Former CIA Officers Share 6 Ways to Tell If Someone's Lying

Former CIA officers Philip Houston, Michael Floyd, and Susan Carnicero distilled their professional deception-detecting skills into a fascinating book, Spy the Lie, now available in paperback. In the excerpt below, the authors reveal six telltale signs someone is lying.

1. Behavioral pause or delay
You ask a person a question and you initially get nothing. After a delay, he begins to respond. How long does a delay have to be before it’s meaningful, before you would consider it a deceptive indicator? Well, it depends.

Try this exercise on a friend: Ask her the question, “On this date seven years ago, what were you doing that day?” The person will invariably pause before responding, because it’s not a question that naturally evokes an immediate response—the person has to think about it, and likely still won’t be able to offer a meaningful response. Now ask her, “On this date seven years ago, did you rob a gas station?” If your friend pauses before responding, you probably need to choose your friends more carefully. Much more likely, there will be no pause—your friend will immediately respond, “No!” or “Of course not!” It’s a simple exercise, but it drives home the point that the delay needs to be considered in the context of whether it’s appropriate for the question.