How to Detect a Lie using NLP

Article by Taylor Stewart (Author & Writer NLP - Expand your Mind)

Did you know that you can use an NLP technique called "Calibrating" to tell if someone is lying or not?

It is true, you can. Calibration is the act of eliciting information from a person and recording/observing the response. You can then compare new responses against those already known, to see if they match. Relax, it is not as difficult as it sounds. As you read on, it will all become so clear.

How does this work?

It is simple, you can calibrate a person's unconscious response to YES and NO questions.

Ask the person 5 questions that you already know they will answer...YES and observe their face. Your subconscious mind will record their "minimal cues" or small changes in body language. Make a mental note of the facial changes you see.

Things to notice: tiny muscle movements, changes in color, changes in muscle tone, the corners of the mouth and eyes etc.

Ask the person 5 questions that you already know they will answer...NO and observe their face and take notice of how their unconscious response presents. There will be marked differences between the Yes responses and the No responses.

That is all there is to it. Simple, huh? It is quite simple, but it takes practice. The more advanced you get at this skill, the less questions you have to ask to calibrate. Many pros can calibrate to a person's yes and no responses with 1 question each. "Hey there...was it Jim?" (yes) "Are you from around here?" (no). DONE!

The best way to master this skill is to practice with a partner. Ask someone to help you out or get a group of people together and you can all master this skill.

Sit across from each other.

Ask them 5 questions you know the answer is Yes. BUT instruct them to not answer out loud, just think it inside their head. Ask the questions and observe the minimal cues.

Ask them 5 questions you know the answer is No. BUT instruct them to not answer out loud, just think it inside their head. Ask the questions and observe the minimum cues.

(If you have a group of people, you can have each person describe the minimal cues they noticed)

Now ask 'yes' or 'no' questions you do not know the answer to. Instruct the person once again not to answer out loud, but to let you guess. Ask the questions, observe the cues and make a guess and then have the person tell you whether you were right or wrong.

If you "guess" right, you are on your way to mastering the skill of calibration. If you missed it, keep practicing...it will come.

By the way, this is the same way a lie detector or polygraph test work. To start the test, they ask you questions that they already know the answers to. They ask you questions they know you will be nervous about, such as: "have you ever lied to a loved one". As they ask these questions, they "calibrate" their fancy machines to each response. They now have a baseline response for your 'yes' answers, your 'no' answers, and the ones you're nervous about. The rest is just comparing the responses to old questions against the baselines to determine whether it is true or false.