anxious or nervous, we lose volume and we lose breath,’ she said

So if the person you’re talking to suddenly gets quieter, what they are telling you in that moment may be dishonest.

While these cues do not always mean someone is lying, keeping an eye out for these behaviors is a powerful way to detect dishonesty in your relationships

Other experts have highlighted additional cues that could help you determine whether a person may be lying. 

Author and former FBI agent Joe Navarro told The Guardian that self-soothing behaviors can indicate that a person is experiencing ‘psychological discomfort.’

These behaviors may include fidgeting, adjusting or playing with their clothes and rubbing or touching their face.

Paying attention to other people’s word choice can also help you sniff out a lie, insurance fraud consultant Gabrielle Stewart III told The Guardian. 

‘We use completely different language when we’re telling lies,’ she said. 

‘A really famous example is President Nixon. He was asked straight out: ‘Did you know about Watergate?’ and his answer was: ‘The president would do no such thing.’    

‘First, he’s got dissociation, which is very common. In an untruthful account, there’s a lack of ‘I’ and ‘my’, because we want to push the lie away from ourselves. 

‘Then, he’s slipped tenses,’ she added.

‘A truthful person whose car has been stolen, for example, will say: ‘I left it here, came back an hour later and it was gone.’ An untruthful account might slip into the present continuous: ‘I’m walking down the path and I’m looking for my car, thinking …’ 

While all of these experts stress that these cues do not mean someone is lying every time, keeping an eye out for them is a powerful way to detect dishonesty in your relationships.