The art of lie detection could be as old as the pursuit of truth itself, in whatever form or scope. While folk wisdom dictates that the eyes are the doorway to the soul, Kenny Rogers famously illustrated the use of the eyes in the discernment of truth: “knowin' what their cards were by the way they held their eyes”. In tribute to the Gambler’s wisdom, I offer you this well illustrated piece, Eye Movement and Lying.

The article credits the idea of visual accessing cues to Richard Bandler and John Grinder in their book Frogs into Princes: Neuro Linguistic Programming. Investigating this further, I found a videoclip of John Grinder defining NLP, but frankly I was a bit unimpresssed. He certainly takes a long time to articulate what should be a simple summary of his life’s work. And the obfuscated route that he pursues towards definition skates past a few sour grapes. Maybe somebody would like to review the clip for visual accessing cues?

Despite these observations, the eye movement lie detection strategy has useful real world applications for all of us, I’m sure. I do enjoy many of the ideas surrounding NLP, but generally the vibe kinda creeps me out. —There, I said it. Towards which corner did my eyes gravitate as I wrote this entry?

[via Digg.]