* Charles Manson
First let’s take a look at a crazy psychopath: Charles Manson. Does a guy this nuts even know he’s lying?
At :12 he gets defensive – arms crossed, mouth pressed, head down forward. He’s like an open book. He doesn’t want to get called out for claiming to be God.
He unconfidently deflects with a stifled gesture at :20. Then he gets into his rant, feeling confident, you can see he believes what he’s saying.
When he says “The sun is God,” he gestures towards himself on “God”. He really does believe it. Hahaha.
The “mother’s deathwish” rant is 100% sincere.
She starts trying to pin him again, he gets defensive. He nods at the end of “I’m just a messenger, of the truth” – he believes that too.
He claims to be 10x and 50x the pope, and shrugs helplessly and shakes his head a little bit while he does it – mirroring her disbelief or his own lack of confidence?
He’s just crazy and that makes him hard to read. And he’s getting grilled, so it’s hard to tell what’s dissonance from her and what’s internal dissonance. He blinks when he denies that “running an underworld” was a joke, and strokes his beard – shielding gesture and comforting gesture, respectively.
He finishes his Peru story – it’s true – and there’s a look of total arrogance on his face after he finishes it – he truly thinks he’s the shit.
“But I didn’t break will” licks lips nervously here. Either he’s worried about admitting guilt or he knows he’s lying. Getting grilled here, tough to tell. Pain in his brows too. 2:18.
WHOAH, huuuge deception tell as he repeats “I didn’t break will”. FULL eye close, licks lips, mouth corners go DOWN, brows slightly raised in pain – HE KNOWS HE DID IT!!! 2:20
The verbal repetition of the lie is another tell. It’s a pre-rehearsed defense. His hands are tight-clenched in front of his mouth. He’s very rattled after this.
And THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is proof that even the craziest killer cult leader knows when he’s lying and bleeds deception signals to prove it.
(UPDATE: If you’re not familiar with the Manson cult, that’s exactly what he did. I remember reading one male disciple’s account of gradually being emptied of himself by being around Manson. There’s one very intense passage that stuck with me about Manson moving the guy’s body with his arms, and the guy feeling like he was totally emptied and Manson was moving through him. This was at their campfire, IIRC. Heavy drug use and communal living played a major part in this process. This same dude went into town and fell down black in the face from some dangerous indigenous-type drug – someone could help me find the reference. Manson was quoted as saying the girls were the power. He controlled the girls and the girls brought the men.)
* If he looks left, he’s lying??
Ok, now that you’ve seen somebody competent in action, and as an added bonus know that the execution of Manson was in fact justified, let’s take a look at some of the crap body language “expertise” out there.
Typically, if you ask someone a question and they glance to the right (your left) they are creating something, or in other words lying. When someone looks to their left (your right) they are recalling something, and are telling the truth.
Source: First Google result.
You might’ve noticed I paid almost zero attention to Manson’s eyes in the above video. I saw them moving around a lot, so I knew he was actively accessing all parts of his brain – which indicates truthfulness. Other than that I didn’t try to pin down what each eye direction meant.
So what happens when you DO try to do that? You become ridiculously bad at reading body language. Check out this next video:
* Me telling the truth for 8 minutes, looking everywhere
I had to watch my video for a long time to get a good deception tell. I’m basically telling the 100% truth (as I see it) in this video. I don’t really even exhibit any nerves.
Finally I caught one at 8:00 to 8:01. It’s this line: “And those are the two main areas where you can see the difference in genetic expression.”
My head goes from side to side, an equivocating motion. My hand partially blocks my face, and my left shoulder (your right) goes up slightly. I look down left. There’s also a bit of a pause afterwards for me to collect myself.
The reason this happens is I know I’m glossing an awful lot here, and if taken out of context it wouldn’t be true. While I might’ve been conscious of the head movement, I definitely was not conscious of the shoulder shrug. It’s one of the (relatively) few times my shoulders move in the entire video.
I’m CONSTANTLY, at ANY point in the video, looking both left and right, and in fact in all directions. I’m pinging off all different parts of my brain like crazy, or sometimes just wandering my eyes over the environment. Trying to make a make a deception accusation from a madcap indicator like that is NUTS.
By contrast, the shoulder microtell ONLY goes off when I’m insecure or uncertain about something. Very reliable tell.
Core set late July 2012 from Koanic on Vimeo.
* Frank
I feel like I may be letting humanity down here. But I discovered I don’t actually have the fortitude to attempt an analysis of Frank’s “acting”. I will say that his eyes simply sit there while he’s talking, staring right into the camera.
1:31, “The girl…. [hmph] the victim” is the worst fake emote I have ever seen. The timing is staggeringly off. Subconscious emotional processing speed and body language propagation is pretty standard among human beings, and I cringed when I watched and tried to analyze that segment.
Mr. Vidal, I salute you. You have won.
UPDATE: In my haste to move on from that horrifying debacle, I neglected to mention that the overwhelming majority of his eye accessing is down-left (to us), indicating that he is indeed creating/feeling, AKA lying and trying to emotionally experience the lie. So yes there is something to eye directionality, but only when combined into the greater context.
* Salvatore
There is no way that a guy that unwatchably bad, suddenly becomes a subconscious body language inhuman virtuouso by working in a dentist’s office. Watch this 100% genuine performance:
[amateurishly adjusting camera] Ok, here we g-, here it goes. [nervous and hurried, shoulder shrugs] Gotta do this before they can shut me up. [mouth pressed – anger]
[eye wide, sincerity] If you think my explanation is too complicated [eyes wince, pain] for the average joe, [looks upright] then please help me make it simpler [nodding, eyes wide, brows raised, sincerity]. And if you think it’s clear enough [deference], well then just [rejection, negative] edit this part out, and [shrug, indifference] let’s tell the world what’s coming [sincerity eyes and brows, mouth tight anger or rue].
[nod, slight looks upright]
[looks down ?at notes?]
Hao ba [largely raised brows, sincerity, means “Ok then” in Chinese, he would hear that a lot from his likely Chinese data expert colleagues]. [shrug, unconfident] Que sera sera [what will be, will be. Criticized as proving he’s spanish, not Italian. Actually this is neither Spanish nor Italian, but an Italianism created by an English aristocrat, and spread around the world by Doris Day]. [smaller shrug again, unconfident, mouth pressed anger, swallow showing deep emotion, looks downleft ?at notes?]
[two more small shoulder shrugs – nervous and insecure about starting speech]
Hello, I’m Dr. Salvatore Conti [small bow and blink, acknowledgment], but everyone calls me Dr. Sal [extremely muted expressions, congruent head motions to side punctuated “sal” – becoming less nervous]. [looks up – accessing date] Today is August 8th, 2012 [brows raised, sincerity], and what I’m about to say here [small brow raise, sincerity] is extremely important [huge brow raise – extreme emphasis and sincerity, with slow eye close showing depth of feeling]. This is not a hoax [shake head and big eye squint – negative] , [looks upleft] I am not an actor [headshake]. [headshake look upright] This is not a movie [small shoulder shrug, head shaking rapidly small] or some Mayans [small eye squint, contempt] 2012 end of the world crap.
Everything [big brow raise, close eyes slowly emotion, big nod] that I say in the next few minutes, [slow eye close and partial headshake] as preposterous as it may sound [nod, eyes wide], is true [eyebrows raised, eyes wide, sincerity, nod]. [eyes close, squint head tilt] And after I expose it, [eyebrows raised, nod] I may actually have to disappear [eyes close, looks down left sadness] for a while [mouth corners turned down, sadness].
[looks upleft] During the course of [brows raise] my explanation [squint – mirroring difficulty], I may have to use some technical terms [brows up, eyes wide – sincerity], but please don’t despair [close eyes, shakes hand in front, strong anxious rejection]. [looks downleft, not at notes] I’m just trying to be [big eyes wide, eyebrows raised] thorough and [looks up right] help people corroborate [big eyes wide, eyebrows raised – sincerity] what I’m saying [looks upleft]. In the end [deferent head tilt, eyebrows raised], the message should be [looks down] clear enough for everyone to understand it. [mouth pressed, gathering himself, deep breath, looks upright].
[straight delivery] Let me start by telling you someth- [looks upright] a little about myself [big eye flash, brows raised sincerity], so you can [looks upright] understand why [small eyes wide, brows up sincerity] I know the information I’m about to expose [looks downleft, blink (shame for breaching security?)]. For the past 22 years [head cock left, brow raise] I’ve worked for NASA [nod, affirmation, micro looks upright flash] at the JSE in Houston [blink looks left and upleft – searching next thought]. I’m what you might call a [closes eyes slow, shoulder shrug – unconfident] rocket [brows raised, quickly furrow with difficulty – doesn’t believe this] scientist. [mouth pressed anger, brow furrowed, shaking head quickly] But I’m not, really [eyes open, normal, sincerity]. I was born [brows flash up – mirroring giving you a fact] in Arranova, Italy [slight squint – specific, maybe you don’t know it], in 1949 [looks upright to access date], [looks upleft] just outside of Rome [some squint, gesture of location with hand, blink and look upright for next thought, inhales and licks lips]. When I was 20 [big brow raise, nod], I moved to New York [squint, nod], and in [look uprightish to access date] 1972 I was admitted to [brows lift and immediately drop to sincerity squint – humility dissonance] Yale University in [normal fact brow raise] Connecticut, from where I got my [still some humility squint, brow raise punctuating individual facts] doctorate degrees in [nodding punctuates syllables] applied mathematics and [small brow raise] physics. [look upleft, purse lips] In 1983 [big shrug, inhale, squint, second right shoulder shrug – humility], I was [brow raise, eyes wide sincerity] hired by [ibid smaller] Dupont to do work at a [small shrug, plant is no big deal] plant near Houston [squinting, then looking upright], and after a few years [headshake, squinting, having trouble bragging] I’d shown a pretty [frowning, uncomfortable, looking upright] keen talent [nod, squinting, furrowed] for [brows raised, eyes wide] interpreting [eyes narrow, concentration] data. [eyes close, brows raise, nodding] So in 1990, NASA contacted me, claiming that they needed people [head cock right, nodding on syllables] just like me to [looks upright] [brows raise, eyes wide sincere, nods] gather and interpret [squints, concentration] information.
[looks upleft] At first I thought [squint, shrugs, head shake, brow furrow, looks upright – not confident, doesn’t like, recalling] my new job was kinda boring [deferent head tilt nod, eyes and brow show pain] to be honest [eyes and brows flash up], but I guess they were [head tilt, squint] just [shrug unconfident, looks upright] [brows raise, lean forward, eyes wide sincerity] testing me for bigger plans [relaxes, looks upleft, sucks lips]. By 1993 [brow punctuates, nod], my security [squint, humility] clearance had been bumped up [eyes wide, surprise] by a few notches [slight shrug, humility, looks upright], and my job took [huge head shaking with eyes closed, emotional disbelief without unconfidence – no shrugging or shame/aversion] an amazing turn. I was [brows raised, eyes slowblink, deferent head tilt] transferred to a [tiny eye squint] very hush-hush department [nod / lean forward for emphasis] which we [looks upright] conveniently call [frowning squinting mirroring difficulty of listener] SARAE [eyebrows raise eyeflash head tilt nod sincerity], [eyes half squinted] but it’s presented [congruent emotional timing and zero stifling on the quotation marks hand gesture – truth] to the outside world, [close eyes, head slightly down, nodding, arm extends hand up conciliation – correcting own error] even within NASA, as the [looks upright] Search and Analysis [head waving punctuating oft-repeated speech pattern] of Random Astronomical Emissions [blink, looks upleft, takes breath].
[shakes head, brow raise, squint difficulty – has trouble lying obviously] Outside of SARAE we tell [brow flash up, then frowning, pain in eyes, eyes wide with brows furrowed, mouth compressed, one corner upturned in contempt, eyes show anger, head shaking] bullshit stories to other government entities, [big nod, big brow raise surprise and eyes wide shock, hand out in apologetic gesture] including other NASA personnel [eyes squint a bit while recollects himself, looks upleft]. But [big brow eye flash punctuation] internally, [looks left and holds, shaking head, inhaling with emotion] I was introduced to a world that I had only [eye and brow flash, sincerity, big nod and lean forward emphasis] dreamt about [eyes wide in shock]. [looks downleft at notes]
[shake head] It’s no secret that NASA has [eyes wide, brow flash, looks left] always been interested in searching for [eyes wide, brows up, nodding] extraterrestrial [frown, nod, eyes wide – sincerity] intelligence. [breathe in, looks upleft] And for years [brow raise, head tilt nod], the [head weaving – has sad this many times] Arecibo aerial telescope in Puerto Rico [frowning, eyes wide – concentration sincerity] has been used to [looks upright] track down [brow raise, eyes wide] potential signals [rapid sideways head vibrate – potential, maybe not real] as well as to send [brow raise, double small nod, eyes wide] signals of their own. [licks lips, inhale, looks upright, gathering next thought]
[frown, squint, shake head, looking down on – rejection, contempt] Now I’m not talking Roswell [looks down, shaking head] or little green men [squint eyes, shaking head] here. [breathe in, look up right, full body follows eyes – deep accessing] There are some actual [looks upright, smaller movement, accessing again, searching for precise word] visual [full body nod, eye contact, eyes wide] contacts. But [huuge head shaking] there is no [pause for word, looks upright] physical contact [shaking head], [raise eyebrow, eyes wide – surprise, sincerity, turns head right] at least that I know of [double nod], and my security [hand gesture open up – humility, giving] clearance is pretty high [eyes wide, nod] on these matters. [looks upright, inhale] But the fact is [head tilt right, look down, nod forward] that some recent UFO sightings [nods punctuate], I believe that are [looks upright] actually related [left shoulder raise, not totally sure, head tilt left, nodding – honest uncertainty. brows raised, eyes wide] to what I’m gonna talk about in a minute [smaller repetition of gesture without insecurity]. But most [looks upright frown squint eyes still open] of the information running around out there [head shake] is false. What I’m talking about here is fact [brows raise, emphatic nod with head tilt right, no insecurity]. And what I’ll tell you in a moment [right corner mouth up, laughter/contempt, then eyeblink avoidance, look upright inhale emotion] is way scarier [sneer, contempt for average ghost story] than the scariest ghost story [big eyes, eyebrows raised, head tilt right nod deference, shakes head (for non-scary stories)] you’ve ever heard [ends nod, then looks upright, mouth pressed tight anger. inhale, look up center] .
Most of the signals NASA was able to [looks upright, pause for right word] process [look in eye, nod] through the Arecibo aerial telescope were [looks upright] of the type we call [brow raise, eye flash, looks upright briefly] RENS, which are [looks upright] Random Emissions from Natural Sources [brow eye flash, then looks upright squint], and for which my department [head shake] doesn’t particularly care much for [eye brow flash – sincerity]. These are mostly CMBs [look down, head shake, close eyes, mouth makes silly ridiculous angry shape, referring to CMBs, looks upright and shakes head], cyclatory radiation [looks upright], interstellar scintillation [shrug, shake head – saying this isn’t important], noise [squints, eyebrows raised – doesn’t like noise. looks upright, mouth pressed.].