A body language expert has shared three tips that are a tell-tale sign someone is lying.
Now, no one appreciates being lied to, but what if I told you you could spot a liar from a mile away?
Vanessa Van, a body language expert and author, appeared on an episode of the Diary of a CEO podcast and revealed that there are three sure signs you can look out for to tell whether someone is lying.
The first thing is question inflection.
This refers more to how someone says something rather than the words they’re saying. If the tone of their voice rises towards the end of their questions, then they could be telling you a little white lie.
Recalling an experiment conducted in her lab where people played the game of two truths and a lie, Van Edwards explained that most people tend to ask their lie statement instead of telling it.
“We noticed people asked the lie because they were asking ‘do you believe this’,” she said, giving the host an obvious example.
She noted that the brain can pick up on something like this as it is receptive to tone of voice.
“Highly competent people do not mistakenly use the question inflection, they actually go down at the end of their sentences,” she added.
The second tip is to look out for incongruences in speech and body language.
When it comes to non-verbal signs, the biggest is some sort of mismatch in one’s speech versus their body language.
“The biggest and most obvious one is when someone says yes but shakes their head no, or says no but shakes their head yes,” Van Edwards stated. “When we agree with someone, say yes, or are telling the truth, we typically agree with ourselves and shake our heads yes.”
The final tip is to watch out for mismatching facial expressions.
Some liars tend to feel “off” when they’re trying to convince you of something untrue.
“Disgust is an expression people make without even realizing it,” she said. “When we don’t like something or we smell something bad, we crinkle our nose up and flash the upper white of our teeth.
“You’ll notice liars typically feel dirty when they lie. So oftentimes they’ll show disgust with themselves for lying.”
But that doesn’t mean they can’t hold it back.
So there we have it, folks, if you want to see if someone’s lying, make sure you look out for these three tell-tale signs.
