NLP and Detecting Frauds

The first time I learned about Neuro-Linguistic Programming (or NLP) was through a short seminar entitled “A Way to Detect a Liar.” The discussion was fascinating, but I should say that I was not satisfied. Let me tell you why.

In this article:
NLP and Detecting Frauds
Lie Game Stunt
The Secret to the Lie Detector Game
Using the Standard Eye Movements
But how is it?

Lie Game Stunt The NLP practitioner who gave the seminar asked for volunteers and gave them a series of tasks and some questions. For the second part, he asked the volunteer a series of questions to opt to answer with truth or a lie. The practitioner then would tell them back if they’ve been answering truthfully or not. Now here’s the fun part. He got it all right! He had three random volunteers, one of whom was even my friend. Now I’m more hooked on what he had to say in the seminar.

The Secret to the Lie Detector Game Well, he only touched up a bit on how he did it and mostly talked about NLP, which is why I was not satisfied. Now that time has come for me to talk about it. I found out the secret behind that Lie Detector Game. It’s the NLP concept of Standard Eye Movement. A group of known professionals from different fields developed Neuro-Linguistic Programming (or NLP), three of which are John Grinder, Frank Pucelik, and Richard Bandler. These three mapped out what they called the “Standard” eye movement directions as they observed a relationship between thinking and eye movements. In the 1970s, the eye movement and thinking relationship became a foundation for providing meaningful information on improving communications. The assumption is that “as people think, they move their eye’s”

Using the Standard Eye Movements

Eye accessing cues are the directions of an individual’s eyes movement or flicker when and how they are thinking. The following are considered the ‘standard’ eye directions, which came from a lot of researches and observations of individuals coming from different racial backgrounds and cultures all over the world

1. Eyes Up, Left: Visually remembered (VR) concepts.
2. Eyes Up, Right: Visually constructed (VC) concept or fantasy.
3. Eyes Lateral Left: Remembered Auditory () concepts like sound words, and “tape loops,” and tonal discrimination.
4. Eyes Lateral Right: Constructed Auditory (AC) concept (imagined sounds and words).
5. Eyes Down, Left: Inner self-talk or dialogue (AD or Auditory Digital).
6. Eyes Down, Right: Feelings, both tactile and visceral (K or Kinaesthetic).
7. Eyes Straight Ahead, but Defocused or Dilated: Quick access of almost any sensory information, but usually visual.

(Dilts, 1976, 1977; Grinder, DeLozier and Bandler, 1977; Bandler and Grinder, 1979; Dilts, Grinder, Bandler and DeLozier, 1980).

The following is how to show best the above (view when you are in front of the person):

He first asked and gave prompts on the first part of the program to note how the person’s eye moves to sensory stimuli. As he had established the eye movements to their thinking pattern, they used this to discern if a person is untruthful with how they answer.

But how is it?

These eye accessing cues are helpful, especially as you can use this to tailor how you communicate based on how people think.

Jason, an NLP practitioner, is explaining a complicated task to Emman. The following are the scenarios that may happen and how Jason can use the technique.

Scenario 1: Jason realizes that Emman has no no eye movements, this could indicate the following:

• Emman is not following his instructions
• Maybe Emman is not interested in what she is saying.
• Emman may already know the things that Jason is saying.

With the above suppositions, Jason may then opt to ask Emman what is going on with him to check.

Scenario 2: Jason realizes that Emman’s eyes are moving towards the visual directions

Frequent eye movements to the visual directions may indicate that Emman is thinking in pictures or imagining what Jason is saying, or checking his memory of it.

Instead of assuming the above, Jason can now respond in a way to confirm this by asking Emman, “So how does this look to you?”. If Emman verifies that he is indeed listening through visual thinking, Jason can now better respond and suit his explanation by showing him images of the procedure and speak faster and with higher tonality.

This can indicate that Emman may be thinking in feelings or may have his own feeling about Jason’s procedure. Jason can now verify these assumptions by asking a few questions like:

“How do you feel about this?” If Emman is following Jason by thinking with his feelings Jason can now adapt his approach through the following:

• physically demonstrating the procedure than just talking him through it
• Letting Emman do it while speaking in lower tonality to let Emman process and have his ‘thinking pauses’
• Recognize that Emman would instead prefer doing or trying it out than just listening to Jason or talking about it.

Scenario 4: Emman is looking at the Inner dialogue direction

Jason realizes that Emman is looking at the “self-talk” direction, and he may think of it as Emman thinking with his analytical self-dialogue. Jason can now ask Emman a few questions to confirm it, and when he verifies it, Jason can now improve his approach by giving detailed explanations rich in information, facts, and figures and give Emman the space to ask clarifying questions.

Scenario 5: Emman is looking at the auditory directions

Individuals looking at the auditory direction are found to be less encountered than the others.

Individuals favoring the auditory direction pay more attention to sound. Jason can verify if Emman is thinking ‘auditorily,’ and then Jason can adapt his communication.

• Jason may now realize that Emman is likely to want to ‘think aloud’ and talk.
• And that Emman may be easily distracted by background noise

Jason’s best response would be using a modulated voice than a high-pitched, fast-paced one.

NLP has so much more to offer, and there is more to these eye movements which is an excellent skill to master together with active listening. There are a lot more interesting topics on NLP that you may want to check out!