The direction of a person's eye movement is claimed to reveal what kind of mental representation they are using, and in popular use whether they are lying.
The claim is unusually easy to test, since it makes a specific prediction about observable movement, and it fails. Wiseman and colleagues found no association between eye direction and lying, and the wider representational-system prediction has fared no better. Its persistence in police and recruitment training is the more interesting phenomenon.
In practice
- An interviewer who reads a glance to the upper left as fabrication has learned nothing about the candidate.
- A refuted claim that is cheap to apply and impossible for the subject to contest survives on those properties.
- Possible explanations
- The explanation offered is that eye movements track which sensory system a person is using to construct or recall an image.
- In its favour
- The claim is unusually easy to test, since it makes a specific prediction about an observable movement, and its testability is the one thing to be said for it.
- Against it
- Direct tests found no association between eye direction and the predicted mental activity, and no advantage in detecting lies, so the claim is refuted rather than merely unsupported.
- Standing
- Directly tested by researchers and not supported. Studies examining the predicted eye-movement patterns during recall and construction found no relationship, including in deception contexts. It remains in circulation in interviewing and sales training.
- Subject
- Psychology & Behavior
- Essay
- Theories of the mind, from the lab to the bookshop