The Ultimate Body Language Book

Chapter 16 - Deception and Lie Detection
Remaining Uncommitted
When people tell the truth they will usually show extra enthusiasm and commit to their story. Liars
often start off the same way, but quickly trail off.
Liars have been noted to be uncommitted to lies. That is, because they have nothing vested in the lie,
they remain less than exuberant in their convictions. In other words, the subconscious mind of liars
doesn’t allow them to carry forward with enthusiasm. Instead of smashing a fist against a table and
raising a voice saying “I didn’t do it!”, liars will instead make much duller motions and use less
commitment to them. It is not as if they want to lie, it is the limbic mind that won’t allow them to.
Liars will motion without emphasis, or describe events by trailing off or use weak statements. They
might limit arm and hand movement by clasping them together or locking them down on an armrest
with such force they turn their knuckles white. The hands might be put out of sight in pockets or under
a table where they can’t be read. Reduced movement can be seen throughout the body, not just in the
hands. The entire body including the head, arms, feet, and torso can seem to lock in place. People that
are telling the truth spend a lot of time and energy in efforts to make the facts known which comes
across in their body language and gesturing. Truth tellers are happy to spend as much time as necessary
to get everything right. They will often add more detail than required and go over it again and again if
necessary. Not emphasizing is linked to the freeze response where the mind clams the body shut and
reduces movement so as to draw less attention to it. What is important in lie detection is to compare
cues from a baseline. That is, if someone suddenly drops emphasis then you know they’ve lost interest
in the topic or are lying. In either case, it will have provided useful information to the body language
reader.
In writing this passage, I had just reviewed a video (see bottom posted on the web of a baseball game in
which a player leaped head-over-feet clear over the catcher as he came to homeplate to score a run. The
catcher, stuck in a fear response, failed to tag the runner. Baseball has an interesting tradition where it is
customary for the runner to body-check the catcher at homeplate as he tries to tag for an out. While the