If you want to study body language and eye movements in liars...children make great subjects.
When I catch my nephew in a lie, his eyes go up, down, side to side. He looks away or stares down at his feet. It's too funny at times and I have to turn away or stifle a laugh.
I was really interested in one article which I read. I differentiated between straight recall of facts and the cognitive process which would be involved if you had to work something out (we call these Knowledge and Understanding v Problem Solving in Scotland). The eyes move to different places when the two different processes are used.
We tried it out on Tootsie at the weekend. Ask her a sum and the eyes roll upwards, ask her what she had for lunch and the eyes roll upwards - this is what she does when she's remembering a fact. But when we gave her a riddle-me-re, her eyes moved to the right. It worked every time. My Hubby is a bit of a sceptic when it comes to psychology but he was suitably impressed with this.
Well, apparently, if a person is lying, they must apply the second process. So, first of all, it's essential to establish a person's "baseline" behaviour - Tootsie will roll her eyes up if she's going to tell the truth and she'll look to the right if she's working something out - inclusing a lie (sussed!). Therefore, interrogators who are trained in reading body language will start off by asking certain questions to establish a person's baseline.
What about the Ramsey interviews?
JR 1997
The detectives started off asking him to describe events from the time when they left the Whites
PR 1997
Lots of short response, factual questions about which school she went to and what was the name of the last book she read.
JR 1998
Interview starts with Lou Smit discussing the police position with regard to the investigation (Smit is supportive of the police). LS asks John about their non-co-operation. It's more of a discussion. Smit points out why they have to clear the Ramseys (because if they ever arrest an intruder, the intruder's defence will be that the Ramseys did it).
PR 1998
Tom Haney asks PR about medication and then asks Patsy to start off my telling him whatever she can about Jonbenet's death.
JR 2000
M Kane starts off by asking John Ramsey how active he's been in the investigation since the last interview.
PR 2000
Kane started off by asking Patsy about the Ramsey's own investigation of the murder. It would be pretty difficult to analyse this interview of Patsy's because Lin Wood interrupts so frequently that the "train" of the interview is buried under a mountain of Lin Wood's objections/points of information and comments.
In Summary - the only interview which *could* be applying body language analysis is Patsy's 1997 interview.
NOTE: In many of the above interviews, the investigators point out to the Ramseys that any intruder's defence is going to be that the parents did it and that this is why it is crucial for the police to throoughly investigate the Ramseys and to have the answers to many questions on record so that they can be prepared to interrogate any intruder. Although they claim to understand this, Lin Wood counters it by saying that his clients will be prepared to answer any questions IF and WHEN an intruder is arrested. How can this be a desire to aid the investigation whilst memories are fresh? This is precisely why the Ramseys are viewed in such a negative light by so many people.
Thankfully, this wouldn't happen in the UK where police have the autonomy to charge someone with obstruction of justice if they refuse to be interviewed by police.
