Science shows that liars do not avoid eye contact any more frequently than those telling the truth. The key thing to look for in eye movement is deviation from their baseline.
When someone is telling you a lie, they will often find it difficult to look you directly in the eye. To avoid eye contact they may rub their eyes. Men will rub their eyes briskly or look down when lying. Women are more likely to rub below their eyes or stare up whilst lying.
There is a popular belief that liars tend to avoid eye contact, as they feel guilty or nervous about their deception. However, this is not always true, as some liars may actually maintain more eye contact than usual, as they try to appear confident or convincing.
The eyes: Someone who is lying might stare or look away at a crucial moment, says Glass — a possible sign they're moving their eyes around as they try to think about what to say next. The research conducted by Geiselman at UCLA corroborated this, finding that people sometimes look away briefly when lying.
Many NLP practitioners claim that a person's eye-movements can reveal a useful insight into whether they are lying or telling the truth. According to this notion, looking up to the right is indicative of lying whereas looking up to their left suggests that they are telling the truth.
A person with eye contact anxiety may avoid making eye contact when talking to someone. If they do make eye contact, they may feel like they are being judged or scrutinized. Eye contact anxiety can interfere with everyday social interactions.
Tightened jaw and forehead
Liars also tend to tense up when they're not being truthful, and this can include tightening the jaw and forehead. Both are connected to the "mental effort and stress" associated with telling a lie, according to Wenner.
Liars tend to increase hand-to-face touching due to experiencing cognitive overload, the fight or flight response, and stress. Therefore, increased hand-to-face contact is a good indicator deception.
Look for flared nostrils, lip biting, rapid blinking or sweating. These changes in facial activity signify an increase in brain activity as a lie begins. Some people will get a slight flush to their face when they are lying, so look for blushed cheeks as anxiety may set in.
Good eye contact is an important display of honesty during a conversation. The eyes are a central part of nonverbal communication. They show a range of emotions that words won't always speak. And honesty can help two people build trust.
Individuals usually look away when they are thinking, hesitating, or talking in a non-fluent way. This behavior likely serves two purposes, the first of which is to shield themselves psychologically from the embarrassment of being judged for not proceeding.
Fear microexpressions: Microexpressions are brief, involuntary facial expressions that give away a person's true emotions. Liars are often afraid of being caught, so they may express fear through small movements, like raising their eyebrows or wrinkling their forehead.
Liars don't only hide the truth; they hide their feelings, too. They lie to avoid facing the facts. Despite what people might think, good liars know how to listen. It gives them information they can use in the future.
An untrustworthy face, at its most extreme, is an angry one with the edges of the mouth curled down and eyebrows pointing down at the center. The least dominant face possible is one resembling a baby's with a larger distance between the eyes and the eyebrows than other faces.
There are so many reasons why he is avoiding eye contact with you. It could be because he is shy, doesn't know that you want to make eye contact, or because he is hiding something from you. In any case, you have a role to play in making sure that he is comfortable enough around you.
gaze aversion (gaze avoidance)
Discontinuation or deliberate avoidance of *eye contact: for instance, because looking longer would be staring, because of feeling dominated, because we are ignoring someone, or because we are embarrassed, uncomfortable, or depressed.
Deception can be found in the strangest of ways, some of which involve fidgeting and itching. “The head will be retracted or jerked back, bowed down, or cocked or tilted to the side,” behavioral analyst and The Body Language of Liars author Dr. Lillian Glass previously wrote.
Becoming angry and defensive
If they feel that someone closes in on their lies and raises questions, liars tend to get angry and defensive. Even if no one is outright accusing them, they have an overblown reaction due to their fear of being caught.
While some people who lie want to protect the feelings of others and spare someone else pain or hurt, many people lie to protect their own feelings, self-esteem, self-confidence, or other personal emotion.