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.The lie catcher must be more cautious in interpretingillustrators than emblematic slips.As described earlier,both the Othello error and the Brokaw hazard influenceillustrators but not emblematic slips.If the lie catcher notesa decrease in illustrating, he must rule out all the otherreasons (apart from lying) for someone wanting to care-fully choose each word.There is less ambiguity about theemblematic slip; the message conveyed is usually suffi-ciently distinct to make it easier for the lie catcher to inter-pret.And, the lie catcher does not need previous acquaint-ance with the suspect to interpret an emblematic slip.Suchan action, in and of itself, has meaning.Since individualsdiffer enormously in their usual rate of illustrating, nojudgment can be made about them unless the lie catcher hassome basis for comparison.Interpreting illustrators, likemost of the other clues to deceit, requires previous ac-quaintance.Spotting deceit is very difficult in first meet-ings.Emblematic slips offer one of the few possibilities.The reason for explaining the next type of body move-ment, manipulators, is to warn the lie catcher about the riskof interpreting them as signs of deceit.We have found thatlie catchers often mistakenly judge a truthful person to belying because they show many manipulators.Whilemanipulators can be a sign that someone is upset, they arenot always so.An increase in manipulator activity is not areliable sign of deceit, but people think it is.Manipulators include all those movements in whichone part of the body grooms, massages, rubs, holds, 110 Telling Liespinches, picks, scratches, or otherwise manipulates anotherbody part.Manipulators may be of very short duration orthey may go on for many minutes.Some of the brief onesappear to have a purpose: the hair is rearranged, matter isremoved from the ear canal, a part of the body is scratched.Other manipulators, particularly those that last a longtime, seem to be purposeless: hair is twisted and untwisted,fingers rubbed, a foot tapped.Typically the hand is themanipulator.The hand may also be the recipient, as canany other part of the body.Common recipients are the hair,ears, nose, or crotch.Manipulator actions also can be per-formed within the face tongue against cheeks, or teethslightly biting lips and by leg against leg.Props may be-come part of a manipulator act match, pencil, paper clip,or cigarette.While most people were brought up not to performthese bathroom behaviors in public, they haven't learned tostop doing them, only to stop noticing that they do them.It is not that people are completely unconscious of theirmanipulators.If we realize someone is looking at one of ourmanipulator acts, we will quickly interrupt, diminish, ordisguise it.A larger gesture often will deftly cover a fleet-ing one.Even this elaborate strategy to conceal a manipula-tor is not done with much awareness.Manipulators are onthe edge of consciousness.Most people cannot stop doingthem for very long even when they try deliberately to doso.People are accustomed to manipulating themselves.People are much more proper as observers than as per-formers.The person making a manipulator movement isgiven the privacy to complete this act, even when themanipulator begins right in the midst of a conversation.Others look away when a manipulator is performed, look-ing back only when it is over.If the manipulator is one ofthose seemingly pointless activities, like hair twisting,which goes on and on, then of course others don't look Detecting Deceit from Words, Voice, or Body 111away forever, but people won't look for long directly at themanipulator act.Such polite inattention to manipulators isan overlearned habit, operating without thought.It is themanipulator watcher rather than the performer who, likea Peeping Tom, creates the offense to manners.When twocars pull up at a stop sign, it is the person who glances overat the person in the adjacent car who commits the offense,not the person who is vigorously cleaning his ear.I and others studying manipulators have wonderedwhy people engage in one manipulator rather than an-other.Does it mean anything if it is a rub rather than asqueeze, a pick rather than a scratch? And, is there somemessage that can be read from whether it is the hand, ear,or nose that is scratched? Part of the answer is idiosyn-crasy.People have their favorites, a particular type ofmanipulator that is their hallmark.For one person it maybe twisting a ring, for another picking cuticles, and foranother twisting a mustache.No one has tried to discoverwhy people have one versus another favorite manipulator,or why some people have no special idiosyncraticmanipulator.There is a bit of evidence to suggest thatcertain manipulator actions reveal more than just discom-fort.We found picking manipulators in psychiatric pa-tients who were not expressing anger.Covering the eyeswas common among patients who felt shame.But this evi-dence is tentative, compared to the more general findingthat manipulators increase with discomfort.20Scientists have reasonably well substantiated the lay-man's belief that people fidget, make restless movements,when they are ill at ease or nervous.Body scratching,squeezing, picking, and orifice cleaning and groomingmanipulators increase with any type of discomfort.I be-lieve that people also show many manipulators when theyare quite relaxed and at ease, letting their hair down.Whenwith their chums, people don't worry as much about being 112 Telling Liesproper.Some people will be more likely than others toburp, manipulate, and indulge in behaviors that in mostsituations are at least partially managed.If this is correct,then manipulators are discomfort signs only in more for-mal situations, with people who are not so familiar.Manipulators are unreliable as signs of deceit becausethey may indicate opposite states discomfort and relaxa-tion.Also, liars know they should try to squelch theirmanipulators, and most will succeed part of the time.Liarsdo not have any special knowledge of this; it is part of thegeneral folklore that manipulators are discomfort signs,nervous behavior.Everyone thinks that liars will fidget,that restlessness is a deception clue.When we asked peoplehow they would tell if someone were lying, squirming andshifty eyes were the winners.Clues that everyone knows about,that involve behavior that can be readily inhibited, won't be veryreliable if the stakes are high and the liar does not want to becaught.The student nurses did not show more manipulatoractions when lying than when telling the truth.Other stud-ies have found an increase in manipulators during deceits.I believe it is differences in the stakes that account for thiscontradiction in findings.When the stakes are high themanipulator actions may be intermittent, for contraryforces may be at work.High stakes make the liar monitorand control accessible and known clues to deceit, such asmanipulators, but those high stakes may make the liarafraid of being caught, and that discomfort should increasethis behavior.Manipulators may increase, be monitored,squelched, disappear for a time, reappear, and then after atime again be noticed and suppressed.Since the stakes werehigh, the nursing students worked hard to control theirmanipulator actions.There was not much at stake in stud-ies that found manipulators increased during lying
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