Cal Lightman's Lie Theory

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

People often think one thing and say another. Despite everything, they also do something completely different from what they thought and talked about. The emotional state may absolutely not correspond to thoughts, speech, or deeds. These are such complex creatures - these people.

Dr. Cal Lightman has been dealing with such difficult material throughout Lie to Me. He analyzes crimes while working with his team, The Lightman Group. This is a group of people studying the basic nuances of face reading, analyzing body language. They help the main character solve crimes.

What formed the basis of the series

The basis of the American TV series Lie To Me, or "Lie to me", lay material from the book of Paul Ekman, who has been engaged in psychological practice throughout his life. He studied facial microexpressions in people of different professions, beliefs, beliefs, lifestyles. Working in a mental hospital in San Francisco, a young psychologist conducted interviews with patients, filming it. After that, I repeatedly looked through many kilometers of footagematerial, highlighting the gestures that patients demonstrated, reinforcing their emotions. His confidence that he, using all the accumulated material, can one hundred percent say whether a person is lying or telling the truth, practically nullified the case that occurred in the psychiatric hospital.

In the film there is an archival video with a real recording of Ekman's patient. Her facial microexpressions were discovered by a psychiatrist quite by accident while viewing the material, using a second freeze frame, and became the basis of the science of lie detection. That is, in a fraction of a second, on a person’s face in the form of an emotion, the truth flickers, immediately covered with a lie. In the series, Cal Lightman appeared as a person who recognizes lies and truth in people by reading microexpressions on their faces and paying attention to gestures. Paul Ekman endowed him with this and came up with the surname Lightman, which in English sounds like a bright person.

Cal Lightman is the main character of the series

A case in a psychiatric hospital is in the outline of the series. According to the plot of Cal Lightman, the death of his mother led to the study of the theory of lies. She committed suicide. He watches a recording of her conversation with a psychologist and, slowing down the tape, sees on her face the same microexpression of anguish, which was discovered by the author of the book that became the basis of the series, Paul Ekman.

Many who watched this series are wondering if it is really possible, like Cal Lightman, to read people like a book? This idea is suggested by the plots of the film, where it is clear that there is no difficulty in determining a lie. The liar himself gives the signs that you needjust see what Cal Lightman is a master at.

He thinks everyone is lying. Minutes of communication with a person give him material to draw such a conclusion. He believes that he reveals the reliability of facts by analyzing human behavior. In principle, if one is guided only by evaluating a person's behavior by his gestures, correct conclusions cannot be drawn. A person has orienting reflexes that arise either involuntarily, as before an exam, or in fact, his nose is itchy, and this does not mean that a person will lie now.

Lie detection technique

Those who carefully watched all the episodes of "Theory of Lies" and tried to analyze how lies are recognized, most likely came to the conclusion that the heroes of the series Ria Torres and Cal Lightman do not actually recognize lies, they are interested in human emotions. Lightman asks a question and sees the answer from the person's face, even if the person is silent. The filmmakers endowed this couple with high emotional intelligence, which implies the ability to understand both their own feelings and understand the mood of people. In the film, they cope with their task by analyzing facial expressions, understanding what a person feels at the moment: they recognize lies, they save the innocent from prison, criminals go to jail.

The whole method by which Cal Lightman could "see through" the interlocutor was to study the five information channels coming from the interlocutor. These include the face, non-verbal signals produced by the body,voice, speech style and communication itself. After analyzing this, they conclude whether a person is lying or not. Even if we assume that a person can somehow try to deceive the interviewer through training, he will not succeed. Lies are tricky things. She needs to be tracked.

Methods other than psychodiagnostics…

Not everything in the series is built on the extraction of facts and confessions only on visual psychodiagnostics. The methods sometimes used by Lightman and assistants do not belong to the lie theory method. These are threats, psychological pressure and hacks that help to get the truth in a different way. We can say that there is an interweaving of ways to obtain information necessary for the investigation.

What makes you lie

The series explores Lightman's personal life. The mother committed suicide, the wife is divorced, there is a relationship, but they are not developing. It is very difficult to be happy when you feel a lie literally at every step. And a lie, always justified. Some people think that telling the truth is simply pointless. Everyone wears masks that are hard to get rid of. Therefore, human relationships are built on deceit. A smile primarily masks a person, it hides negative emotions: anger, fear. Smiling makes it easier to deceive the interlocutor.

Quotes from TV series

“No one can only tell the truth - it's subjective; we evaluate all points of view of personal experience - that's the truth," says Cal Lightman. Quotes and aphorisms of the protagonist, after the release of the series on TV screens, sometimes people are full of communication. Very accurate andCapaciously Lightman in the series gives answers, makes jokes, puts forward theories. Well, for example, quotes from Cal Lightman: "It's human nature - if there is a button, you must press" or "The absence of emotions is as important as their presence."

All people are emotional by nature, and, as the protagonist of the film says, everyone lies. It all depends on the color of the glasses on the nose of the seeker of truth.