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The Eyes Have It
Nov 26Want to understand people? Look ‘em in the eye. You can tell a lot about how someone’s thinking by tracking their eye movement.
About the Author
Frank Roche
Frank started IFRACTAL over 7 years ago with Sarah Chambers. Together, they've created HR communications and HR software for some of the world's leading companies. Frank is also studying Flamenco guitar and origami.
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First of all, I would like to thank you for all the learning that i am getting from this page…I love it!!!
But, I would like to ask you if you could give me any link or book about HR in a family bussiness…we got a big phaamcy in the Canary Island, Spain, and I have not been able to find any good reading about this topic, and HR in a family bussines is quite different from a regular company, because the personal and profesional relationships stick together.
Sorry about the off-topic, and my english, but I hope you can help me.
Hi Frank. That’s an interesting article, but it’s dangerous in several different ways. Like many body language books, it oversimplifies and also ignores cultural factors.
Take the material about how someone who’s not looking you in the eye is not interested. That’s true in some cultures. In other cultures looking down is a sign of respect and interest.
Or consider the material in the article that a person looking up and to the right is visualizing a remembered image. There’s too large a portion of the population that visualizes looking up and to the left to let that stand unchallenged. Experienced interviewers and interrogators that interpret eye movement as part of their practice know that you must first establish a person’s truth-telling style before you assume any movement, stance, or posture implies lying.
Wally, I think they warn in the article to get a baseline. I studied NLP in grad school, and I think there’s a certain validity in what they say, but as you say, it’s not the end all. People need to pick up all the clues they can, and any one clue wouldn’t be close to enough. It’s like good poker players — you need to take in all the cues and not look for people throw you off. The best things for me have little to do with “techniques.” I like to hear from people who know people. That, and authenticity. It works for me.
Ovidio, I’ll put a list together for you. Thanks for reading!
Frank,
As you pointed out, the article suggests getting a baseline and looking for CHANGES in eye-contact behavior versus the norms of the specific person you are observing. Like most analysis, the significant fact is the deviation from that baseline, as the author puts it:
“Now that we have a baseline we can tell when they are lying.
…
The surest sign that someone is lying is when the behavior of their eyes changes from when they are telling the truth.”
Thanks for a fascinating post,
Jaime Fitzgerald
President
Fitzgerald Analytics, Inc.