Body language and the quest for truth

Collin Greenland, Contributor

To the uninitiated watching the Manatt-Dudus soap opera, some guidelines to distinguish the prevaricators from the tellers of the truth may be useful. It is during the cross-examination of witnesses by lawyers that the exchanges are more dramatic, and liars more likely to be exposed.

The cross-examinations witnessed in the enquiry, for example, are comparable to the interrogations carried out by other professionals such as law-enforcement officers, fraud examiners, forensic accountants and other investigators. They are more aggressive and hard-line than normal interviews, and are intended to extract an admission of guilt from the persons suspected, or even accused, of committing some misdeed.

Determining who the Manatt-Dudus liars are will involve observing the behaviour of the witnesses revealing non-verbal clues gleaned from our knowledge of various communication techniques including chronemics, paralinguistics and kinesics. The International Journal of Language and Communication Disorder regards paralanguage as "non-verbal communicating activities which accompany verbal behaviour in conversation".

Vivid examples of chronemics are demonstrated by most of the lawyers in the enquiry, as they control the length of pauses and rate of their speech (pacing); and the length of time after the witnesses have finished a sentence before another question is posed (silent probe).

In general, research done by psychologists has shown that non-verbal modes are more reliable than verbal, and are responsible for more than half of the meaning of a message conveyed between two people. The meaning of what a person says will either be supported or reinforced by the accompanying non-verbal behaviour, or will indicate some discomfort with the answer, suggesting the possibility that the answer was either not true or not complete. The interviewer/interrogator's behaviour has an influence on the subject/witness' behaviour, whose symptoms become more revealing and reliable as anxiety increases.

Indicators of lying

In the case of the Manatt-Dudus witnesses, it was interesting to observe some trying to back up their words with gestures such as facial features, expressions, nodding, frowning, shrugging, etc. According to the experts, non-verbal behaviour indicating that they were lying may include unusual or specific indicators in response to 'hot' questions. We saw, for example, dry mouth and lips, avoiding eye contact, staring at the lawyers, then dropping eyes away or to the side, rapid speech patterns, restlessness and shifting in the chair, abnormal blink rate, biting the lips and tongue, tightly squeezing the lips together, claiming memory failure or having a keen memory, smiling at inappropriate times, phoney oversmiling and dropping the head.

The most common posture that would be exhibited by Manatt-Dudus liars is rigidity. Posture consists of mainly the upper torso, the seat and legs - not the arms, which are illustrators. Both the lawyers and witnesses in the enquiry exhibited telling kinesic communication, as there was active use of movement of either parts of the body, or the body as a whole, to convey meaning. They all exhibited the five categories classified by communication experts:

Emblems (eg, V sign or OK);

Illustrators (eg, hand movements);

Affect displays (eg, emotional facial expressions);

Regulators (eg nodding); and

Adapters (eg, posture, etc)

These behavioural profiles should not be regarded as foolproof but intended mainly to point out that there is a lot to guide us in separating the wheat from the tares. Sure, there are good liars and truthful persons who crumble when interrogated, but if we start to use these indicators, there is still an 80 per cent chance of being correct.

Now, while watching the Manatt-Dudus enquiry, can you identify any liars?

Collin Greenland is a forensic accountant. Email comments to columns@gleanerjm.com and cgreeny.collin@gmail.com.