Reading someone's face is the best
way to see if they're telling the truth

"You still have to look at the whole face and do an incredible amount of study." Paul Ekman, psychology professor, University of California

Judges, mothers, detectives and journalists all have been traditionally credited with the ability to sniff out lies. But Ekman said the only people with a true affinity for determining honesty are stroke victims, whom he likens to human lie detectors.

He is co-author of a study published in the May edition of the journal Nature, which concludes that people suffering from aphasia – damage to the left sides of their brains – can spot lies solely through facial cues 73 percent of the time. People with healthy brains were right only 50 percent of the time.

Mark Frank, an assistant professor of communications at Rutgers University in New Jersey, helped Ekman to prepare the videotapes shown to people with aphasia so they could pick out the liars.

Frank said the clearest facial cues he has yet seen of lying were found in a videotape of Susan Smith, the young North Carolina mother who strapped her two young sons into their car seats, pushed the car into the lake, and then blamed their disappearance on a mysterious abductor.

Smith's tearful pleas for the kidnapper to return her children painted "an unusual portrait of sadness," Frank said. It gave him the impression she knew the boys were already dead.

Researchers conclude people with aphasia – who burst into laughter watching films of politicians lie in campaign speeches – have heightened powers of perception in the undamaged part of their brains.

Elliott Ross

"The right hemisphere's role is to watch the store, to be vigilant to whatever is happening in the environment," says Dr. Elliott Ross, a professor at the University of Oklahoma School of Medicine.

He is one of the authors of a new study supporting Ekman's earlier findings.

The latest report, presented at the American Academy of Neurology's annual meeting, also concludes the upper parts of a person's face are better indicators of truth than the lower part of the face.

Ross notes social convention guides most people to focus on the mouth of a person who is speaking, rather than the eyes. But he agrees the movements of the eyes – and their corresponding response with the brows and forehead – are far more telling.

Ross pointed to an often-played videotape clip as an example of a very public display of falsehood – the one showing President Clinton, eyebrows raised, denying a sexual relationship "with that woman, Miss Lewinsky."

The president later acknowledged his relationship with Monica Lewinsky, a former White House intern, was "not appropriate."

Ekman dissects similar facial expressions in his book, "Telling Lies: Clues to Deceit in the Marketplace, Politics and Marriage." He points out that the brows and forehead are subject to involuntary expressions that are difficult for even the smoothest liars to control.

Ross believes some people are naturally gifted liars and might even be genetically disposed toward deception. Still, he says the most striking lie he ever uncovered was found out through careful listening rather than facial interpretation.

"I knew a man who told fantastic stories about how his family came to America," he recalled. "But later I heard him tell somebody else a completely different story."

A veteran private investigator said he relies more on empirical evidence of deceit than physical manifestations of lying.

"You can't convict somebody because he held his hand up to his mouth or averted his gaze," said Leroy Cook, director of Ion Inc., an investigative referral service in Mesa, Ariz.

Like most detectives, Cook is familiar with textbook symbols of lying. He acknowledges some people lie so poorly they are as obvious as the fictional puppet Pinocchio, whose wooden nose grew longer with every lie.

He used to put more credence in signs such as narrowed eyes – widely viewed as a sign of fear – than he does these days.

"After many years, I realized some people's eyes look funny because they're suffering from allergies," he said. "People who cover their mouths might be embarrassed by their teeth."

So, instead of interpreting other people's eyes, Cook concentrated on believing his own. That led him to suspect a man filling out an insurance form of lying when he said he was a nonsmoker.

"His fingers had nicotine stains,'' he said.

Cook caught another liar through careful examination of physical evidence. This time, it was a doctor who gave apparently earnest depositions under oath that his arm was paralyzed.

"He was a very convincing liar and he even knew how to hold his arm exactly as if it were really paralyzed," the detective recalled. "But he couldn't make his muscles atrophy."

The doctor's toned biceps prompted cook to follow the physician – who was immediately observed using his arm.

Ekman, who studied the testimonies of Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas during Thomas's controversial climb to the U.S. Supreme Court, maintains all the physical evidence a keen observer needs is found in the human face.

So, who was telling the truth, Hill, who accused Thomas of sexual harassment, or Thomas?

Ekman gives more credence to Hill and her steady, forthright gaze. Thomas, he noted, proclaimed his innocence with such eye-popping vehemence as to make him unbelievable.

But that doesn't mean seekers of truth can find all the answers in the eyes of the person in question.

"You still have to look at the whole face and do an incredible amount of study," Ekman said. "If you only know a few things about interpreting the signs, you might be worse off than if you know nothing at all."