Most people believe they can tell when someone is lying to them — and most people are wrong. That is the central message from Dr Sasha Hall, a Senior Educational Psychologist with more than a decade of experience in educational psychology services, who has set out to dismantle some of the most persistent myths about detecting deception.

Working with LiveCasinos.com, Dr Hall has outlined what the psychological evidence actually supports when it comes to spotting a bluffer — and the findings challenge assumptions that have become deeply embedded in popular culture.

Why the classic tells are largely useless

Avoiding eye contact is perhaps the single most widely cited supposed indicator of dishonesty, repeated in workplaces, courtrooms and everyday conversation alike. According to Dr Hall, it is also among the least reliable signals available.

“People often rely on popular ideas about body language, such as avoiding eye contact or fidgeting, but these behaviours can occur for many different reasons,” she explains. “Someone might be tired, anxious, distracted or simply thinking carefully about their answer.”

The same scepticism applies to other commonly cited cues such as fidgeting, touching the face or shifting position in a seat. Each of these can have entirely innocent explanations. Crucially, Dr Hall notes, someone who maintains steady, confident eye contact is not necessarily being truthful either — making the cue almost worthless in isolation.

This matters beyond casual conversation. Research in psychology has consistently shown that even trained professionals — police officers, border agents, interviewers — perform only marginally better than chance when asked to identify liars. The popular belief that deception is written on the body in obvious ways is not well supported by evidence.

The one signal worth paying attention to

Rather than searching for a single giveaway gesture, Dr Hall argues that the genuinely informative signal is a departure from a person’s own established communication style — what psychologists refer to as their baseline.

“When people think about bluffing, they picture someone with a completely blank face,” she says. “In reality it’s far more nuanced than that. Everyone has their own natural communication style — some people are highly expressive, others are far more reserved, and neither is inherently more convincing. What actually gives people away is a change from their own baseline.”

This approach shifts the focus away from absolute behaviours and towards relative ones. A person who speaks quickly may not be lying when they slow down — but if they slow down specifically when answering one particular question, that change is potentially worth noting. Similarly, someone who is normally forthcoming becoming suddenly vague, or a usually reserved individual suddenly becoming animated, may warrant closer attention.

Dr Hall identifies four specific shifts to watch for once a baseline has been established: changes in pace of speech; changes in the level of detail offered; changes in how physically animated or expressive someone is; and changes in how they engage with others, including whether they become withdrawn or unusually attentive when challenged.

Reading the whole picture

The broader lesson Dr Hall draws is one about pattern recognition rather than individual cues. “It is much more useful to understand a person’s usual communication style before trying to interpret whether anything has changed,” she says. “Without that context, it is very easy to read meaning into behaviours that may be entirely typical for that individual.”

She also cautions against over-interpreting single moments. “Most of us like to think we would know if somebody was lying to us. The evidence suggests we are generally not as accurate as we believe.” Stress, tiredness, nerves, and the emotional weight of a conversation topic can all alter someone’s behaviour without any deception being involved.

Dr Hall summarises her guidance in five practical principles: establish a baseline before drawing conclusions; look for changes rather than fixed behaviours; do not treat eye contact as a reliable indicator; consider multiple behaviours together rather than any single gesture; and always keep context in mind, since innocent factors can easily mimic the signs of dishonesty.

Dr Hall has been practising as a Senior Educational Psychologist since 2019, having worked within a number of Local Authority Educational Psychology Services from 2010. She has also served as a field work tutor to trainee educational psychologists and as a visiting university lecturer, and currently works as Lead Visitor for a professional council evaluating whether educational settings meet appropriate professional standards.