Inspirational Figure for ‘Lie to Me’ Worries About Jury Influence
The researcher who is the inspiration for the Fox TV show Lie to Me worries that viewers who become jurors will be misled into believing that they can detect lies.
Psychologist and author Paul Ekman sold Fox the rights to his professional life and is a consultant for the series, the Washington Post reports. “We don’t want jurors thinking that because they saw Lie to Me, that they can tell when someone on the stand is lying,” he told the newspaper.
Ekman says less than 1 percent of the people he has studied are any good at detecting lies, and he has studied many people in many occupations. “We’ve tested about 15,000 people in every profession you can think of–CIA, judges, lawyers,” he told the Post. “Less than 1 percent are any good at [detecting lies]. Most people are only at about the level of flipping a coin.”
Ekman teaches seminars to help improve the odds. He says he has found “tells” or unconscious indicators of emotion. One of them is tightening the lips, done when a person is angry. Another sign is when a person interrupts a gesture, shrugging only one shoulder, for example, or raises his hands as if to say he is finished with something, but doing it only part-way. Another indication is that people who are lying tend to be less animated in their gestures, a sign that they are trying to inhibit their emotions.
However, personal tics, such as biting fingernails, are not indications of dishonesty, he says.
