The myth of watching a person’s eye movement when lying or being honest. A persistent myth about how to tell if someone is lying or being honest is to watch if they look to their right or their left when they answer a question.
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You’re right: I tested those NLP eye movement theories on my son and, when asked to remember factual memories, his eyes went either left or right quite inconsistently. They’re quack theories – unfortunately popular because they simplify reality and so make people comfortable.
when a person looks to the up and left he/she is tryin to find a memory recall when the person looks up he/she tends to think of another way the story shud go or (fancying the story)
I know that’s what we are told BUT, there is NO scientific support (after very extensive testing and numerous published studies) there is ABSOLUTELY NO LINK between eye movement and recall and eye movement and mental construct behavior. Eye movement as as way of spotting deception is a terrible myth.
All these comments about deception and eye movement are based on the false assumption that the eyes move a specific direction during mental recall or construct activity.
lets believe the guy that wont even show his face.
You just told people that you heard from other people about something. Nothing was prooven with actual research, just he saids and she saids, your just as reliable as any other video on youtube.
Eye accessing cues are not meant to be used as a tell tale sign of lies. They are meant to be a “second or third opinion” if someone is lying or not. There should be many other cues of discomfort from lying that will back up eye cues before you consider someone of lying.
Also it is not set in stone that construction is right, and recall is left, people look different ways, you have to first read which way they look when theyre remembering something or constructing an image.
If you will listen, I AM quoting PUBLISHED SCIENTIFIC studies by the well known researchers on the issue. In court under Supreme Court guidelines of what constitutes “scientific evidence” and “expert testimony” the criteria requires “peer-reviewed” “published” scientific research. The PUBLISHED SCIENTIFIC data shows absolutely NO CORRELATION, base line or not between eye movement and recall vs deception.
About not showing my face … my face is all over my channel of videos.
I agree that eye accessing cues are not to be used as a telltale sign of deception. The movements are neither right or wrong. They were supposed to be communication tools only. Eye contact and eye movement are TOTALLY unreliable tools to evaluate a truthful or deceptive person. NLP was designed as a tool for communication and therapy not a diagnostic tool.
Asside of reading a lie or not, it should be noted, that there is a pattern with people, when people construct something in their brain, they look the opposite way as when they remember something, THIS DOESNT HAPPEN EVERYTIME!
Any kind of distraction could effect eye cues. It is true, you shoul never use eye cues, to spot a lie, ON THEIR OWN. But dont discredit the recall and construction eye movements, THEY EXIST.
Unfortunately, NO scientific support 4 consistency between eye movement & construct or recall function – even on an individual basis. That’s the problem – the “assumption” of a correlation between the two.
See Vrij and follow his bib sources. Aldert Vrij, Shara Lochun, (1997) “Neuro-Linguistic Programming and the Police: Worthwhile or Not?”, Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology, Vol. 12, No. 1,pp. 25 – 31. That’s just ONE study refuting the concept.
i disagree
You are certainly welcome to disagree. But I have not had one person yet to send me any scientific information that supports the notion that watching the movement of the eyes indicates a truthful or deceptive response. I’m told I’m wrong after I HAVE provided published evidence.
i do agree however when you say…..” There’s NO connection between ANY eye direction movement and honesty / deception.” before you say you do have scientific studies to disprove this, i feel that the wrong question is being answered. as i said in my previous post, it is a guide to which part of the brain a person is going to, and even that can be misenterpreted, unless relevant calibration questions are asked, to establish whether or not somebody is ” normally organised” or “reverse organised”
Correct. You can NOT make an assessment of deception (or honesty either) solely on any one indicator – voice, body and especially the eyes. Deception is best read in clusters of identified deception cues. Eye contact and eye behavior however have been proven to be of little or no value in spotting deception. It can reveal stress but not all stress means deception.
Eye cues DO NOT work. When engaging the subject to remember complex emotional events or complex mental processing the eye behavior is NOT consistent with recall or construct.
Here’s my challenge… show me the EMPIRICAL evidence that supports eye movement is consistent when using recall or construct mental activity. After 20+ plus of tracking this, I have not found it yet.
I’m not sure why people don’t get this. There is no correlation between eye movement and the function of the brain. Right or left handed, etc. Tell me where such evidence in empirical form exists. Everyone “says” it works but NOBODY has provided empirical proof. HOWEVER, there IS empirical proof that says it does not.
show me an actuall study, dont tell me theres been a study. You just keep telling me to believe while ive seen much different results myself
I do agree that it does not work 100% of the time.
For example, i hear that as the person keeps their eyes on you, it does not mean they are telling the truth, but they are trying to see if you believed their lies or not.
~Lie to me , TV show.
if it is openly known information why would this be taught and used by such departments as the FBI?
@TheLieGuy Just wanted to ask you.Can you not spot a lie by asking specific questions and looking at the eye patterns to see if it is recalled information or it’s being constructed?
so all the NLP practitioners who tried this and found it worked, are actually lying?
could you direct me to the SCIENTIFIC proof it does not correlate? i’d like to read this study, please. I could not find it in university..
so.. what dó the eyes say and how do they say it?
Good point about maintaining eye contact to watch the reaction of the lie target. Eye contact or lack therefore is simply not a reliable signs of honesty OR deception. Not only from one person to another but is eye contact changes seen while talking to one individual is not reliable.
And a lot of folks say they have seen Big Foot, too! (I’m not making that as an insulting remark. I’m using it in the scientific sense. See it as a question of logic). What was your N group, error rate, your “blinds”, etc.
Start here and also read the bib. Aldert Vrij, Shara Lochun,”Neuro-Linguistic Programming and the Police: Worthwhile or Not?”, Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology, Vol. 12, No. 1, 1997, pp. 25 – 31.
Now send me YOUR empirical source info.
No you can not. The patterns even change with one individual and even the type of question and form of information requested will cause different results.
Lets clarify what they’re saying. IF they say eye movement (right or left) is a sign of deception then they’re dead wrong. Bandler & Grinder (authors of NLP) state when recalling people can show a construct eye cue. The EMPIRICAL evidence to support eye movement for deception does NOT exist!
Aldert Vrij, Shara Lochun,”Neuro-Linguistic Programming and the Police: Worthwhile or Not?”, Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology, Vol. 12, No. 1, 1997, pp. 25 – 31.
Now show me your research, pls.
Beats the heck out of me. TONS of agencies teach this myth as gospel and it is NOT supported by any empirical evidence. Studies however have refuted the theory. They all have been told it doesn’t work but still cling to the myth.
this method can determine if someone is lying or not ..
it`s can be useful in our lives
.-= john@Wet Grinder Review´s last blog ..Understanding Online Flash Cooking Games =-.
I took a test that some website had about eye movement, examining recent visual and other sensory memory, imagination, and distant recall. I found that, with the exception of the odor recall and internal dialogue, my eyes moved in the opposite direction from what was indicated for a right handed person. My sister had much the same reactions as I did, with the exception of her sound recall, and she’s also right handed. I also remembered that an employer once accused me of lying based on what my eyes were doing. Frankly, I think people really should be more careful about what they publish as “accurate” information. I told my boss the same thing when he discovered, via a note from my physician, that I had been telling the truth about being unable to drive for a week. (Had the most God awful vertigo)