The Guardian

Can you really see if someone is lying? Probably not – but you might hear it | Kirsty King

We are in dangerous territory as courts encourage jurors to discern untruth from body language. In fact, the words are far more revealing Imagine you are a juror on a murder trial. A married couple have been found shot dead. The defendant, a man known to them, denies the charge. You’ve heard the prosecution’s evidence and you’ve heard his testimony. But you and your fellow jurors are unsure if you should believe his protestations of innocence. At the hotel in the evening, another juror makes a novel suggestion: contact the spirits of the dead couple to find out if the defendant is lying. In agreement, you all sit around a crudely constructed Ouija board and call upon the spirits of the dead couple to ask: “Who killed you?” The board spells out the name of the defendant. The next day, you return a guilty verdict to the court. Sounds too absurd to be true? Well, in 1994 an English jury did consult a Ouija board (a retrial was ordered, and the defendant was found guilty again). But it is no less absurd than a jury being directed by the courts to use an assessment of body language to make a judgment. Judicial directions in Scotland advise jurors that they can “look at the content of witnesses’ evidence, [and] their body language in giving it”. Similarly, in England and Wales, jurors are instructed not to take so many notes during a trial that they are “unable to observe the manner/demeanour of the witnesses as they give their evidence”. It appears that the UK’s judicial system is no different from most of the population in assuming there is a clear association between body language or demeanour and deception – while being ignorant of the fact that looking at these to determine an individual’s honesty is not trustworthy. Kirsty King is a lecturer in communication at UCL. She is the author of The Language of Lies Continue reading...