Many people are taught today and continue to believe that if someone as they are talking gazes upwards and to the left (your left)–then they are lying.  The theory is called Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP). NLP believes when we gaze up and to the left, we are imaging. We only recall memories looking up to the right.

I don’t believe this for a minute.

I asked my readers to help me look for examples of people who shifted their eye gaze up and to the left, and are honest to help put an end to this myth.

The FBI has even put out a publication in their bulletin denouncing it as credible in June 2011. See here.

“Twenty-three out of 24 peer-reviewed studies published in scientific journals reporting experiments on eye behavior as an indicator of lying have rejected this hypothesis.”

Watch Mike Bloomberg talk in this video below.  In the first 15 seconds, watch his eyes gaze up and to the left.

He says, “I don’t have anything in common with people who sit there and say oh my god, it was terrible. It’s water under the bridge or the dam, so get on with it.”

You can tell he is not lying. He has no reason to.

People move their eyes all over in conversations –up, down, right, left and sideways–and the only thing you can glean from it is that a person is simply thinking.  That’s it. We think when we tell the truth and we think when we lie.  So it tells us nothing else.

Here is another one for you. Watch Fred Armisen answer a question about liking Molly Shannon. He looks up to the right and then to the left as he answers the question!

This is in French, but this Paris hostage has nothing to gain by lying and reading the sub-titles you can see she isn’t saying anything worthy of lying, but she clearly looks up and to the left.

In this video below, there are a lot of eye gazes when you watch in both directions. But there is also an up an to the left at time marker 11:01 by the woman in pink, Kara Swisher, and clearly she is not lying. She says, “There has been a big war on talents and payments.”

Please feel free post more examples in the comment section below that you find to stop this myth once and for all.  Once people see it with their own eyes, they will likely believe it is untrue.

Many thanks to the people who are helping me squelch the myths! A big shout out to M.A.!