This girl is a liar

Everyone’s told a lie– you, your friends, your boss, even your perfect “role model” mother. But the only reason you’ve ever told a lie was to help someone else, or yourself for that matter, out of a very sticky situation…right? Or are you just lying to yourself now? Either way, considering the fact that almost everyone on the face of the earth has lied at one point or another, we sure are lousy at picking out the most malicious liars among us. You might think you have a good sense of when someone is telling a tall tale, but you’ll find that when you know how to read the signs, spotting the falsities in your perpetually late co-worker’s excuses or even the faults in your spouse’s multiple cover-ups can really save you some strife in the long run. So, without further ado, here are 10 habits shared by Lying Larry’s and Fibbing Franny’s around the world.

1. Averted gaze: It’s not normal to expect someone to maintain full eye contact for the entirety of a conversation…unless they have some sort of disorder, and that’s another story in and of itself. However, if you notice any difference in the amount of eye contact the suspected liar is making, that could be a clue that they’re not telling the truth. In fact, even the direction of the gaze makes a difference when trying to figure out someone’s intentions. It has been noted that when trying to recall a fact, most people with avert their eyes upwards and to the right. A person who is trying to come up with a lie, however, will usually look down.

2. Too much eye contact: Just as a liar may avert his or her gaze to keep someone from looking into their eyes (it’s been long said that you can see the truth in someone’s eyes, therefore liars may try to avoid this result by looking away altogether), someone trying to cover up a lie may also make too much eye contact. This comes as a result of a reverse train of thought by the person in question. More experienced frauds may know that people are expecting them not to make eye contact and therefore counteract this by making prolonged eye contact, to the point of abnormality.

3. Stuttering: Telling a lie, especially a more in-depth one, takes a lot of effort on the fibber’s part. So much effort, in fact, that in the process of telling it, people tend to get tripped up. Think about it– if there’s something big at stake, it takes enough effort to remember and relay an actual string of events. Liars charge themselves with the duty of not only coming up with a fake string of events, but also coming up with it on the spot as well as double-checking every word they say seconds before they say it, meanwhile paying strict attention to every word they say for fear that they’ll be asked to repeat the same story later. Makes you almost feel sorry for them doesn’t it? Nah.

She tells nothing but lies

4. Sweating: It’s a natural nervous reaction. Most people sweat or get sticky palms when speaking in public, making an important decision, waiting on significant results, etc. But if someone is sweating during an everyday situation, that could be a tip-off that they fear getting caught in their lie.

5. Abnormal expressions: As in the case of liars making too much eye contact, they may also go too far when it comes to showing they are at ease to throw you off. If someone holds a facial expression for too long, such as a smile, or other expressions/gestures, take that into consideration.

6. Fidgeting: This may be a person’s way of diverting your attention, therefore breaking your concentration on the facts of the story they’re telling you. It may also be an uncontrollable nervous habit. Whether someone fidgets with an outside object or takes up a nervous habit such as tapping their feet or twirling their hair, these are all signs that your culprit may not be fully at ease and in the midst of spinning a tall tale.

7. Changes in pace: Beyond the obvious stuttering through sentences, more experienced liars might try to disguise this dead giveaway by pausing excessively. You can watch for this by noticing where in the sentence or story the person pauses. If it’s right before an important detail, or maybe before a detail they have relayed to you previously, this could be a sign that they are trying to straighten up their story in their head before it comes out of their mouth. Also, if the person pauses at irregular times such as the middle of a sentence (in the absence of a transition), they could be trying to let their voice catch up with their mind.

This girl can't keep a secret

8. Changes in tone of voice: When someone is spinning a story, they are usually concentrating too hard on coming up with the details for their body to focus on what it is normally able to focus on. This may cause a person’s voice to crack, which is almost a dead giveaway of a lie being told.

9. Any other changes in bodily functions: As noted above, people actively engaged in making up a story that isn’t true, while also trying to double-check the details of this story in their mind, while also trying to remember the details in case they have to recall them later…don’t usually have time for much else. As a result, functions such as blinking, swallowing and breathing may become abnormal. For the most part these changes will manifest themselves in the form of increased levels of all of the above (all going back to “fight or flight” reactions—also known as modern day nervous reactions).

10. Being overly vague: To lighten the load on themselves, fibbers will often not tell too many details of any story they’re asked to recall. And wouldn’t you do the same? Given the difficulty of telling a solid lie (noted several times thus far), it is much easier to keep it simple until further request. So give these people a run for their money—if they’re too simple, ask for further explanation, and then look for the signs noted above.

For the most part, pegging the aforementioned signs as a tip-off of a lie comes down to knowing the person in question. On any given day, any given person could show any of these signs, while also remaining perfectly innocent. But if you know someone’s normal tendencies, it becomes that much easier to peg these signals for what they really are, therefore catching their insincere act and taking proper actions. Ready to try it out but have no one to try it on? First, thank whatever higher power you might believe in…or your mom and dad for teaching you not to hang around liars. Then, go record the daytime court TV sensation of your choice and have at it.

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The everyday activities of the human brain are extraordinary to behold. Exclusive to the mind are the powers to imagine, plan, solve, and it does all these while coordinating and regulating a multitude of bodily functions. There are as many neurons in the brain as there are stars in our Milky Way Galaxy. It is a wonderful, complicated organ, and because of this, the full scope of its abilities is still being explored.

There are several extreme examples of the power of the mind that science cannot yet fully explain – from the outlandish, like telekinesis, to the scientifically verified, such as the ability to actively control autonomic body functions through meditation.

Telekinesis

While the scientific community, for the most part, considers telekinesis the stuff of hoaxes, during the Cold War the USSR seemed quite convinced they had a homegrown psychic in Nina Kulagina.

Reports from the Soviet Union claimed that Nina’s abilities had been studied by dozens of scientists, including Nobel laureates, and films of her appearing to move objects across a table without touching them fascinated researchers around the world. Nina consented to be examined while she performed her telekinetic feats, and one study noted changes in her heartbeat, brainwaves and electromagnetic fields, even when the environment was completely controlled. She also was observed controlling the heart rate of a laboratory frog.

In another popular story, she entertained a professor in her home that had deliberately dropped in on her unexpectedly in an attempt to pop quiz her abilities. She was able to successfully recreate her telekinetic talents and even consented to being filmed. Nina Kulagina certainly had her skeptics, however. A popular newspaper claimed she was a fraud, although Nina had the last laugh. She sued and won, in no small part due to the testimony of Soviet Union parapsychologists. Nina Kulagina quit submitting to experiments in the 1970’s, after she suffered a near fatal heart attack that she blamed on the physical stress of telekinesis.

Photographic Memory

Better known in scientific circles as eidetic memory, photographic memory involves the ability to remember images or events nearly exactly. Eidetikers can project a memory on a “blank canvas” in their minds as if they were still seeing it and describe elements in great detail. This skill is often associated with autism spectrum disorders, especially Asperger’s Syndrome, but is certainly not exclusive to it.

Famous examples include Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who, in his youth, wrote down Misere by Allegri with almost total accuracy after hearing it just once, and Charles Schwab, who could recall 8000 employees’ names.

Related to eidetic memory is hyperthymesia, which is a spectacular skill for remembering events in one’s own life. Jill Price has achieved a level of fame for her capacity for personal memories; she claims she recollects every detail of the last three decades of her life and, if given a date, she can recall the day of the week, what she did, and what was going on in the world at the time, as long as she heard about it on the given day. The memories appear as crisp and accurate as if on film.

Self Regulation of Autonomic Processes

Meditation is the key to achieving control over the body’s autonomic functions, according to research. In 1970, a yogi named Swami Rama participated in a study by the Menninger Foundation designed to understand and verify his ability to self regulate his heartbeat, which included the ability to flat line his own heart rate. During these studies, he also showed he could change the temperature in one hand independent from the other.

Swami Rama told researchers that he was able to control his blood flow through meditation, which was how he altered his internal temperature and heart rate. Physician observers also claimed that Swami Rama moved a knitting needle telekinetically during a carefully controlled experiment, but many remain skeptical, as the incident couldn’t be verified scientifically, unlike the other tests.

Meditation is also the explanation for the famous feats of the Tibetan monks who practice a type of yoga technique called g Tum-mo. These monks have been filmed during a 1980s study drying wet sheets in frigid temperatures with only their body heat. The monks enter a deep meditative state while other monks drape sheets that had been soaked in cold water over their shoulders. Instead of causing the monks to shiver, the wet sheets begin to steam. It usually takes only an hour for the sheets to dry. The dry sheet is removed and replaced with another cold, wet wrapping; this is then repeated at third time to complete the technique.

Subjected to temperatures and conditions that might kill others, these practitioners of Tum-mo never even shiver. The monks, who live near the Himalayan Mountains, during the same study were also able to elevate the temperature of their toes and fingers by almost 20 degrees and were filmed spending a winter night outdoors at 15,000 feet wearing only shawls. Even when the temperature dropped to zero, no evidence was seen of shivering, and none of the monks huddled together.

The Power of the Placebo Effect

One of the clearest cases the influence of the mind on health and well being is the placebo effect, which occurs when the mind believes health will improve or deteriorate because of a perceived medical intervention, and so it does, even if the intervention was a fraud.

A classic illustrative example of the placebo effect at work involved a terminal cancer patient and a worthless drug called Krebiozen. In 1957, a man named Mr. Wright hounded his doctor to allow him to try Krebiozen, even though he did not qualify for the experimental trials, because Wright was convinced the drug would cure him. His doctor finally consented and injected him with the cancer treatment. Wright immediately began to improve, and one journal article quotes the doctor as saying Mr. Wright’s tumors shrank “like a snowball on a hot stove.” However, Wright got wind of the failures of the drug, and soon after his tumors shot up in size. Worried for his patient, Mr. Wright’s doctor convinced him that there was a newer, better version of the drug which was guaranteed to work. Mr. Wright consented to trying Krebiozen again, but was actually injected with a syringe full of water. His condition immediately improved. Unfortunately, Wright then learned that Krebiozen had been declared ineffective by the American Medical Association and died soon after.

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Crazy comes in many different flavors. And let’s face it, some forms are funnier than others. Thankfully, some of the strangest mental conditions are the ones that don’t seem to occur too often.

Below are a few of the craziest of crazy―10 of the weirdest, most unique mental disorders.

Objectum Sexuality. Folks with this disorder develop serious emotional attachments to inanimate objects. These feelings may even include sexual arousal brought on by certain objects. So you might want to keep people suffering from objectum sexuality away from your favorite teddy bear, lest your stuffed pal become the object of a very one-sided love affair. The size of the item being emoted upon isn’t always practical, either. One woman who suffers from this condition believes she is married to the Eiffel Tower. So perhaps it’s time to start worrying about your friend who talks incessantly about the love he has for his 50-inch plasma screen television.

Gamomania. If you’ve ever had a random stranger walk up to you and ask you to marry her, then it sounds like you’ve probably met someone suffering from gamomania, a mental disorder that causes people to make sudden, outrageous marriage proposals. If you accepted, then hopefully you two are happy. Although it’s unlikely, as your spouse undoubtedly brings home a new fiancé every day. Gamomaniacs have such an intense desire for marriage, they usually tend to lean towards a polygamous lifestyle.

Aboulomania. You know that conversation you have sometimes that goes like, “What do you want to have for dinner?” “I don’t know, what do you want to have?” Multiply that times a thousand, and you can imagine what living with someone who suffers from aboulomania could feel like. This mental disorder causes extreme indecisiveness, which must be really annoying for not only the sufferers, but for their friends and loved ones. It does make you wonder how an aboulomaniac can ever leave the house in the morning, since such a severe inability to make a decision on anything must make picking out the day’s outfit even more challenging than it already seems to be for so many non-sufferers.

Doromania. If you don’t have a friend who has been diagnosed with doromania, perhaps you should hop on down to your local psychiatric ward and find one. Doromania in an obsession with giving gifts, which really makes the illness sound less like a horrible disorder and more like a characteristic of a wonderful friend or a favorite aunt. This is assuming, of course, that your favorite doromaniac actually gives good gifts, and not just random items from the dollar store or cans of cat food wrapped up with a bow.

Alien Hand Syndrome. Folks with alien hand syndrome apparently lose control over the actions of one of their own hands. But the hand doesn’t just hang there limply. It takes on a life of its own, seemingly under its own power, regardless of what the hand’s owner wills it to do. While alien hand syndrome allows you to feel all sensations in your hand like normal, you just can’t tell it what to do anymore. It seems like having this bizarre particular mental illness could come in handy if you ever need an excuse for slapping someone in the face or shoplifting.

Cotard Syndrome. People with Cotard syndrome take hypochondria to the next level. Rather than just think they are sick, people with this illness believe they are dead. Well, sometimes they just believe they have lost some of their major organs, but it seems like that would quickly lead to death anyway. If you know someone who is still walking around looking like a zombie months after Halloween is over, your friend may be suffering from this sickness. It’s best to just ignore him, rather than shattering his belief that he has ceased to exist.

Capgras Delusion. If you travel home to visit family and it feels like your mother has been replaced by an entirely new person, you may be right. Or you may have been stricken by the Capgras delusion. This form of schizophrenia causes people to think their loved ones have been replaced by imposters. You could seek help from a medical professional, or you could just go with the flow, enjoy making a new friend and welcome the influx of a fresh presence at family dinners.

Synesthesia. People with synesthesia basically attribute unique characteristics to words. They may associate certain colors with letters and numbers, or think of a map or calendar page as a three-dimensional image. For some people, this mental illness can bring about more creativity and artistic inspiration. Others just use it to annoy their friends. Two people with synesthesia won’t always agree. One may think the letter “B” is green, while another may call it red. Putting the two in a locked room to duke it out would be cruel and also hilarious.

The Jumping Frenchmen of Maine. If you suffer from this wonderfully named illness, it means that you are likely to jump up and obey any command instantly, even if the command asks you to hit your mother in the face. Essentially a physical form of Tourette’s, Jumping Frenchmen is a rare but useful illness. If you’re looking for an always willing participant who will react quickly to your every command without question or hesitation, then seek out someone with this affliction. Just remember, with great power comes great responsibility … and enjoyment.

Body Integrity Identity Disorder. Ever felt the strong desire to cut off one of your own limbs? Of course not. That would be crazy. Or more specifically, that would be body integrity identity disorder. People with BIID truly believe that removing one of their healthy body parts would make their lives better. Luckily, most BIID sufferers do not remove their own limbs or have luck finding doctors who will do so for them. Instead, they often just pretend they are missing a leg or an arm, which seems difficult to do, and they should be applauded for sticking to their disorders with such dedication.

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If you are one of those individuals who find it difficult to remember names don’t worry, you are not alone.  Most of us have had this experience, and there is no reason to be embarrassed or upset.  Odds are, the person whose name you forgot, has had the same thing happen to them at one time or another.
Because the ability to recall the names of people you meet in social or work situations will always be a benefit, here are some simple techniques to improve your memory of names and faces dramatically.

First, we need to adjust our priorities, realizing that every new relationship can be an advantage in one aspect of another.  Acknowledge every new relationship as a priority.  Once someone has introduced themselves, try to focus on the individual and repeat their name.  While doing this, try to make a mental connection between their name and something familiar.  When I met a woman whose name was Tiffany, I noticed that she was elegant, so I mentally linked her name with the upscale Tiffany store.  Try to stay in the moment, and not worry about what you are going to say next, and most important, relax, and focus on that person.

After the initial introduction, start using their name in a conversation during your introductory meeting or sometime shortly afterwards.  Ask them a question about themselves or their business and be sure to use their name in the process. Three times should be enough to remember. Be sure to act as natural as possible and not to overdo it.

Another method may be association.  As humans, we are naturally programmed for face recognition, so it just takes a little extra effort. Take time to study the individual and become aware of any physical image or mental characteristic that might you help remember their name.  Is the person small or large, heavy of slim?  How about hair color or posture.  It might even be easy to associate a person with a picture. The more you study a person, the easier it will be to recall their name.

It might be a good idea, when you get home or back to the office to write down the names of the people you’ve met along with a few facts or characteristics about them.  Some suggest to write down their names a few times a week for at least the first month, as a highly effective device for face and name recognition.

It might be interesting to know that human faces are not processed by the human brain in the same way as other information, in fact, the human brain contains many different areas, each which are responsible for a different purpose.  While some areas of the brain are able to take over the functions of other areas should they be damaged, the region dedicated to facial recognition is not one of them.  Should this area be damaged, an individual will actually lose the ability to associate faces with names, even those of close friends or relatives.

So when meeting someone new, either in a work situation or a social situation, make a conscious effort and commit to remembering their names using the easy steps outlined above.  It is the best way to make a lasting impression.

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