Asperger's traits looking like lying?

Post Reply New Topic

I ran across this article today about "how to spot liars" and was struck by how many of these "signs" are things that people with Asperger's may often do. Now, I've had drummed into me from a veerrrrry early age by my parents "look into someone's eyes when they are talking, because liars/untrustworthy people look away/down". This article debunks that, but it's certainly a popular notion (also lead me to develop what I was recently told are still "unnatural" patterns of staring at or looking away from people when talking, but that's another issue).

It occurred to me that we might benefit from knowing that these things are signs people take as lying. Even if they haven't read the article, I suspect that a lot of NT people look at things like this, unconsciously or not, and may find the behaviors untrustworthy. Like the advice about looking people in the eye, even though I didn't correct that properly, it's useful to know that people think that so I can be aware of it. I don't lie (if I do attempt it, which I really dislike, it's done badly), and I'm also awful at spotting liars especially habitual ones. I also do most of these things when I interact with people! It might be some of the many reasons interacting with me makes people uncomfortable.

Original article titled "12 ways to spot a liar at work" :
http://www.forbes.com/sites/carolkinsey ... r-at-work/

1. A fake smile. It’s hard for liars to give a real smile while seeking to deceive. (Real smiles crinkle the corners of the eyes and change the entire face. Faked smiles involve the mouth only.)

2. Unusual response time. When the lie is planned (and rehearsed), deceivers start their answers more quickly than truth-tellers. If taken by surprise, however, the liar takes longer to respond – as the process of inhibiting the truth and creating a lie takes extra time.

3. Verbal cues. When lying, a person’s vocal tone will rise to a higher pitch. Other verbal cues include rambling, selective wording (in which one avoids answering the question exactly as asked), stammering, and the use of qualifiers (“To the best of my knowledge.” “I could be wrong . . . “). It’s also been noted that liars use fewer contractions: “I did not have sex with that woman . . .” rather than “I didn’t . . . ”

4. Under or over production of saliva. Watch for sudden swallowing in gulps or the increased need to drink water or moisten lips.

5. Pupil dilation. One nonverbal signal that is almost impossible to fake is pupil dilation. The larger pupil size that most people experience when telling a lie can be attributed to an increased amount of tension and concentration.

6. Change in blink rate. A person’s blink rate slows down as she decides to lie and stays low through the lie. Then it increases rapidly (sometimes up to eight times normal rate) after the lie.

7. Foot movements. When lying, people will often display nervousness and anxiety through increased foot movements. Feet will fidget, shuffle and wind around each other or around the furniture. They will stretch and curl to relieve tension, or even kick out in a miniaturized attempt to run away.

8. Face touching. A person’s nose may not grow when he tells a lie, but watch closely and you’ll notice that when someone is about to lie or make an outrageous statement, he’ll often unconsciously rub his nose. (This is most likely because a rush of adrenaline opens the capillaries and makes his nose itch.) Mouth covering is another common gesture of people who are being untruthful, as is covering the eyes.

9. Incongruence. When a person believes what she is saying her gestures and expressions are in alignment with her words. When you see a mismatch — where gestures contradict words – such as a side-to-side head shake while saying “yes” or a person frowning and staring at the ground while telling you she is happy, it’s a sign of deceit or at least an inner conflict between what that person is thinking and saying.

10. Changes in gestures. Often times, in the effort not to let their gestures “give away” the lie, deceivers will hold their bodies unnaturally still. At other times, especially after being asked a searching question, you may notice liars accelerate pacifying gestures — biting their lips, rubbing their hands together, fidgeting with jewelry, touching their hair.

11. Micro-expressions. Difficult to catch, but if you ever spot a fleeting expression that contradicts a verbal statement, believe what you see and not what you hear.

12. The quick-check glance. This may follow a less-than-truthful response: Liars will immediately look down and away, then back at you again in a brief glimpse to see if you bought the falsehood.

I've always wondered if I appear to be lying to people at times. Whenever I'm questioned about something or have to explain myself for some reason I just get nervous and even though I tell the truth I feel that my nervous behavior, and the fact that I tend to give too much information, makes it seem like I'm lying.

I agree with you, I'm certain that aspies give off the wrong signals which makes it even harder to make bonds with people. If aspies can read other people AND give off wrong body language, then it's not surprising there are problems.

Jason

If people want to think I am lying they may. Body language is over rated. I am already sure people think I am and it's a feeling I have.

Well, this explains a few things in my past I do many of those things when I'm nervous, and I'm always nervous when I socially interact with people. Especially when those people are my superiors. Add "avoids eye contact" and "mumbles in a shy and unusually quiet voice" to the list, and the result is "that's one weird, shifty fella. I can't trust anything he says".

I wish people would stop doing this nonsense. I mean profiling and judging other people like that, as if all humans had the same standardized mode of behavior without any phenotypic, developmental or cultural variation. Here is a simple fact: One can't reliably tell if a person is lying. It's impossible. Lie detectors don't work, truth serums don't work, swearing on a religious book doesn't magically force people to tell the truth, and of course subjective and biased observations like those on the list are no reliable indicator for lying or truth-telling either.

If I could rule a country, I'd require all citizens to wear a veil that masks the face, sunglasses, a long, billowing robe that hides their body language, and a voice box that gives spoken language a robotic, emotionless quality for an entire month every leap year. That should teach people to stop relying on their primitive, nonverbal communication instincts and to communicate using actual language. You know, that thing that distinguishes us from other species. I'm so sick and tired of all this animalistic "I can read your face and posture" crap, because people read all kinds of nonsense into my behavior that has no basis in reality. This is the main reason for my social anxiety.

Yeah, I remember in high school my history teacher asked me if I had any of the history textbooks because she was missing a lot of them and she remembered me taking one home. I said no and I started blushing and of course she didn't believe me and the girl with whom I was sitting beside said "yeah, it does look like you're lying, your face is all red." I said no but they didn't believe me.

I honestly didn't take any of the textbooks without returning them but I didn't like being put in the spotlight along with being asked about something I'd never do. Sometimes my face will go red at an emotional part of a movie or just by people talking about certain things. I wonder if I'd ever pass a lie detector test just because of my reactions to being put in the spotlight and just shocked about hearing false accusations of me.

These sorts of indicators are not 100% reliable, but it helps. If I get enough of a feeling from one of my kids that they are lying, then I can with confidence call them out on it, with that confidence they usually confess. If I have got it wrong, then their reaction to the accusation tells me that. If I blandly ask them if they did something, I hardly ever get the truth.

It's the same deal with a lie detector, it's an intimidation / confidence tool.

Those tips shouldn't be ignored.

Jason.

I keep a card in my wallet so that a police officer can read about aspergers and hopfully not asume that I am lying

I'm an extremly honest person but my friends think I'm dodgy, I just give off that vibe.
People assume I'm on drugs, that I'm lieing, that I'm upto something. In certain situations
I like VISA control I get very nervous which doesn't help.

The so called traits of a lair are really just the traits of a nervous person mixed with a few other things such as delay required for the story to be improvised.

^^ Exactly.

Nervousness can be caused by many other things, including anxiety. I personally am convinced that I would never be able to pass a lie detector test, even if I was completely honest, because, in an evaluative situation, I always get anxious and my body starts sending off appropriate signals (and a lie detector is based upon bodily reactions).

Delayed answers can also be indicative of anxiety or of some emotional block. Avoiding eye contact - in NT people - is a signal of uneasiness or social anxiety, is not specific to lying.

A fake smile is very difficult to detect, unless it's an obviously forced one. Even people who don't lie can smile in a way that looks fake, if they are nervous (the feeling of falsehood stemming from the contradiction in body language between smiling and the other physical signs of nervousness).

Incongruence is probably the best indicator. However, body language varies from person to person and, in order for someone to tell that there are some changes, one must first be acquainted to the body language of the person. Sometimes still, people are not lying, but merely believing what they say, even if their unconscious mind is not. So somebody might say something and believe it, while they have different feelings about it. The body language will probably give those feelings away, even if the person is not aware of the feelings they have. It's not a lie, as a lie is intentional.

As a therapist in training, I learned in school how to recognize incongruences, but was taught to never assume what they mean. So, for instance, in therapy, if I notice something incongruent about one of my clients, I am to tell them something along the lines of: "I notice that you are looking away, when you say so and so. What do you think this could mean?" I am never allowed to say: "I think you are lying to me, your body language tells me that", because I could be 1000 times wrong. Not event the most skilled NT in the world is able to accurately interpret body language all the time. Most of what NTs do is simply project their own experiences unto others (and maybe even Aspies are doing this, I don't know). And there you have it, the source of most communication problems in the social world...

Basic point: one should never assume that ones is lying, based on these tips or any other tips, for that matter.

Actually, when I was in a s I equal needs school I had a tutor/teacher/job coach with what today I perceive as having narcissistic tendencies, falsely accusing me of lying, gaslighting and just all around making me feel worse and that I should be greatful for her spending time tutoring me.

What she did a lot of which I hated was when she falsely accused me of doing something when she knows I never did anything.

And since she knew that being falsely accused made me very angry and have Angry Outburst I think she did that just to make me look bad for having autism.

one thing that gets me very angry and emotional is what I am falsely accused since in the past I had been punished many times for things I was falsely accused of.

Eventually after constant false accusations from her I began to get very disrespectful towards her not deliberately, but out of habit for her constant accusations and I knew she was going to fall asleep use me once again so I began to have very bad attitudes with her.

And she use the typical lack of eye contact due to having Aspergers as the reason she thought I was lying.

She demanded that I actually make eye contact with her that only when I was telling her something, but when she was tutoring me and I told her that when I making direct eye contact requires too much of my focus.

To make me look bad, she didn't ask me to repeat what she was saying and when I could not remember all of what she saying she accuse me of not paying attention and being in my own world while I was making that direct eye contact with her.

If I did not make direct eye contact with her or my eyes accidentally left the direct eye contact, she accuse me of rolling my eyes and if I denied it she got very upset and then gave bad reports to the residential part of the school.

She was one of the most ableist and narcissistic people I have ever met in my life!

The next year I had a more understanding tutor where I got three times as much as done in one month then I got from her in an entire year!

I have enjoyed reading everyone's answers.

I was always accused of lying, mainly by my parents. It was extremely frustrating because I would never lie, but then it got to the point where I felt that it didn't matter if I lied or not; they would think that I was, so I did start lying more. (For whatever reason) Ha!

Not looking into someone's eyes is taken a sign of lying or disrespect by most, often unconsciously. Similar with monotone vocals, lack of facial expression. Sometimes autistics overcompensate by staring too long and that is read by others as creepy or stalking.

Some studies have indicated that 90 percent of communication is non verbal. While that number has been disputed as way too high there is little doubt it is a substantial amount and when you are different in that regard for whatever reason you are at a substantial disadvantage.

The key thing the article mentioned is it must be a deviation from baseline behavior. If someone has aspergers, then aspie traits aren't a deviation. Reason many of them looking the same is because of anxiety.

This is entirely BS. The actual study looked specifically at the emotional content of isolated words, it has nothing to do with conveying semantic meaning. I think there was another study about finding people trustworthy, same sort of thing.