EIGHT
Detecting Deception
Proceed with Caution!T
hroughout the book, we’ve touched on many examples of nonver-
bal behavior, the body signals we can utilize to better understand
the feelings, thoughts, and intentions of others. By now, I hope you
have been persuaded that with these nonverbal clues, you can accurately
assess what every body is saying, in any setting. There is, however, one
type of human behavior that is difficult to read, and that is deception.
You might assume that as a career FBI agent who has at times been
called a human lie detector, I can spot deceit with relative ease, and even
teach you to become a personal polygraph in short order. Nothing could
be further from the truth! In reality, it is extremely difficult to detect
deception—far more so than getting an accurate read on the other be-
haviors we have discussed throughout this book.
It is precisely because of my experience as an FBI agent involved in
behavioral analysis—a person who has spent his entire career attempting