Vincent Denault once believed he was learning how to read people’s hidden thoughts through analyzing body language. As a young lawyer in Quebec, he attended behavior analysis and “synergology” trainings that promised the ability to detect lies and determine hidden thoughts from small gestures and movements. But after digging into the research, he realized much of what he’d been taught wasn’t true. In this talk, Vincent describes that journey and we explore how body-language myths spread through trainings, media, and YouTube behavior “experts.” We also discuss his research on how judges use behavior to assess witness credibility, his views on Paul Ekman, and his views on how bad-behavior-information spreaders protect themselves from criticism and responsibility. Along the way, we examine why nonverbal behavior still matters in human interaction—just not in the reliable lie-detection ways many people assume.
Topics discussed include:
- His journey out of the people-reading/Synergology world and into science
- How judges can use nonverbal behavior to judge witness testimony and determine veracity, and why that’s a problem
- How spreaders of behavior bullshit can use calls for caution, and calls for “baselining,” as a way to evade criticism and avoid taking responsibility for their bad info
- The role of media and shows, like the show Lie to Me and assorted movies, in spreading bad behavior info
- Critical views of Paul Ekman
- The oft-repeated but false claim that nonverbal behavior represents most of the meaning in communication, and where that false idea stems from
Episode links:
Resources related to this talk:
- Vincent’s own account of his journey from behavior pseudoscience to research
- Vincent’s podcast on behavior
- Vincent’s papers
- His paper on how witness nonverbal behavior can influence judge’s views
- Body of Evidence podcast episode on Synergology
- A talk with researcher Tim Levine about behavior not being useful for lie detection
TRANSCRIPT
(coming soon)