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Does looking away mean someone is lying?

Looking away does not show that someone is lying.

In the studies, liars and truth-tellers made about the same eye contact. Glancing up and to one side showed no link to lying either. People judged lies and truths correctly 54% of the time. Guessing at random gets you 50%.

What the studies found

  • Eye contact. Across 32 estimates from 1,491 people, the difference was close to zero.
  • Looking away. Six estimates from 411 people also found a difference close to zero.
  • Up and to one side. Three studies tested this popular claim, and none found a link.
  • Spotting lies. Across 24,483 people, lie or truth judgments were right 54% of the time.
  • Lies and truths. People judged 47% of lies and 61% of truths correctly.

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Sources

  1. DePaulo, Lindsay, Malone, Muhlenbruck, Charlton & Cooper (2003). Cues to deception. Psychological Bulletin.
  2. Wiseman, Watt, ten Brinke, Porter, Couper & Rankin (2012). The eyes don’t have it: lie detection and neuro-linguistic programming. PLoS ONE.
  3. Bond & DePaulo (2006). Accuracy of deception judgments. Personality and Social Psychology Review.