The Book of Tells (Peter Collett)[unlocked]

THE BOOK OF TELLS
also points out that experimental research on lying has not
shown nose-touching to be a common sign of deceit. Of
course it's quite possible that nose-touching does not
emerge in laboratory settings, where the stakes are low
and the price that people pay if they are exposed as a liar
is not terribly high. It's also feasible that nose-touching
isn't a sign of deceit for everyone - it might simply
be the trademark tell of some people, including Bill
Clinton.
Finally there's the possibility that nose-touching has
nothing at all to do with deceit or with anxiety, but that it's
an unconscious form of rejection. Ray Birdwhistell considered
that when one person rubs their nose in the
presence of another, it reveals the first person's dislike of
the second. 17 As he put it, the 'nose rub among Americans
is as much a sign of rejection as the word "No!"' Given
this interpretation, Bill Clinton's nose-touching before the
grand jury might be seen as an expression of his deep dislike
for his interrogators, and not as a clue to the fact that
he was lying to them.
Surrounding this debate there remains the unresolved
question of what we mean when we say that someone is
lying - is it that we know them to be lying, or do they have
to believe that they're not telling the truth? As Mark Frank
has pointed out, this issue is highly pertinent to the case of
Bill Clinton and his testimony during the Lewinsky affair.
There are some people who argue that Clinton knew that
he was lying, but there are others who insist that, given his
definition of 'sex' and the way he constructed his
evidence, he wasn't lying at all. The interesting question
that arises from this is whether people who have to
persuade themselves that they're not lying behave any
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