A Word of Caution

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What is so fascinating about the Bruce Mullenix in the video is his body language when he speaks. After Erin Moriarty says Bruce had a “rock solid alibi” the night of the murder, if you only watched Bruce’s body language and tried to discern if he was honest or not here, you would likely conclude Bruce was being deceptive. He shakes his head no when he says yes, and he shrugs his shoulders when he says “Yeah, and I knew that” to Erin Moriarty.

Read moreYet Bruce is NOT lying here. If you thought he was, you’d be clearly mistaken.

The reason I point this out is because there is not one universal clue to deception, and I want people to see this conclusively. Yes, shrugging of the shoulder, or shaking of the head opposite to verbal clues can indicate deception, but when you see it, it doesn’t always mean that someone is being deceptive.

We know that what Bruce is saying here is the truth. The police made him a suspect, their number one suspect at the time, and cleared him. Bruce Mullenix was also out of town when his ex-wife, Barbara, was murdered. And to back it all up, I believed Bruce when I saw him talk. His behaviors were very consistent with what he was saying to me.

Well, how could that be, you ask?

For me, deception detection is not all about the clues. I can’t stress that enough. For me, when I look at a person, I have an immediate sense of their personality. I don’t know if it is facial features, or expressions, but I can usually tell people many facts about a stranger with stunning accuracy, without ever saying a word to them — by simply looking at them, or a photo of them (see what I call paralleling). With that, I listen to what a person says, to see if it matches their personality type, and their typical, expected behavior. That’s how I come to the conclusion whether someone’s behavior is natural and honest, or deceptive, much of the time. The clues only come as supportive evidence for me.

Dr. Maureen O’Sullivan says it best when she says, “They [wizards otherwise known as naturals] seem to have templates of people that they use to make sense of the behavioural deviations they observe… So it is not a set of disembodied cues, but embedded behaviours that are consistent with each other as well as with the kind of person exhibiting them (source).”

So next time you spot a clue to deception, don’t be quick to call someone a liar by one or two clues alone. The process is a lot more complex than what it appears on the surface. I personally recommend focusing on the facts and looking for inconsistencies, first. That will be much more reliable and trustworthy for the average person. Had we done that in this case as well, Bruce would have been cleared quickly, and focus would have fallen where it should, on Rachael Mullenix and Ian Allen.

“Nothing Gets Past Real-life Human Lie Detector”

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I thought you might enjoy seeing this article that was featured in the Chicago Sun-Times yesterday.

Behind the Scenes Video of ‘Lie to Me’

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I’d be fibbing if I told you I wasn’t looking forward to the new show on FOX coming out this month called Lie to Me. I am really excited for the concepts and work of Dr. Paul Ekman and his colleague Dr. Maureen O’Sullivan to finally get mainstream media attention so that the average person understands what human lie detection is all about.

So many times when I’ve shared my biggest passion in life with people that I have a talent to spot deception (that was studied by Ekman/O’Sullivan), I get a response of “Oh my sister is in to psychic stuff, too.” You don’t know how exasperating that is! I’m not into psychic stuff, and find that comment annoying because it shows a total lack of understanding of the concepts I just spoke about. But of course, with anything new, it takes time for new knowledge to be understood and respected.

I have no doubt in 100 years this science will be vital to all societies who seek justice and truth, but at this time, we are on the infant stages of recognizing this as a science. So I am hoping this show is a whopping success because it will help people open their mind to a new concept — a concept I am very passionate about, a topic I have put my heart and soul into for 4 years.

Are you planning on watching the show?

Improving Your Detection Skills

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In the past week, several people have mentioned to me that they come to my blog with the hopes of improving their deception detection skills. And while I would love to write that is the reason why I write this blog, it’s not.

I don’t doubt that you will pick up a clue or two that hints at deception, but I don’t believe it will improve your overall accuracy at spotting a lie to any great degree. There are so many nuances that go into determining if someone is deceptive that vary case-by-case, it isn’t as easy as applying one clue or another across the board to become a skilled detector. If you do, it will trip you up one too many times and be costly for you. Guaranteed (see this post). I strongly discourage it.

If deception detection were about knowing and understanding the clues, most people would be masters of it, but studies show us this is not the case.

Read moreBelieve it or not, but before I wrote this blog and tried to understand what I do naturally, I know if you asked me to list all the clues I used to spot deception, I would have struggled to tell you one or two. I say that in all honesty. I truly don’t believe I could have identified them to save my soul. In fact, it has taken me four years to verbalize the clues that I see when I spot deception.

But I can tell you that I was good at understanding other people. I was good at understanding human behavior down to the little ticks we make when we are about to speak, but don’t. I understood the signs of hesitation, the facial expression one makes when he is thinking, pondering and wondering. I could spot a dreamer out of a crowd, and identify the hidden signs someone was truly depressed despite their verbal message.

Understanding human behavior is where my strongest talent is, even today. Deception detection is just a sub-skill of that.

All my life, I loved to ask people “What are you thinking?”, “How are you feeling?”, “Why do you feel that way?” to the point I drove my friends when I was younger INSANE. I always wanted to know the who, what, why, where, and when [sometimes the how]. I just had to know. I was beyond curious! Even when we made up after an argument, I had to understand why they felt and acted the way they did, even if they were right. Of course, being a child in this quest for knowledge made it easier to be so nosy.

On the first day at my new job as a “professional” after graduating from university, the woman who was assigned to show me the ropes stopped me in the middle of my introduction to some equipment and said, “What is this 20 questions?” in a very exasperated tone.

Mind you, the 20 questions were not about the equipment before us, the company or my job, they were about her, personally.

Yes, that’s right, no one was exempt from my desire to be understood. There was never a predicament that I found myself in where I didn’t seek to understand the other side. I wanted to walk in their shoes, if only for a second. I wanted to understand them, to the core.

So if you want to improve your deception detection skills, start by studying and getting to know the truly intricate behavior of honest people. Watch their behaviors. Watch them talk, move, interact, react and behave in a variety of situations. Get to know people like the hairs on the back of your hand and study how they react in every situation.

I can tell you it takes time. Lots of time, but persistence should yield some results–if you are truly interested and dedicated.

Then test yourself. Watch someone and see if you understand what each minute gesture they make means. Don’t just guess–ask them “Were you just thinking this? I’m curious.” See how often you are accurate.

Work until your accuracy is stellar.

Talk to people when you don’t understand them, and ask them what they are thinking and why they are thinking what they are. Open up dialog. Ask questions until you do understand.

Learn about other people — familiar and foreign. Learn to understand the nuance of normal human behavior in every situation you can because once you can do that, deception detection will become a whole lot easier. It will become like second nature.

So there you have it. Do know that I never did set out on a quest to do this. It was my nature, how I was born, how I took in and approached the world. But this, I think, is one of the more powerful ways that you can improve your ability to understand others, and improve your potential to spot a lie.

Why do I write this blog? Do you still wonder? I thought people would enjoy seeing how someone with my ability thinks, how I come to my conclusions and how I see the world. I also write it because it is healing for me to share my thoughts with strangers, as people one-on-one often get uncomfortable when I share my inner thoughts. And last, I’d like to show that truth wizards really do exist and that we do have talent. By writing my thoughts before a live audience, I hope to build a record of what is possible with regards to deception detection.