eyes and lying

CMN2132 Week 5: EYES and LYING

Introduction

  • Course information for CMN2132 focusing on the connection between eye behavior and deception.

Quotes

  • Sigmund Freud: "No mortal can keep a secret. If his lips are silent, he chatters with his fingertips."

Key Questions

  • How do you use gaze?

  • Can you gaze at someone's eye region while speaking?

  • Do individuals of higher status gaze more?

  • How to approach gaze with individuals who have physical disabilities? Should you look or not for politeness?

Expressions and Idioms

  • Shifty-eyed

  • See eye to eye

  • Eye candy

  • That's an eye-opener

  • My eyes popped out of my head

  • A feast for the eyes

Key Points on Gaze

  • Gaze tends to be directed at rewarding stimuli, while we look away from unpleasant stimuli.

  • Effective communication often requires visibility of the other person's eyes.

  • Gaze is interlinked with various behavioral cues.

Gaze Dynamics in Relationships

  • Increased gaze can indicate confrontational relationships.

  • Unhealthy couples maintain eye contact during criticism but avoid it during affirmations.

  • Extended gaze can imply intensity, either hostile or affectionate.

Gaze Aversion in Context

  • Lack of gaze in interviews can suggest low confidence.

  • Gaze can reflect cultural norms; avoiding eye contact may be due to embarrassment or discomfort about certain situations or characteristics.

  • Social norms dictate gazing away from negative traits.

Pupil Size and Attraction

  • Larger pupils often correlate with attractiveness.

  • Pupil responses may dilate due to substance use or emotional states; dilating can also indicate lying, while constricting may suggest cognitive load.

Eye Movements and Cognitive Processing

  • Conjugate Lateral Eye Movements: Indicator of cognitive dominance during numerical questions; suggests right/left brain function.

  • Eye contact is not strictly equal; gaze avoidance occurs intentionally to facilitate mental processing.

  • Gaze helps acquire feedback by examining various facial parts during interactions.

Visual Dominance

  • Visual Dominance Ratio: The ratio of gaze duration while speaking versus listening.

  • Visual Egalitarianism: Equal attention to all group members during discussions.

Leakage and Emotional Expression

  • Leakage: Unintentional displays of concealed emotions.

  • Gaze Cuing: Looking in the direction someone else is focused upon as a social communication strategy.

  • Morphology and Timing: Analysis of grimaces or facial changes when lying; timing informs on emotional feedback and expression shifts.

Microexpressions and Leakage

  • Microexpressions: Brief emotional expressions lasting under a second that reveal true feelings.

Functions of Gaze

  • Regulatory: Facilitates communication flow; demands responses or suppresses actions.

  • Monitoring: Used to check for understanding; influences and persuades conversational partners.

  • Cognitive: Assists in processing information, with gaze often indicating attention levels.

  • Expressive: Reflects emotional states and engagement in interactions, critical for impression management.

Factors Influencing Eye Movement

  • Influences on gaze behavior include personal characteristics, physical attractiveness, distance, self-esteem, and personality traits.

Measuring Eye Movement

  • Frequency: Counts how often one looks at a partner during conversation.

  • Total Duration: Tracks the total time looking at another.

  • Proportion of Time: Percentage of interaction focused on gazing versus looking away.

The Theme of Lying

  • Lies serve as social tools to manage perceptions; liars craft narratives for belief.

  • Duping Delight: A subtle expression of satisfaction when successfully deceiving others.

Liars' Behaviors

  • Confident individuals are typically more adept at lying.

  • Lying is often accompanied by a lack of eye contact and signs of nervousness (adaptors).

  • Observed indicators include slower response times, speech rate changes, pitch variations, and erratic body expressions.

Indicators from Bourgoon, Knapp, and Miller (1994)

  • Reluctance Indicators: Signs of wanting to withdraw from dialogue.

  • Uncertainty Indicators: Hesitations before responses, reflecting self-doubt.

  • Incongruent Answers: Responses that differ from expected ones, exhibiting minimal detail.

Communication and Technology

  • In digital interactions, liars may use more elaborate language and questions while avoiding personal pronouns.

Portfolio Exercises

  • Exercise A: Analyze "The Case of Chris Watts" to detect lying behavior.

  • Exercise B: Discuss dynamics of eye movement and its implications in conversation regulation and feedback mechanisms. Focus on real-life applications of truth-finding techniques related to eye behavior.