Culture
You've probably heard that the direction of eye movement can tell whether a person is lying or not. That is, if your counterpart suddenly looks up and to the right, this is a sure sign that he is hiding something or not saying something.
As it turned out, all this is nothing more than a myth, which has been demonstrated in a number of experiments.
The team of scientists asked half of the participants to lie, claiming that they put their mobile phone in their desk drawer rather than in their bag. The other half of the volunteers were instructed to put their phone in a drawer and tell the truth. The interviews of all participants were recorded on video, and the direction of their eye movement was also analyzed. As it turned out, participants in the first and second groups looked left and right almost equally often.
In the second experiment, scientists analyzed real situations of deception. Experts watched videos of people who were present at a press conference about the missing relative. It was later revealed that they were guilty of the crime. Again, when these people were compared to those who were telling the truth, they both looked left and right with the same frequency.
In the third experiment, scientists recruited 50 new volunteers. Half of the participants were told about the shift in gaze hypothesis, while others were not informed about it. They were then asked to watch a video from the first experiment. Participants were asked to identify who lied and those who were telling the truth, and to specify how confident they were in their choice.
The result again showed no difference between accuracy and confidence, and the theory that eye movements can be a lie detector was again not confirmed.
In other words, it can be said that the eyes can cover up lies. And while this myth has been debunked, there are other ways to tell if a person is lying, such as how static a person is, talking less, or becoming less emotional.