Can body language help you determine if someone is lying?

Question

Science Fair Project;
problem
hypothesis:

Answer 1

Absolutly!!!!! See this link for details...

http://behavioural-psychology.suite101.com/article.cfm/how_to_detect_a_lie

Answer 2

It has been demonstrated many times. Police investigators have been trained in the techniques. Human resource interviewers also use similar signs to help determine if an applicant is telling the truth.

The techniques are, certainly, not infallible, but the body's language imparts a LOT of information. These subtle clues, while not absolute proof of lieing, can help an interviewer come up with, further, leading questions. A good interviewer can ALMOST always catch someone in a lie, given enough time.

For your project, you can compose a questionaire, with about 20, fairly standard background questions, like age, birthday, highth, weight, parents names, etc. Without telling the subjects, have them fill out the questionaires as honestly as possible. Assign each subject a number. Try to have an equal number of males and females.

Later, take videos of the same subjects, asked the same questions in a live interview. At this time, ask them each to change one, and only one answer, to be different from their written responses. The interviewer should NOT have access to the questionaires filled out by the subjects. You don't want the interviewer to unconsciously give cues to the subject.

Again, later review the tapes to look for behaviors that tip you off when the person tells the lie. Make notes of the behaviors of the subjects when the "changed" answer comes up. Compare these behaviours in all the subjects to see if you spot some common ones. Separate the male's data from the females. They MAY have different ways of using their body language. Your statistical results MAY tell you whether this is true or not.

Repeat the experiment with an equal sized sample of OTHER subjects who are interviewed and NOT been instructed to tell that one lie. This group is your control.

You may consider having two different sets of observers looking at the videos, and, perhaps, NOT telling the observers which group has been instructed to lie, and which has not. Unlike you, they will not be told which answers have been changed.

If you have a large enough sample of BOTH groups, you can start to come up with some statistical data, showing WHICH behaviors indicate a lie. Be ready to see some "false" positives, meaning that some suspect behaviors may not be what you think. The numbers, when plotted and graphed, will tell you the MOST likely signs and which are less so.

Answer 3

OHHH heack yeah! ive studied body language for a year now. it does!

Answer 4

yes; no direct eye contact, twiddling fingers, etc

Answer 5

yeah