ABSTRACT
The hypothesis that the precise form of iconic gestures may give the game away when people are trying to deceive formed the basis for one experiment in our lab. The iconic gesture was under much less strict editorial control and indicated the relative position of both sets of lips. The iconic gesture here still depicted the original 'true' circular movement of the boy and the ball, rather than the changed 'false' version. First, we assumed that in line with research there would be a significant decrease in the relative frequency of iconic hand gestures when people are lying compared to when they are telling the truth. Second, we predicted that those gestures that do still occur during deception would have significantly shorter durations than those produced during truth-telling. Finally, we predicted that some of the gestures that do arise in the deception condition would display elements of the real state of affairs shown in the original story.
