Here’s another post that could help you in your quest for truth. Or to have something “intelligent” to share in your next boring company party and amaze your bosses. It pays to be a Smart Alec(x) know-it-all at times.

James*’ post on how to tell if someone is lying is still one of the popular searches in this site. It’s a great read. I bet after reading that one, you started trying it out with people, trying to catch them if they’re making something out or not with that little mental checklist waiting to exclaim “Gotcha! You big fat liar.” Or maybe that’s just me. I know you’re all good people.

Now, in the comments, Andrew Clarke raised a very interesting idea that came from Neuro-Linguistic Programming. You can read his comment here. Our friend Andrew’s referring to Visual Accessing Cues (VAC). It’s taken from this book, “Frogs into Princes: Neuro Linguistic Programming.”

It’s not exactly a way to tell if someone’s lying but a way to tell whether the person is making things up (constructing) on his/her mind or remembering (Hence I might be using a misleading title, bash me please). It’s quite confusing at first but I’ll try to simplify it as best as I can (tough!).

First of, you have to know the person’s dominant hand. Then, observe the person’s eye movement. The direction of movement tells whether a sensory image is either remembered or constructed (made up). Here’s a diagram showing how it should work with right-handed people:

Try these with someone to check. Give them these instructions and follow their eye movements:

• Think about your room where your bed is located. – visually remembered
• Imagine a green unicorn. – visually constructed
• Sing “Happy Birthday” in your head. – auditory remembered
• Imagine your dad’s voice singing that Paris Hilton song. – auditory constructed (unless that person does remember his dad singing a Paris Hilton song -> freaky)

I learned about VAC years ago back in my college freshman days. We had this professor who taught non-verbal communication and he shared this one in class. As far as our own class went, we found out that most of this is quite accurate through peer experimentation. There’s even this girl who caught her cheat of a boyfriend because of this!

I know most critics would dispute this as a load of claptrap. But this as far as my personal experiences with it, it’s got a good batting average.

Here’s a similar article on this topic.