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The Bodily Movements of Liars

Eapen, NM; Baron, S; Street, CNH; Richardson, DC; (2010) The Bodily Movements of Liars. In: Ohlsson, S and Catrambone, R, (eds.) Proceedings of the 32nd Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society: CogSci 2010. (pp. pp. 2548-2553). Cognitive Science Society: Portland, Oregon. Green open access

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Abstract

We measured the continuous bodily motion of participants as they lied to experimenters. These lies were spontaneous rather than elicited, and occurred for different motivations. In one situation, participants were given the opportunity to lie about their performance on a maths test in order to win money. In another, they witnessed one experimenter accidentally break a laptop. When asked what had happened, participants were motivated to lie and deny any knowledge. Across these situations, participants lied 61% of the time, allowing us to contrast the body movements of liars with truth tellers as they answered neutral and critical questions. Those who lied had significantly reduced bodily motion. In one case this motion appeared before the experimenter had even asked the critical question. We conclude that a person’s bodily dynamics can be indicative of their cognitive and effective states, even when they would rather conceal them.

Type: Proceedings paper
Title: The Bodily Movements of Liars
Event: 32nd Annual Meeting of the Cognitive-Science-Society
Location: Portland, OR
Dates: 11 August 2010 - 14 August 2010
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
Publisher version: http://www.cognitivesciencesociety.org/cogsci-arch...
Language: English
Additional information: This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions.
Keywords: deception, social cognition, action, body motion
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences > Experimental Psychology
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10055906
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