How To Hear When Someone Is Lying By The Way They Talk

Last week, we covered how to tell if your partner is lying, and explored the 3 main areas to look for deceit in a cheating partner. This week, we’re going to take a look specifically at how to hear when someone is lying by the way they talk.

This means you’ll be able to tell if someone is lying when you speak with them on the phone. And if you’re face to face, you can add this to your arsenal of lie detection tools. If the body language and speech are congruent with someone telling a lie, you’ll know you’re onto them.

 

Disclaimer: This information is for general educational purposes only and may not apply to all situations — everyone is unique after all. For help with an individual situation, please contact us —the first call is free, and we may just be able to put your mind at rest!

 

#1 Voice Change

Unless someone is really good at lying, they will experience physical changes when they lie. The feeling of nervousness will cause an increase in heart rate and blood pressure. Vocal cords tighten and saliva dries up.

As a result, liars often speak in a higher pitch than usual, lick their lips more frequently, and clear their throat because of the dryness.

(Most people don’t do this when they’re speaking normally and telling the truth.)

 

#2 Liar Keywords

Liars nearly always try to add weight to their stories by using liar keywords. If you hear someone using these words when they’re talking with you there’s a strong likelihood they’re being deceitful.

The more frequently the words are used means it’s more likely they’re lying to you.

What are the keywords? Simple…

Words or phrases such as ‘honestly’, ‘truthfully’ ‘well to tell the truth’, ‘well’, ‘actually’, and phrases like ‘you’re never going to believe this but….’

Also, there will be more use of the words ‘no’, ‘never’ and ‘none’.

And you’ll also get lots more stalling exclamations such as ‘ah’, ‘um’ and ‘er’.

 

#3 Two-Word Contractions

Contraction words are things like isn’t, doesn’t, won’t, wasn’t, and didn’t.

Most people use contraction words naturally when they talk.

But when people are lying, they want to emphasise the strength of what they’re saying. They think it helps make them look more honest, and so they use the full two words.

“Is Not”, “Does Not”, “Will Not”, “Was Not”, “Did Not”

A famous example is Bill Clinton’s “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.”

 

#4 Liars Put Distance Between Themselves And Their Lie

For a moment, think of a lie as a physical object that the liar wants to get as far away from as they can.

This translates to liars being far less likely to use the words “I,” “me,” and “mine,” as well as any other way to avoid the lie.

Say you just watched a theatre performance, and are speaking with the actor who performed the main role. He asks if you enjoyed the show?

If you did, you might say something like, “I absolutely loved it.” This is likely to be the truth.

Another way of answering this question could be, “The show was wonderful.”

This is much more likely to mean you didn’t enjoy the show much. What you’ve done is avoid telling a lie and distanced yourself from it as much as possible.

In Bill Clinton’s example: “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.”, he also distances himself from Monica Lewinsky by calling her ‘that woman’ instead of ‘Monica’.

So, if he’d said “I didn’t have sex with Monica”, he’d have been far more believable to a trained lie spotter.

 

Summary

Most of us aren’t good at lying because it doesn’t feel good and so it affects the way we talk.

Armed with these four primary methods of speech lie detection, it’s usually possible to accurately determine if someone is lying by listening carefully to what they say and how they say it.

The short video below also highlights some further ways to help you spot a liar.

Follow us on Facebook for more information on lie detection and how to get help if you think you need to.

Until next week,

Steve.