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.
Episode links:
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
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
- Vincent’s paper on the false claims made by “behavior experts”
- 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
(Transcripts are generated automatically and will contain errors)
Vincent Denault: I, I was doing an internship in a law firm, and I attended a training. At the time, it was told to me by the lawyer, like, it, it’s a super interesting training, and, uh, and I attended that training and I was without the word. I, I mean, wow. I never, you know, expected anything like this. And what was presented to me essentially was like, “Okay, you now you can read people. You can know what people are, are thinking but not saying.”
Zachary Elwood: There are many people out there who promote the idea that you can read people’s body language to achieve amazing, impressive things, whether in policing and interrogation or in professional contexts or in personal contexts. I’ve covered such claims sometimes on this podcast. In this episode of The People Who Read People podcast, I talk to Vincent Denault, a criminology and behavior researcher who used to believe those types of claims, who was fully in that reading people world, but who slowly came to see that those claims were not true.
He came to see the massive complexity and nuance in the realm of human behavior, and he now researches that and educates others about that. So this will be a talk about his journey from being in a sort of non-verbal behavior reading cult to getting out of that world. And I don’t use that word lightly. I think there can be cult-like dynamics in a lot of this behavior stuff, just as there can be cult-like dynamics around pretty much any school of thought.
But I do think there’s something about the massive complexity and ambiguity and high variability of human behavior that lends itself to people really seeing what they want to see in those areas and it being hard to easily and quickly falsify ideas. This dynamic lends itself to people who can peddle absurd, grandiose claims And end up with many people thinking that sounds plausible.
In fact, for the con man Chase Hughes, we can see the connection between behavior guru and spiritual guru quite clearly. Chase started out making grandiose and false claims about his behavior reading expertise and skills. In every single conversation, you’re seeing ten, fifteen, twenty layers behind what a person is presenting to everyone else in the room.
It’s like having X-ray vision, and it has given me a superpower. And now he seeks to be perceived as an all-knowing guru who understands all aspects of reality and can even see behind the false veil of a simulated reality.
Chase Hughes: I’ve been digging through ancient texts since I was little, and not like a handful, not like ten or twenty. I’m talking over a hundred and ninety sacred writings from every corner of human civilization. Somewhere between the lines, they’re all whispering the exact same message.
Zachary Elwood: I think these aspects also help explain why Paul Ekman was able to build such a powerful semi-cult-like following for his ideas and still to this day be seen as some sort of genius by many, despite being responsible for spreading egregiously bad behavior information, exaggerating what his ideas could do in terms of deception detection, and refusing to acknowledge and discuss evidence against his ideas.
When you have an area that people are really hungry for, like understanding human behavior and using human behavior, and that’s coupled with a lot of ambiguity and noisy information about what the facts are in that area, you have an environment where grandiose self-proclaimed gurus can rise. If you’re interested in human behavior and getting the truth about it and avoiding the immense amount of bullshit out there, I highly recommend Vincent’s podcast, which is called Beyond Lie Cues, a podcast about the science of nonverbal communication.
He does some very interesting interviews of behavior researchers with a focus on research connected to criminology and policing. When I was researching Vincent’s work, I learned about something called synergology. This is a practice developed by a guy named Philippe Terchet, and it’s described as a scientific discipline for reading body language.
They analyze nonverbal behaviors to determine a person’s true state of mind and feelings, and they use that in turn to make other deductions like about deception detection. On the main synergology website, they say that, quote, the mission of the Institute of Synergology is to democratize the study of nonverbal communication and provide individuals and professionals from all walks of life with the tools they need to enhance their interpersonal exchanges.
Synergology proponents claim they can interpret, for instance, a false no where the head turns to the right first versus a true no where the head turns to the left first. They’ve made claims about their system being able to detect deception at rates of eighty percent or even ninety percent Synergology claims are, in my view, obviously false, obviously grandiose.
They fly in the face of what science tells us about behavior. Here’s a clip from the podcast, The Body of Evidence, talking about synergology.
Jonathan Jarry: He has built a catalog of 1,200 gestures and movements over the course of 30 years, this huge catalog of 1,200 gestures. And he has codified the entire thing so that everybody in synergology can talk about the same movement. So if I do this, for instance, with my left index finger, it’s referred as this in synergology. So, and the goal of this grid is to essentially associate a movement with a state of mind. So here’s an example. So if I do this, this is supposed, according to them, this means I have a problem. And so I do this, and it betrays this subconscious feeling that I have. And if you’re a synergologist, you can look at somebody who’s doing this and think, okay, there’s a chance, there’s a good chance that this person has a problem.
Zachary Elwood: Vincent has written papers referencing synergology. Here’s a snippet from a 2019 paper of his, which is titled Science or Pseudoscience, A Distinction That Matters for Police Officers, Lawyers, and Judges.
Training sessions in synergology are offered to health, education, justice, and security professionals by synergologists. Recently, synergology has been marketed as a discipline that can help in preventing terrorist attacks. And here they quote from another paper, which reads, Whether used for crowd monitoring, interrogation, video analysis, or through surveillance cameras, the observation of a suspect or of an interaction between people could prevent terrorist attacks, manage a crisis, and more. Synergology’s analysis of nonverbal behavior is a logical complement to the important work of the various security officers in reading a threat. End quote.
So I think synergology is clearly a pseudoscience, as many people have called it. And I think like many popular pseudoscientific areas, it has some cult-like dynamics around it.
They make grandiose claims about the power of their ideas. They claim that nobody but a synergologist can criticize a synergologist, these kinds of things. There’s a grandiose and narcissistic aspect to the claims, a cliquish superior mentality, and an unwillingness to entertain criticism. As Vincent experienced, there are people who make this their identity and who believe they’re part of a secret club of amazing behavior readers in the same way that you have people getting bullshit behavior reading degrees and certificates from Chase Hughes and other alleged behavior experts.
And in the same way, there are cult-like dynamics in the realm of neuro-linguistic programming, which is by no coincidence where a lot of prevalent bullshit behavior ideas come from So this is just to say that behavior bullshit is still prevalent and influential these days, whether it’s synergology, or whether it’s people like Chase Hughes and the Behavior Panel spreading behavior nonsense, or many other people.
It’s even more prevalent than I had thought, to be honest. I was actually surprised to see how seriously people take this synergology stuff. I had not heard of it before. Apparently, that’s because it’s much bigger in Canada and Europe than in the United States. Topics Vincent and I discuss include his journey out of the 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 in using their information 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 in spreading bad behavior information, the role of Paul Ekman in spreading bad behavior information, including inflated claims about what you can do with behavior, the oft-repeated but false claim that nonverbal behavior represents most of the meaning in communication and where that false idea stems from.
A little more about Vincent that’s taken from his site, vincentdenauld.ca. He’s an assistant professor at the School of Criminology at the University of Montreal, where he’s the director of the Human Behavior and Justice Research Laboratory. He is also a regular researcher at the International Center for Comparative Criminology, the Research Center of the Philippe Pinel National Institute of Forensic Psychiatry, and the Inter-University Research Center on Science and Technology.
Much of Vincent’s work focuses on issues related to trials and witnesses, including credibility assessment and lie detection. Outside of academia, Vincent is a lawyer and coroner, investigating deaths resulting from negligence or occurring in obscure or violent circumstances. Okay, here’s the talk with Vincent.
Zachary Elwood: Hi, Vincent. Thanks for joining me.
Vincent Denault: Thanks for the invitation.
Zachary Elwood: So maybe we could, uh, walk through how your views of the role of non-verbal behavior in law enforcement and legal scenarios, how your views have, uh, changed over time.
Vincent Denault: Well, it changed quite a lot when I… if I go back, uh, in time a little bit. When I was at the bachelor’s degree in law, I, uh, I, I was doing an internship in a law firm, and I attended a training, um…
At the time, it was told to me by the lawyer, like, “It, it’s a super interesting training. It’s not the first time that we have such a training at a, you know, at a lawyers’ meeting.” And, uh, he invited me to go with him. And, uh, and I attended that training, and I was without a word. I, I mean, wow. I never, you know, expected anything like this.
And as, uh… What was presented to me essentially was like, “Okay, y- now you can read people. You can know what people are, are thinking but not saying.” I remember quite vividly the end of the, of, of this, uh, this conference, and I talked to the speaker and I was like, “Okay, if I pass the bar, then I’m gonna, I’m gonna do the training that you offer.”
So I did pass the bar and, uh, when I was doing my internship, at that point, I started the training that was given on, on weekends. I think it was, like, four or five times a year. This is a long story, but essentially I w- I was, like, I was really believing that I could read people’s mind, that I was learning that.
It was part of my identity. I mean, when I was back at the office and with my colleagues who were lawyers, they were like, “Okay, now teach me what you have learned, Vincent.” So it was really part of who I was at the time.
Zachary Elwood: And, and quick question, when you took the training, do, do you care to share any details about what that training was?
Was it like, um, k- kinda like reading expressions or microexpressions kind of things or…?
Vincent Denault: The training was a, it’s, it’s, it’s an approach which was, uh, defined as synergology. And essentially it was body movements of, of, of any types could have some, some kind of a meaning. Like if I was to scratch my nose and, uh, this side of my nose and, or this side of my face, or this side of my chest, it would have a different meaning than, uh, another, a different behavior.
So I, I was really fascinated by that. To put in context, I mean, at that time, remember, uh, those trainings were offered to lawyers here.
Zachary Elwood: Uh- And, and this is in, uh, was, was this in Quebec or where
Vincent Denault: was
Zachary Elwood: this?
Vincent Denault: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So the f- the French part of Canada. So those trainings were, like, offered by t-t-the lawyers.
Uh, judges attended such trainings. Uh, there was a police officer who showed interest in such trainings. Because when I started to realize that what I was learning was not grounded in science, uh… And, and to, to understand, I didn’t wake up one day saying, “Well, I just learned stuff that is not grounded in science.”
You don’t just wake up one day. You, you start to ask questions, and you get answers that are unsatisfying, and, and then you start to, to talk to people. And, and I can remember one… There was many moments where, you know, i-i-in the long process, but I can remember clearly where I was the first time I heard the word peer review.
I never heard that word before. I, I, I mean, in the Bachelor’s of Law, never heard that word before or in my past. That word was unknown to me. But I remember when a university professor, uh, mentioned to me that word, because I was talking to that professor on the phone and, uh, I, I was like, “Okay, well, I’m, I’m studying this.”
And, uh, and, and the person was like, “Okay, well, was it peer review?” And I had no idea about what that word was. And I remember saying, “Well, this is used by many, many people.” And, and the person saying back to me, “Well, okay, but where’s the peer review?” And that’s the first time that I heard about that word. So it was a long process because it was part of my identity.
I mean, imagine that you’re in a part of a group where you have friends, you learn things, you, you meet, uh, many weekends over a couple of years, and then slowly you realize that what you thought something was, was not. And ultimately, I, I left that group. I, I went back to school because I was interested in non-verbal communication, but I wanted to take another path, and the path was science.
Zachary Elwood: One of the big things I, I like to focus on, uh, is the practical benefit of, you know, for example, uh, using non-verbal behavior. And, and I’m curious, you know, with, with your shift in thinking, are there areas where you see, uh, some practical benefits still? Like, for example, the thing I sometimes think is the one area where I can see it maybe playing a role in a realistic sense is somebody, uh, questioning somebody, interrogating someone, and getting some slight read of discomfort about certain questions and using that to maybe go down a line of questioning.
But I’m curious, do you s- do you see practically useful applications, or do you think, like, it’s mostly, like, pretty useless in, in general?
Vincent Denault: I’ve been quite critical about some stuff that has been said or written about non-verbal communication, but the wrong conclusion would be that, well, Vincent thinks non-verbal is not important.
It’s quite the opposite. I mean, I think that non-verbal behavior is fundamental to our human experience, to, uh, the job that a lot of practitioners have What was suggested in the media or just throughout history is that nonverbal serves only one purpose, and that’s to detect whether someone is lying or telling the truth.
When you look at research, you try to be reflexive about your own experience of life, you realize quite quickly that nonverbal is everywhere. And I give this example sometimes to, to students, to friends, or to anyone that basically that I discuss with. Just think about we have the opportunity to see the pyramids, uh, or, uh, some museum on our computer, but it’s not the same as to go to the place and experience it.
There’s something different about that. I remember a couple of years ago… And these are just example, like illustrations of what I think is, is quite well documented in research. There was an eclipse here in Quebec, and I remember people gathered. It was an event, you know. But actually, you could have watched that on your computer, but people decided to gather to feel that moment or experience that moment.
Same thing as a musical, as a music show. I mean, peo- people go to stadium, but they could see the show on their computer or… Because there’s something more in that experience. So nonverbal is really, I think, is fundamental to our human experience. Now, if we think about law enforcement, I also think that nonverbal behavior is important, but not at, in a way that has been presented to us for many years.
The first example that come to my mind when I think about how important nonverbal behavior is, is that in establishing rapport with someone. Just think for a moment. Let’s say that the police, uh, an investigator, police officer meets with someone, and the police officer looks bored Look at his watch and, and makes the other one feel like he’s not important or she’s not important.
It would change e- it will change everything. So that’s why I think that for people conducting investigation, before trying to look at the behavior of others, they should be mindful about their own behavior, and this is very important. I’m not saying that the behavior of the other person is not important, but I say that if you would have, you know, to put a focus on something, I would probably, probably first focus on my, my own behavior and then, you know…
Because you also mentioned, like, if you see something like a discomfort or stress or as in any other interaction, it, it will have an influence on you. Like, if you see a friend who’s crying, like probably you will go and see your friend and see what’s going on. Are you okay? You will do that instinctively.
But in a s- in a context where the stakes are very high, it’s important to be mindful that your observation could lead you to tunnel vision, you know, confirmation bias. So again, that’s another reason why I say if you have to focus on something, I would probably, that would be my, you know, my point of view, focus on your own stuff to create a rapport, make the people comfortable, obtain information, and then validate with other investigative techniques.
Zachary Elwood: Yeah, that’s an important point. There’s a big difference between trying to get information from other people’s behavior and what we communicate with our behavior, what, you know, that there is a big gap there, ’cause I’m with you. It’s like, I think we definitely can impact other people with how we act and the, the, the vibe we give and the, the, the gestures and mannerisms, but that’s like a completely separate area from like trying to determine from somebody else’s behavior whether they’re, you know, getting a confident read on whether they’re telling the truth or not.
That’s like an entirely separate area.
Vincent Denault: Exactly.
Zachary Elwood: Yeah. And it seems, it seems like, uh, some of your work, some of your papers, uh, have to do with irresponsible, uh, uses of non-verbal behavior. You know, th- there’s that work you did. There’s also the paper about, which you mentioned, about judges getting reads of, you know, uh, testimony, witness testimony.
Those things are really interesting to me because it’s hard for me from somebody far outside the system to understand how practitioners or, or judges or attorneys or law enforcement are, are actually using these things because I’ve kind of gone back and forth on it where I thought- Oh, I thi- I think most people seem to understand that there’s, you know, it’s really hard to get information out of nonverbal behavior.
So I, I, I tend, I tended to think that it wasn’t happening very often, that people were reaching, you know, certain reads on people based on minor nonverbal behavior. But then I read your paper and other, and other people’s paper, papers recently, uh, works recently, where it does seem to be a serious problem that, for example, judges are thinking that they can get a read, uh, based on nonverbal behavior and, and using that to determine someone’s, uh, veracity in a, in a witness, uh, testimony scenario.
So I’m curious, how, how big of a problem do you s- do you see that as? Do you have some stories about how big of a role those things still play for, um, you know, law enforcement or, or judges, these, these kinds of things?
Vincent Denault: I do have a couple of example. Most of the work that I’ve done is, uh, looking at court judgments.
I can quite figure it out how it could affect investigations when people meet, you know, suspect victims and witnesses, and others have conducted research on that too. With re- with regards to the context of courts, first thing I’ll say is that there are a lot of judges who are mindful about that. It’s important to remember there are many judges who, who realize this subject is really, uh, important, and they are mindful about, you know, differences in behavior, uh, from one culture to another, uh, from, uh, different physical or, uh, psychological conditions to another.
Zachary Elwood: Would you say it’s true that many, maybe even most people in these, in, in these fields understand that it’s highly ambiguous and not good sources of information? Would you say that, that’s true?
Vincent Denault: I don’t know if most of them, so but, but I know there, there’s, there’s people who, who care about that.
Vincent Denault: persisten. conducting, uh, analysis with court judgments, you see, and it’s written in the court judgments. So that’s the, that’s, that’s something that is important for the listener to understand is that in Canada, uh, there’s not a lot of trials with juries. So in Canada, most of the, of the, the court’s, uh, trials are with the judges and the judges have to write a written judgment in, in many, many cases.
So it’s not the same. It’s… The issues probably are similar, but I did not look at, uh, jury trials. So I did not look at that. So, but when you look at court judgments, so written court judgments in many types of trial, it’s, it’s criminal trials, civil trial, administrative trials. So for example, someone, uh, you know, uh, suing the government or the government’s suing someone.
So administrative trials. When it comes to credibility assessment, this idea that when a judge hears someone, I mean, they have to determine is that Well, first of all, judges have to determine what the facts are, right? Sometimes the facts, there’s no debate about the facts. The, the issue is how do we apply the law?
Uh, and other times it’s the opposite. I mean, everyone agrees on the law, but the problem is what happened, right? So these are the two extremities of a spectrum. Sometimes it’s, the issue is what happened and also what the law, how you interpret it. But let’s just say that in many trials, there is the issue of the credibility because the judge need to decide what happened before applying the law.
And how do judges decide what happened? Well, it depends on many factors, including the credibility of the witness. And in many trials, there’s no material evidence, there’s no recording, there’s no other witnesses. So think about all the sexual assault crimes- It’s just testimony … it’s just testimony. In criminal but also in civil trials.
I mean, there’s a, a dispute between two neighbors, and there’s no camera. It’s just the two neighbors that are… that something happened. So in a large part of trials, there is the issue of credibility of the witness. And by the way, even if there was no witnesses, there would be the issue of the credibility of the lawyers, there would be the issue of the credibility of the judge, of the system, and all of that.
So credibility is everywhere. But for the sake of the discussion, like the credibility of the witnesses, it’s a major part in a lot of trials. So how do judges decide who’s credible? Like, how do judges decide what happened? Well, part of that is, is, is an issue of the witness credibility. And then you say, “How do judges decide that the witness is credible?”
Right? Well, in that judgment, it, it… what could affect the credibility judgment, for example, the… there’s inconsistency in what the witness has said. You know, for example, it could… I’m not saying that’s a good or bad criteria, I’m just saying that it’s a criteria that judges will look at. The person says something at one point, and then at another point says something else.
Well, it, it will likely impact the credibility. But also, how do witnesses testify? The manner that they testify. In court judgment, many times it’s, it’s, the judge will not write, “I’ve looked at the non-verbal behavior of someone.” Like, it will be like, “I’ve listened to the witness. I’ve watched him testify.
The manner in which he testified, in addition to the details that were incoherent with the past testimony, makes me believe that the person is not credible.” That’s just an example, like really short example. But then you see, why do judges mention the manner? I mean, the judges decided to mention the manner because- We, we could go also on that path, like what do judge actually experience and what do they write there?
Is there a difference between… But what, what we can say, however, is that they thought that this help the reader understand what they experience when they assess the credibility of the person And even if the judge did not mention the manner in which a witness testified, I mean, a judge is a human being, and I’m not advocating to replace judge with computer.
That’s not the point. But the judge is a human being. They will see the witnesses. I’m quite, um, confident in saying that considering research on non-verbal behavior, it will influence the way the witness is perceived. In the research that I’ve conducted, there are times this behavior made them, you know, conclude that the witness was not lying or that the witness was not honest or things like that.
Yeah, so it really does have an impact on how witnesses, victims, people who are accused of crime are perceived. It’s a real issue, and it’s not discussed a lot.
Zachary Elwood: Rightly or wrongly, people are gonna draw conclusions about their expressions, their demeanor, whi- which is, which leads into why people do get coaching about, like, you can be, you can be perceived as being more forthright if you do X, Y, Z and avoid shifting your eyes around and avoid, like, looking down a lot or the…
People get coaching on those kinds of things because, rightly or wrongly, it does impact people. But, uh, I think I cut you off there if you wanted to say more about what you were going to say.
Vincent Denault: There’s this issue of, of witness preparation. That’s another whole issue. So people have different abilities to communicate.
If someone comes to a court, let’s say that, uh, cops come every day to the court to testify or, or many times to a court to testify, I mean, they know the setting. They know that communicating with the court is a different thing than communicating with a friend. I mean, there are rules on how you communicate in a court, which are really quite different on day-to-day communication.
So about witness preparation, there are rules depending on the jurisdiction. But here in Quebec, uh, lawyers can help the witness prepare for a testimony, and I’m all for that because otherwise people who don’t communicate well come to the court, and they could be not believed because they just communicate differently from what is expected from the judge.
I’m not pointing the finger at the judges because if we were to point a finger at someone there, well, the issue of credibility, the issue of non-verbal behavior, the issue of stereotypes and prejudice, of biases, these issues, I mean, in a lot of faculty are not even addressed, you know? So the judges come out s- out of the faculty, they practice law, and these issues are overlooked, right?
I don’t like pointing fingers, but if we were to do that, the first place where I would, I would say, well, there’s a problem, it’s when they are trained And it starts at the law school. This is where I think part of the issue lies because again, for having taught to judges for quite a few years now, let me just give you an example.
When I conduct my research and I say, “Well, there’s a problem in witness credibility assessments,” and I’m invited by courts to talk to them about that, I’m not there to say they, all the jobs that they do with regards to credibility assessment is perfect, and throwing flowers and stuff like that. I tell it like it is, and I get to be invited again.
So what this tells me is that they care about this stuff, and I have judges who have participated in research. And in research, uh, there are populations that are sometimes difficult to access, and, and judges is, is a, is a difficult population to have access to. And m- my understanding is that, and that’s what I, I, I want to put forward, is the fact that if they do participate in surveys If they offers me the opportunity to talk to them about the result of my research, it’s because they’re interested in, in getting things better with that regards.
Zachary Elwood: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. In your paper about the judges assessing credibility, it was surprising because, I mean, some of these examples of judges using witness, you know, non-verbal behavior, it can be really surprising because one would think that it’s just so well-known that such things are not good, uh, measures or not good factors for determining veracity.
So are you surprised that these ideas, these, uh, cliches about behavior are still so prevalent in these systems?
Vincent Denault: Oh, am I surprised? I’m not that surprised, you know, because it’s not addressed. At the beginning, I said that couple of years ago, I mean, this stuff, it’s this reading body language stuff, judges attended such trainings.
In Quebec, this happened, but I’m quite confident that it’s not only the, it’s, it’s, it’s not the only place. And I’m speaking about Quebec because I’ve did, I… My research mostly addressed Quebec and Canada, but I have anecdote and testimony, I wouldn’t write a paper about that, you know, but I have, I do have anecdote and testimony that it happened.
It’s not the only place. And if, if you look at court judgments, well, actually, we did a paper, a colleague of mine and I, on, on, on court judgment in Australia, and it’s the same thing, you know? It’s the same thing. They use body language, uh, and some of them are, some judges are really, uh, mindful about that, say, in…
And they write in their court judgment like, “We should not put that much attention on body language,” and this kind of stuff. But there are other times where do, judges do, uh, give, you know, attention to that. My feeling at this point in time is that it’s probably more popular across jurig- jurisdiction than I, I would have expected at the beginning.
So I’m not really surprised. Uh, uh, not that I am not conc- I’m concerned about that. I’m not really surprised. And also because, why I’m, am I not surprised is because, um, misconceptions about body language, I mean, it’s widely disseminated in movies, on traditional media. I mean, whenever there’s a political debate, there’s someone there commenting how people give the hand and stuff like that.
And then social media, I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s a-
Zachary Elwood: Oh, yeah, YouTube, the YouTube behavior experts. I mean, that’s a whole nother topic because I think, I think you’ve got this spectrum of people that are trying to, you know, even if, even if they’re, uh, taking not great approaches, there’s a, there’s a spectrum of people that have the right intent, but maybe just be misinformed or may, you know, be true believers- Yeah
mistakenly about applications of these things. But then there’s the spectrum towards, like, there’s many people, so-called behavior experts, who are just peddling complete bullshit. Like, they’re, they’re just straight up lying and exaggerating about what you can do with behavior. So-
Vincent Denault: Yeah …
Zachary Elwood: there, it, it really muddies the playing field because, you know, there’s all these s- alleged behavior experts who, like you said, some of them do these- Yep
analysis of interviews and politicians or celebrities on shows or just on YouTube, and so much of that stuff is just straight up nonsense, which really muddies the muddies the waters because some people in law enforcement or, you know, other, uh, systems may perceive those things and think those are real, which leads to them being like, “Well, maybe we should get some training on these things,” right?
Yeah. So it, it all, it all, uh, it, it all is connected in, in various ways, but I’m curious for your view of that, that spectrum of, uh, as you see it, bad information out there. Yeah.
Vincent Denault: Well, I think, I think you, you, you got a point there. And, um, what I would add to that, when I, I started being interested in that, I had those trainings, and then I realized that some people were getting trainings in that, and then there’s social media where the body language experts, they give their analysis and stuff.
I realized that in movies you got examples. I mean… And I’m not only talking about, uh, web, um, you know, tele- TV- television series such as “Lie to Me,” but, uh, let me just give you an example. I mean, there, there was this, I mean, a classic, “Scarface,” the movie “Scarface,” you know, where Al Pacino is in a car. They have a discussion.
One says to, to Al Pacino, I mean, this, this… There’s this other girl and, and Al Pacino says, “Yeah, I know she likes me.” And, and the guy, you know, says, “Why?” And he says, “Well, the eyes, you know, Chico. The eyes, they never lie,” you know? And if you start to look at movies, and, and I, I did, did it a little bit for a book chapters once.
Fascinating. I mean, I’ve seen this, um, this “Batman” episode, so a, a comic show for the kids. And, and in, in the show, there’s this interaction that says, “Well, how do we know he’s, he’s lying?” And then I think it was Batman says, or someone else says, “Well, it… We looked at the microexpression,” you know? All of that comes, uh, it flows- The culture
through popular culture. The culture. Exactly. Exactly. So I’m not surprised that-
Zachary Elwood: And everyone’s looking for, everyone’s looking for advantages, ways to-
Vincent Denault: Of course …
Zachary Elwood: get an advantage in their jobs and, and everything. Yeah.
Vincent Denault: And, and how could you blame them for that? I mean, if, if I’m a, uh, if I’m a cop, I’m a judge, and I have to deal with truth and lies on a daily basis, I mean, I would love to do my job better, but it’s not a subject that is really well addressed.
I mean, and I’ve written in the past. I mean, if there’s so much bullshit about non-verbal behavior, part of the responsibility lies on the shoulders of the researchers who didn’t communicate a finding. There are many reason. I don’t blame the researcher for that. But, uh, I mean, we have to look at the f- at the fact that, I mean, there’s quite a lot of research about non-verbal behavior, and if there’s so much nonsense that is disseminated, probably one of the reasons because research is not maybe communicated a lot or should be communicated more or in a better way.
Zachary Elwood: With this show, I’ve, I’ve ver- been, been very much focused on You know, for all these claims that people make about making use of non-verbal behavior, you know, let’s see the actual examples of how these things are practically useful. And the truth is, when you dig into these, these various, um, stories about how these things might be useful, you, you really can’t find from, you know, the alleged behavior experts.
There’s not much in the way of practical, granular examples of how these things can be useful. And, uh, I, I just interviewed a ex-CIA officer who had field work, you know, uh, experience, Ken Clisby, and he talked about how trying to make use of non-verbal behavior was pretty much useless as he saw it. I just interviewed a, an FBI agent who retired recently.
That’s, that episode’s coming out soon. And similar to what you said, he was like, “There, there’s a lot of use in using your own body language to set people at ease.” But he, he, he never got use out of, you know, non-verbal behavior. And his point too was even if you got a read on someone, like he gave an example of like showing somebody a picture, uh, some evidence, and they reacted in an extreme way.
He’s like, even when you get that, it’s like it’s meaningless in practical terms because, A, you’re usually gonna be following leads where they lead. You usually have evidence. A- and B, even if you get a reaction, that’s not useful. Like, you can’t use that in, uh, any sort of court setting to be like, “He reacted in the, you know, in these non-verbal ways.”
Like, so his point was like, even if you get those extreme examples, i- i- it’s usually in context meaningless. But yeah, just, just to say, I, I think anybody that reads claims of, uh, of using, uh, making use of, of anything for some benefit should ask the question of like, “Well, where are the practical examples of how this is useful?”
And the… I recently reread Joe Navarro’s book, an ex-FBI agent who, you know, makes the claim that you can use these non-verbal behaviors in various ways. But even that, that book, there’s very few examples of, uh, you know, practically useful things in a law enforcement scenario, and even those examples he gives, I think are, for various reasons, not actually that useful if you were to do them over and over again.
Uh, so I don’t know if that… That’s not really a question, but I’m curious if when it comes to looking at practical useful, even, even anecdotes in the field, I just, I think the, the, the evidence is, is not much there.
Vincent Denault: Well, what you just said brings me, uh, brings to my mind two things. Let’s say that I’m, I’m, I’m, you know, I’m doing a job, and then, uh, and then I succeed in doing my job, and then I get to explain how did I succeed.
I mean, there’s a difference between what I did and what I think I did, you know? You know, so going back on what happened, what really happened, like, I mean, okay, you found that someone was lying. So yeah, okay, so I found that someone was lying. Well, that can happen, of course. How did you succeeded in that?
And probably there’s a gap, and not only probably, there are many cases where I expected that there will be a gap between what you think you did and what you actually did.
Zachary Elwood: Right.
Vincent Denault: So-
Zachary Elwood: It can be hard to determine what even happened. You can have distorted views of what even led you to that view even.
Vincent Denault: E- e- exactly.
And the other thing that passed… So that’s, that’s one thing. The other thing is that let’s say that someone tells me, “Well, okay, that, that’s a sign of someone lying, and that method works.” Okay, well, okay, you think that it works, but does it really? If you think that this method works, maybe you have seen every time it worked, but you have not realized every time it did not work.
Right.
Zachary Elwood: You’re focused on-
Vincent Denault: So at the end… Exactly. So, uh, so at the end, maybe what… So you think it’s, it, it works, but really if you were to look at the big picture, I mean, it’s just a chance. I, I mean, it’s just a, the chance that it, it did work in a couple of times, it did not work in a couple of times, and that’s it, you know?
That’s why research is important because you try to, you know… And by the… Researchers are not immune to confirmation bias, okay? So that, that’s a point that is important. What is important in research is that you know the process before the conclusion because it’s written in the paper, and therefore people can appreciate the conclusion in full knowledge of the fact.
When you say, “Well, okay, that research makes sense, that conclusion makes sense,” it doesn’t make sense because Vincent Deneault altered it. It makes sense because I do have access to the process that comes before the conclusion. You don’t have access to that when someone tells you this method works. You don’t have access to that.
I mean, they might say, for example, “Well, I’ve had 10,000 times that it worked.” Okay, well, okay, but maybe it didn’t work in 20,000 times. How do I know that, right? I’m not… By, by the way, when I say that science is important for that reason, I’m not saying that experiential knowledge is not important.
Zachary Elwood: Right.
Vincent Denault: Each type of knowledge has their limits, but we need to recognize as a researcher, as practitioners in high-stakes situation, we need to recognize the limit of our knowledge. Science has limits but experiential knowledge too
Zachary Elwood: A quick note, I do think sometimes people can be overly critical of ideas that are not scientifically researched. For example, there are plenty of poker tells that I and others regularly use and are highly confident are high value that have not been researched at all.
There’s just many areas of behavior that have not been researched. So this is just to say that I think some people, and I’m not talking about Vincent here, can be too quick to say, where’s the research for that? When we know that so many things just have not been researched. So that’s the importance of what Vincent refers to as experiential knowledge.
Like I say in my poker tells books, you should be skeptical of information and seek to try it out for yourself. And you should be aware of our tendencies to fool ourselves into thinking that something is true. With regards to research, we can also say that it’s good to avoid embracing ideas that have been largely disproven by science.
For example, there are a bunch of behavior-related neuro-linguistic programming claims that are repeated by self-proclaimed behavior experts that have been repeatedly disproven. For example, claims about eye direction and getting clues about what someone’s thinking or about deception from where people are looking.
Okay, back to the talk. To your point, I mean, I think, I think it’s a very important point that it’s just very easy to fool ourselves no matter what f- if we’re, if we’re scientists, if we’re practitioners, it’s just very easy for us to have confirmation bias and selectively look at information when we really believe something.
And two, I think an under-examined point about making use of nonverbal behavior is I think it can be, say you’re a law enforcement, uh, officer, and you’re interrogating somebody, I think it can be very muddy in your mind what is behavior and what is the content of what somebody says. I think those two things can easily interact, and so it’s kind of like watching a movie that, you know, it’s documented that it can be hard to, uh, separate the audio and the video.
Like if a movie has bad audio, bad quality audio, people will report, “Oh, that was a really crummy movie,” you know, and they won’t really even understand that it was the, uh, audio that was causing them to see that way. I think in, in behavior too, there can be elements of, you know, say you interview or interrogate somebody, and they’re acting in ways that you might think are suspicious or strange in a nonverbal way, but they’re also telling you content that doesn’t make sense and doesn’t add up too.
I think it’s easy to walk away from that and think, “Oh, they were… You know, their nonverbals were suspicious,” but the real important part was like what they were actually saying, right? It was the content of what they were saying. But I th- just to say, and I think this happens for a lot of these YouTube videos too where you have people being like, “Oh, it’s so obvious from their behavior that they’re guilty,” but it’s like they don’t realize that they’re being influenced by the fact that this person’s story doesn’t add up, the fact that there’s a bunch of evidence, you know, against them.
So they’re really selectively looking at the behavior, and they’re coming away with an idea of like, oh, it’s so clear from their nonverbal behavior that they’re, you know, that they’re guilty. But, you know, they don’t understand that like, say you watched a bunch of footage of, you know, innocent people, you would find a lot of those same behaviors, and they wouldn’t be as focused on those things and, you know.
Uh, so just to say, I think there’s this muddiness that can really End up leading to people thinking like, “Oh, there is a lot to this non-verbal behavior. I need to study this more.” Like, th- you know, even for practitioners who have done this for a long time because I think even for those people it can be a muddy, uh, determination of, of which is which, right?
Vincent Denault: Not to mention also the fact that some of those videos, I mean, people are already guilty and they say- Right … after the fact that, “Well, like, look, it, it- Of course … the, the, the person see this and see that and see this.” You know, that’s one of the problems with, with these type of analysis, that there’s always a, what I’ve called in the past w- uh, it’s a false call for caution.
You know, uh, I’ve read and seen videos where, uh, experts or people that, that present themselves as experts, uh, say that, uh, you know, uh, you have to look to many, for many clues, you know, many cues, many, many, many signs and all of that, and you have to ask questions after that and all of that. And, and, and those call for caution makes sense i, i- in a way.
You know, I mean, if you’re in a d- uh, outside and, and you see that it’s, uh, you know, s- you see someone walking in bizarrely and, and the person’s looking at you in strange ways and you might say, “Well, there may- maybe I’m gonna change, you know, side of the road and” … And if you see a friend where the, the friend doesn’t look that he or she feels good and, and, and you ask questions.
So those call for caution makes sense in a way, but the problem with those call for caution, and that’s why I’m, I’m saying that, that it’s kind of false or maybe that’s the, the right word in English, but there’s a problem with those calls back because they, they, they become a way to evade any criticism.
I mean-
Zachary Elwood: Hmm … “
Vincent Denault: Well, I, I’ve used your knowledge and it didn’t work.” “Well, did you ask the right question?”
Zachary Elwood: Hmm. Hmm. “
Vincent Denault: I’ve seen those behavior.” “Well, have you, have you, have you seen all the behaviors? I mean, I’ve said to you that you should look at, uh, clusters of behavior.” “Well, oh, so, oh, well, okay, well maybe I didn’t look at all of them.
So that’s why I’m wrong.” Do you know?
Zachary Elwood: Right.
Vincent Denault: So all- Right … the, the burden of, of, of being right or wrong is always on the shoulder, so you cannot criticize those techniques. I mean, there’s, there’s no way of doing that.
Zachary Elwood: Exactly, yeah. Well, it’s the same with the whole, like, baselining idea. I think there’s various ways these people, the so-called behavior experts, evade criticism because There’s always the, the burden they put back on the people who don’t get use out of it, out of it, where they’re like, “Well, you didn’t try hard enough.
You didn’t practice enough. You didn’t baseline properly,” which, you know, uh, baselining is a whole another area where I think it’s just a way to basically evade, uh, you know, the fact that these things are not, uh, reliable. But you can always fall back on like, “Well, you didn’t do it properly in some way,” right?
Like that… And, and that, that leads to the fact that these things are rarely called out, like the people who do all of these trainings and, uh, sell books and everything. The reason that they’re seldom called out is because people do have that question in their back of their minds where they’re like, “Oh, maybe I just didn’t do it properly and it’s my fault,” you know?
And that, I think that’s why a lot of these people evade criticism
Vincent Denault: basically, you know. And, and, uh, about the baseline, I’ll just add this stuff. Again, it, it does make sense and it relates to common sense. I mean, you have a, a friend, you have a child, and they come back to school every day with a smile, and then one day, uh, the child comes, uh, you know, with no, no smile.
So what you’re gonna do? Is that, well, is… You’re gonna feel that something’s off. Something’s off. Yeah. Exactly. So that’s one thing. That’s one thing of doing that in our daily life. It’s another thing of trying to do that precisely at the moment. And by the way, those, those things- For
Zachary Elwood: some- for someone you don’t know
Vincent Denault: at all- So, so someone you don’t know.
Yeah, and, and- … in a
Zachary Elwood: high-stakes situation.
Vincent Denault: Exact- exactly. A complex
Zachary Elwood: scenario.
Vincent Denault: Exactly. When you read, you know, those baseline, uh, advices, they never tell you how should you do that. Like, how do you just- Yeah, and
Zachary Elwood: how many, how many dozens of hours might
Vincent Denault: that take- Exactly … to
Zachary Elwood: appropriately baseline someone, you
Vincent Denault: know?
Exactly. So it’s really like… But a- and, and, uh, let me add a- another thing. I mean, when, when you, when you look at some of the things that are presented, you say, “Well, for all that time that has b- this stuff has been presented, I can’t believe that those who presented the, the misconception don’t know it yet,” or, or, y- you know.
But w- with my experience of, of people promoting such stuff, I think there’s a part of those people who promote misconception that really do believe their stuff. I mean, they really- Yeah … think that, you know, they can help people. I’ve, I’ve written that in the past, uh, that… So I do believe that probably a large part of people who promote this stuff-
Zachary Elwood: True believers, yeah
Vincent Denault: they really believe their stuff. They, they act in good faith. I prefer to say, well-
Zachary Elwood: Right …
Vincent Denault: I’ll attack the claims, uh, so- It’s
Zachary Elwood: really hard to know when somebody’s being disingenuous or not about these things.
Vincent Denault: Exactly. Exactly.
Zachary Elwood: No, for sure. Uh, I am curious if, if you’re willing to talk about it I mean, I see Paul Ekman…
I mean, Paul Ekman’s been criticized, you know, by many people. Um, I, I see him as a, as the source of a lot of these bad ideas because he has this veneer of respectability, even though I don’t think he deserves that for various reasons. But I’m– If you’re willing to talk about it, you know, obviously if you don’t want to, we don’t have to, but I’m curious if you, if you see him as, as kind of propagating and, and, and helping prop up a lot of these, these bad ideas over time.
Vincent Denault: I’m not in the head of Paul Ekman or, uh, he, he recently died and, uh, and I think his contribution to, uh… There are sensitivities with that, and first of all, we’re talking about a fellow researcher, someone who contributed. I mean, if you think about the research a- about deception detection, I’m quite confident we wouldn’t be here if it was not for him starting to do such research in the past.
So there are a lot of people who have contributed to research on, uh, nonverbal behavior and lie detection. I mean, sometimes the road is not necessarily where you, where you would like to go. Uh, we cannot, uh… Well, I do think that we cannot, um… How do I say that? So as you’ve noticed, my first language is not English, so sometimes I do search for my words.
But essentially, I mean, I do have to acknowledge the fact that what we do in research today, there’s a lot of influence of what he did in the past. So that, that I, I’ll… I recognize that. And, and Paul Ekman has contributed to a lot of areas. So lie detection is one thing, uh, but he also contributed to research on facial expressions and all of that.
And I’ve, in some of my other papers, I’ve been quite cr- critical of positions that he has defended. So, but I wanted to start by acknowledging the fact that when you conduct research, you contribute to knowledge, and this contribution, I mean, is important. I can tell you quite confidently that research on nonverbal behavior, he has influenced that a lot.
Whether we like that influence or not, that’s another story, right? Okay. With that said, when there was this spot program at the airports after 9/11, uh, Dr. Ekman testified in support of that program. So I, uh, I mean, it’s a position that he defended, and I disagree with that. So-
Zachary Elwood: I think he even said something about, like, his, his methods leading to, like, 80%-plus correct reads of people telling the truth or not.
He had s- he had some really outlandish stat about how successful his methods were, which is one of the reasons I, I think he should be judged for that. Yeah.
Vincent Denault: So I don’t have this testimony in front of me , but if someone tells you, like, “My method is 80 or 90% works at this level of, uh, that this percentage Uh, to me, it’s an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary evidence, and I don’t have such an evidence.
This idea of micro expression, I mean, it was popularized by Lie to Me. So, uh, and it, it, it was an idea that came before the show. I mean, it was, uh, you know, it w- this idea of leakage. So this idea of leakage adds quite a lot of influence in the deception literature. Uh, it was explored, and I think that the leakage theory has a lot of problems, and it’s not something that I, I, I, I would defend, and I’ve been critical about that quite a lot.
So while I acknowledge the contribution, I think that some of his ideas about lie detection, I don’t agree with them. I don’t think the facts support them. But again, we’re in 2026. I mean, researchers o- uh, on that issue started in the 1960s. So in a way, it’s normal that with time passing, we realize that there was limitation then that they were not acknowledged at that time because of the methodologies used at that time.
But now I think we’re at somewhere else, at another place, and, and I think that while I acknowledge his contribution to the field, I also think that some of his ideas now, uh, should not be, uh, uh, with regards to, uh, lie detection. And I say his ideas, but there, there’s the… The leakage theory was suggested in some of his paper, but then it was, uh, you know, other researchers, uh, you know, used those ideas.
So what– So rather than focusing on the person, I would prefer to say, like, some of those stuff, uh, are, are problematic. Uh, these, these ideas of micro expression, I would say… I mean, if it was used in a court of law, I mean, there would be, it, it would, it would be, uh, dangerous. I mean, it would be dangerous. It could lead to witness not being believed.
It would, uh, could lead to miscarriages of justice. And, uh, and, and I think it’s important to, to, to, to, uh, to be mindful that it’s some of, of, of, of, uh, of the claims that are made with regards to lie detection in general, when put in the hands of people in position of power can have really big implications.
Zachary Elwood: Yeah, I, I– and I get your point about attacking the claims, not the person, although I do think with Ekman there’s such a I still see people promoting bad false ideas and using Ekman to promote them because they’ll say like, “Highly respected, you know, researcher Paul Ekman.” So th- I think there can be some value in Ekman’s case just because he does have this…
For so many people, they just kinda ha- have an unquestioning authority, getting back to that authority- Exactly … authority thing. So- Exactly … I think there can be value, and I mean, we could talk about Ekman for a long time because I think my view is that he became increasingly kind of like insulated in this defending his ideas bubble, and that became increasingly the case over time as he went down that path, and he became, uh, unwilling to share, you know, any, any, uh, r- research or talk about research that supported his claims, or he claimed that, uh, he couldn’t share evidence because it affect- Yeah
you know, he couldn’t talk- Yeah … about it openly because it was like a top secret concern. Just, just various reasons where I saw him as becoming increasingly insular in this like, “I’m just gonna live in this world of my own ideas and people that think I’m a genius.” But we could talk about him for a long time, but I, I think it’s an important piece of the puzzle because I do often see him still, uh, referenced so many times, yeah.
Vincent Denault: Yeah, so th- that, that idea that was, uh, uh… Yeah, when, uh, I think it was an interview, uh, can’t remember. I don’t have the paper in front of me. But yeah, I remember, uh, this idea that, well, uh, we cannot share those research because, uh, foreign nations will, you know, use that, uh… Yeah, I re- It’s not something that I would say about about research.
So there’s a disagreement there.
Zachary Elwood: A quick note here. I recently had on Kent Clisby to talk about the behavior and influence con artist Chase Hughes, and in Kent’s book, Holistic Contextual Credibility Assessment, he has a very good takedown of Paul Ekman. Kent sees Ekman and Ekman’s accolades as the source of a lot of the bad behavior information out there.
He sees Ekman as basically a successful con man, albeit an academic one Kent’s book was an interesting one, and I do recommend it for combating some bad behavior-related ideas out there and, and for understanding how those ideas have spread so far. Okay, back to the talk
Vincent Denault: When people use the name of researchers, you know, as an authority, and I’ll give you the, this, this other example, but you probably know it.
Albert Mehrabian, you know, this researcher, uh, American researcher.
Zachary Elwood: Yeah, that’s a great example.
Vincent Denault: Uh, yeah. So people say, “Well, Albert Mehrabian said that 93% of communication is nonverbal.” So that claim is bullshit, but people constantly-
Zachary Elwood: Constantly …
Vincent Denault: uh, uh, you know, uh, mis- uh, take this name, you know, to, to give authority to, uh, some of, uh, of, uh, you know, bullshit about nonverbal behavior.
So I would say probably, like, if there are criticism of, of, of, of Ekman or other researchers, like, there’s things that the research might- a researcher might have done that we disagree with. That’s, that’s one point. But then we would have to separate that from the fact that he’s constantly invoked by people to give credence to their claims
Vincent Denault: So probably some people have never read, you know, the papers about microexpression, what they said in the past, what research I’ve done now.
But all they say is that, you know, microexpression, Paul Ekman, yeah, you know, it’s, it’s good. So- It’s
Zachary Elwood: settled. Yeah, settled
Vincent Denault: science. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So, so… And Mehrabian is probably s- this, this researcher is super important in the literature about nonverbal behavior, but the public only knows him for something that actually never said in a way-
Zachary Elwood: Right, out of, out of context.
Vincent Denault: Exactly. Yeah. That is the case. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah
Zachary Elwood: Yeah. It’s amazing how often you still see that. I mean, you see anything from, like, 70 to 93%, you know, uh, of communication is nonverbal, and it’s just, like, I’m just kind of astounded ’cause sometimes I’ll see people using it who I think is in this patently
You know, I, I, I just expect people … I’ve seen people use it where I’m just surprised. I’m like, “Don’t you know that that’s not a … You know, wouldn’t you know that that’s not a real interpretation of, of that?” But yeah, it’s just all over the place. Yeah.
Vincent Denault: It’s- Um- And, and b- by, by the way, how I see it this is that people can make mistakes.
So let’s say that someone presents, you know, is s- I don’t know, someone who’s doing human resources and stuff, and the point that the person want to make is only, like, you know, nonverbal is important.
Zachary Elwood: Right.
Vincent Denault: So … And they use that. Yeah. So they make a mistake about that. And, and, uh, I mean, I … You know, everyone can makes a mistake.
But when someone presents themself as an expert in nonverbal- Yeah … behaviors and say something like this, then it’s a red flag that probably the level of expertise is not as high as the person think it is.
Zachary Elwood: Yeah. If that’s the first slide on the presentation j- from a, from an alleged behavior expert, just, just walk out of the room and save yourself some time.
Vincent Denault: Yeah, I would say … Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Zachary Elwood: yeah. That was a talk with Vincent Denault. His website is at vincentdenault.ca, and his podcast is called Beyond Lie Cues, a podcast about the science of nonverbal communication. This has been the People Who Read People podcast with me, Zach Elwood. You can learn about it and see compilations of past episodes at behavior-podcast.com.
Thanks for listening.