The Eye Movement Lie Detection Myth Debunked

You've probably heard it before: if someone looks up and to the left while talking to you, they're lying. It's been repeated in police training seminars, job interview guides, and countless TV crime dramas. There's just one problem—it's completely false.

This myth gained traction through Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), a pseudoscientific approach to communication developed in the 1970s. NLP practitioners claimed that eye movements reveal whether someone is accessing memories (truth) or constructing new information (lies).

Science Steps In

In 2012, researchers at the University of Edinburgh put this claim to the test. They conducted three rigorous experiments, including one where participants told lies while being filmed, and another where trained observers tried to detect deception using eye movements.

The results were devastating for the myth. There was no correlation whatsoever between lying and looking in any particular direction. None. Zero.

• Liars didn't look left more than truth-tellers
• Truth-tellers didn't look right more than liars
• Observers trained in the "eye movement technique" performed no better than chance

Lead researcher Dr. Caroline Watt noted that the study "icholas provides no support for the idea that eye movements are a reliable cue to deception."

Why the Myth Persists

So why does this belief refuse to die? Partly because it feels true. We desperately want a simple trick to detect liars—a human lie detector that requires no equipment, just observation. The eye movement theory offers that comforting illusion of control.

It also persists because of confirmation bias. Once you believe eye movements indicate lying, you'll remember the times someone looked away before telling what turned out to be a lie—and forget all the times they looked away while telling the truth.

What Actually Happens When People Lie

Real lie detection is far more complicated. Research suggests that no single behavior reliably indicates deception. However, some patterns appear slightly more often in liars:

• Providing fewer details in their stories
• Being less forthcoming with information
• Making more negative statements
• Speaking in a more tense or higher-pitched voice

Even these indicators are unreliable. Professional lie detectors—police officers, judges, customs officials—typically perform only slightly better than random chance when detecting lies.

The Real Takeaway

If you've been using the "look up and left" trick to catch liars, you've probably been wrong more often than right. Worse, you may have falsely accused honest people of lying simply because they glanced upward while thinking.

The truth about lie detection? We're all pretty bad at it. Even experts. The best approach is to focus on gathering evidence and asking good questions rather than relying on body language myths that sound convincing but crumble under scientific scrutiny.

Next time someone tells you they can spot a liar by their eye movements, you'll know the real fiction in the room isn't coming from the alleged liar—it's coming from them.