Pairs of liars and pairs of truth tellers were interviewed and the amount of eye
contact they made with the interviewer and each other was coded. Given that liars
take their credibility less for granted than truth tellers, we expected liars to
monitor the interviewer to see whether they were being believed, and to try harder
to convince the interviewer that they were telling the truth. It was hypothesised
that this monitoring would manifest itself through more eye contact with the
interviewer and less eye contact with each other than in the case of truth tellers. A
total of 43 pairs of participants took part in the experiment. Truth tellers had
lunch in a nearby restaurant. Liars took some money from a purse, and were
asked to pretend that instead of taking the money, they had been to a nearby
restaurant together for lunch. Pairs of liars looked less at each other and
displayed more eye contact with the interviewer than pairs of truth tellers. The
implications of these findings are discussed.