Hello and welcome to the deception tips podcast where you will learn amazing cues to detect deceit that will help you read people like never before. I’m your host Spencer Coffman, let’s get started.

Welcome to episode 53 of the deception tips podcast. Thanks for listening, I know I say that a lot, but I really mean it, without you guys, this podcast would not be possible. 

As I’ve said before, this podcast is done entirely in my free time, my spare time, which I don’t have a lot of, so it’s tough. It’s a lot of early mornings and late nights, but I’m doing it to share this information and hopefully, to help you guys learn how to read people and detect deception.

So, if you’re listening, if you’re still listening, shout out to me, leave a review on iTunes or wherever you’re listening, whether it’s iHeart Radio, Stitcher, anywhere, pop a review on there. You can also connect with me on the Deception Tips Facebook page or on The Guide to Deception Facebook page or on the Spencer Coffman Facebook page, any of those, shout out to me, let me know you’re still listening.

Last time, we talked about a cool sign of deception that also went in hand with the one we talked about two weeks ago. So, episodes 51 and 52 were both related to the hands. They were about a release of stress and tension, almost like a pacification gesture except they weren’t really pacification because they weren’t taking the place of something else.

Remember a pacification gesture is a gesture where someone wants something, but they do something instead, think of a pacifier. The baby wants to eat, you give them a pacifier and it subsides the feeling, somebody who wants to smoke a cigarette, chew on a toothpick to relieve that feeling of wanting to have something in their mouth.

These two gestures we talked about the past two weeks were not entirely pacification gestures. They were more of a release gesture, but they still were pacification a little bit, it was sort of like 50/50. They are pacification in that they are pacifying the stress and tension. So, last week we talked about how liars may massage their hands to release that stress and tension.

It is the fleshy part of the hand, the part of the hand between the index finger and the thumb, kind of that web in your hand. The part where when you used to hold up your fingers like a little kid and whichever hand made an L, that was your left hand. We’re talking about the point in that L, the crease, the intersect where those two lines of the L would meet, the vertex.

That area is the fleshy part of the hand and when they massage that area with their opposite hand that is a release of stress and tension. Then two weeks ago in episode 51, we talked about wringing the hands. 

So, this is like when they fold their hands and squeeze harder with one hand than the other. It could also be clasping the hands like when they’re about to clap and they could squeeze with one hand more than the other.

Almost like they’ve got a couple of pebbles in their hands and they’re grinding them to dust, they’re wringing their hands together just like you would wring out a wet cloth. 

You’re squeezing it and twisting it, that is releasing the stress and tension. Why would they be feeling this stress and tension? Well, hopefully, you can answer that because we’ve gone over it quite a few times.

When people lie, they are under a tremendous amount of stress and tension, anxiety, all this kind of stuff is boiling up inside of them. You may say, “Well, wait a minute, why are they under all the stress and tension?” It’s because lying is not normal, most people morally, have a compass inside of them, they have a conscience and they are led to tell the truth.

Why are they led to tell the truth? It’s because they were raised to tell the truth. Inherently, people are not good people, when you have a child, do you have to teach that child how to be naughty? 

No, they’re naturally that way, you need to teach them how to be good. So, that being said, if somebody was never taught how to be good then perhaps lying would be normal for them.

That’s an outlier, we’re not going to talk about it, the point is people need to be taught how to be good. The reason they think lying is bad is that they were taught that way, they were taught to understand that. 

So, they’ve been given an internal moral compass and a conscience, so that when they do something wrong, they feel that stress in that anxiety-like they’re doing something wrong, they’re about to feel bad for it.

This is why they’re under that stress and tension, this is why you see a lot of these behaviors because it’s a release of the stress and tension. Today, we have another sign of deception that is inherently related to stress and tension, which is the foundation of this sign. There are a couple of other things that come after it and then the sign that appears or that is visible or audible for you to notice.

So, today we are going to talk about deception tip 53, so here it is deception tip 53. A liar’s mouth usually becomes very dry causing their voice to crack and stutter. Here it is again, deception tip 53. A liar’s mouth usually becomes very dry causing their voice to crack and stutter. So, what do you mean by crack and stutter?

Well, it’s simple, it’s like when they are in the middle of a word and something happens, and it skips a beat, or when they’re stuttering as if they can’t quite get on to what they’re going to say. It’s like when they say multiple syllables at the beginning of a word together, you know what stuttering sounds like.

There are certain people that have a disorder, or disability and they stutter, which is like a speech impediment that they have. This is not that serious it is more as if they took one little sample of that speech impediment and put it in their statement. Almost like they can’t quite say it, they can’t quite put their tongue on it, they can’t get it out, it’s on the tip of their tongue, that kind of a thing.

Cracking and stuttering are like when your voice changes when you’re a teenager and it changes pitch. So, we’re going to talk a lot more about both of these and about why they occur and the causes behind them, the root cause behind them coming up right after this.

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Here we are, we are talking about cracking and stuttering of the voice, this is deception tip 53. Now, the reason behind the stuttering and cracking of the voice is what we’re going to dive into right now, so I hope you are ready. The first part is a liar’s mouth becomes very dry, this causes a voice to crack and stutter. So, let’s back up a little bit, why is their mouth dry?

Well, dry mouth is a symptom of stress. Why is it a symptom of stress? It goes way back into the ancestral survival instincts, it is our fight or flight mode. 

Typically, in history, when human beings were stressed, it was a time of survival, you become stressed, you need to survive, you have to fight to survive. So, it’s fight or flight, you’re either going to run away from the situation or you’re going to fight.

In the case of fighting, all of your bodily functions are diverted from your essential core functions out into the things that you need to fight or flight. What would those be? 

Those would be things like your legs, your feet, your arms, your hands, you’re going to have increased blood flow to those areas so that you can use them more effectively and efficiently.

Your eyes, your ears, you’re going to be able to be on hyper-awareness, you’re going to see everything, you’re going to hear everything. It is a survival instinct, which means the energy is going to be diverted away from other areas of the body. These areas are areas that are non-essential for survival in that specific instance, which are stuff like digestion.

So, if you had just eaten a meal, you’re going to stop digesting, things are going to sit there while you fight off that life-threatening altercation then when you relax you settle down, you’ll cool off and things will go back to normal. It’s two different nervous systems, the sympathetic and parasympathetic, it’s heightened awareness, there are different things that are going to be activated.

Another thing that delays would be something like the saliva being produced in your mouth, why? Well, because that saliva is usually produced as a means of helping you absorb nutrients from food, that is part of the digestive process. So, that’s going to be stopped, other stuff is going to be stopped as well, there are other things, different bodily tasks.

You’re going to stop heating certain areas of your body, so your core, because most of your blood flow is going to go out, your hearts going to push a lot of blood out to your limbs, a lot of different stuff. You can look up all the various things online about what happens during a fight or flight.

The main thing for this purpose is that you are going to be diverted into your extremities, your ears, your sight, things you need for survival, which means digestion stops and saliva stops being produced in the mouth. 

Therefore, when you are under a lot of stress and tension, you will experience a dry mouth. So, that’s why liars experience dry mouth then what happens as a result of dry mouth?

Well, certain things happen, they may lick their lips a lot, which we talked about in episode 32. We discussed how the mouth becomes dry, liars lick their lips because now their lips are dry and that is a symptom of this. Today, as I said, we’re talking about the voice, so this is a different side effect of the dry mouth.

When your mouth is dry, your throat also dries up because you’re not swallowing the saliva to keep your throat moist. It’s kind of common sense, things just follow naturally like dominoes, if you take away the water things dry out. When things are dry, for example, your lips, become chapped, how do you get them not chapped? You lick them, keep them moist, it’s simple.

When you have a dry throat or voice box, your throat or your voice is going to stutter and crack. It’s going to not be as normal and fluid as it sounds, it’ll almost be like you have a little frog in your throat or like when you’re sick and you do have that little frog in your throat. When there’s that little bit of phlegm down there and you’re talking, you may notice that every once in a while, something happens.

That little patch of phlegm moves down a little bit and now it’s in the way of where your voice hits, the voice box. You have a change in the pitch of your voice, or it sounds a little hoarse or it stutters and then you have to clear your throat to get that out of there, and then you can speak normally again. It’s frustrating and it’s really annoying when it happens but you know exactly what I’m talking about.

This kind of thing is going to happen when people are very stressed and when they’re under a lot of tension and their voice will crack and will stutter. It may not be noticeable very distinctly, they may be good at hiding it or faking it or masking it with a clearing of the throat or with something else like speaking louder or turning it into a shout or a more purposeful impact or slamming their fists on the table.

There could be a variety of different things, so pay attention to it, pay attention to the other symptoms of dry mouth such as licking the lips and then listen to their voice, see if their mouth is dry, see if they’re reaching for water. 

Maybe you’ve provided it for them maybe you haven’t, in that case, whichever it is, you can use all of the stuff in your surroundings to determine what’s going on. Always look for the patterns in the clusters of behavior as well.

So, let’s recap, the liar’s mouth becomes very dry causing their voice to crack and stutter. Why does their mouth become dry? It is because they are under stress and tension due to telling a lie. The stress and tension are involved because it’s morally against their conscience, it’s against their moral compass, they want to tell the truth and the unconscious wants the truth to come out.

So, it’s going to cause these other things to happen, crack and stutter, dry mouth, lick lips all this extra stuff but, a chain of progression, they’re telling a lie, they become stressed and tense. The fight or flight response kicks in due to stress, now their mouth becomes dry because they’re not producing enough saliva, and they start to, like I said, lick the lips.

We talked about that a while ago in episode 32 and now their voice is going to crack and stutter because they’re no longer swallowing the saliva to moisten their throat thus causing their voice to crack and stutter when they speak. Usually, it will be in the middle of a word or at the beginning of a word, it could skip a little bit, and it could be like a staccato-type movement.

There could be a lot of varieties which is why you have to look for the patterns and clusters of behavior, this one sign cannot tell you exactly that they are lying. Keep in mind, some people may have voice changing, maybe they’re a teenager and their voice is going through that puberty change.

Maybe the person has a speech impediment that you don’t know about, maybe they’re a smoker and there’s some phlegm in their throat that’s causing their voice to go up and down. There could be a variety of reasons, so look for the patterns and the clusters of behavior but know exactly what this behavior is and how to find it.

I want to thank you for listening to this week’s episode of the deception tips podcast. I hope that you’ll share it with your friends, subscribe to the feed, check out the deception tips videos, and the deception tips blog, take a look at the books I have available, and as always, tune in next week for a new deception tip.

Hey guys, my name is Spencer Coffman, thank you for watching the Deception Tips videos, they’re all about teaching you how to read people and detect deception so that you will be able to tell if someone is lying to you. Today, we are talking about a really cool deception tip that you’re going to hear, it’s a part of someone’s speech and their voice and it has to do with, of course, guess what, stress and tension.

Why? Well, it is because when someone lies, they’re stressed, they’re tense. We’ve gone over it a lot, we’re not going to go over it again today, hopefully, you remember all the different reasons why they could be stressed or tense. When they are giving this lie, another thing that we haven’t really talked about is they may be speaking publicly.

So, in public speaking, people are automatically very nervous and it’s not something that a lot of people are naturally good at. Whether that is in front of two people or one person or a crowd of people or even in front of a camera, it’s still public speaking and a lot of people just get really nervous.

Even though there may not be anybody there, they may get nervous and you will hear different signs of deception in their voice and it could be deception, or it could be a nervousness behavior. So, that’s what this is, this is a borderline nervousness behavior and deception because it can happen when people become tense and stressed, nervous, anxious, overwhelmed, and all of those other negative, energy-type, anxiety words.

So, here it is, this is deception tip number 53. A liar’s mouth usually becomes very dry causing their voice to crack and stutter. So, when someone is nervous or when they’re telling a lie, their mouth becomes very dry, why? Why does this happen? Well, typically, when someone is stressed, the body enters a different frame of mind or a different mentality, a different physiological state when they are stressed.

The reason for this is because the body if it’s extreme stress, enters what is called the fight-or-flight mode. What they’re going to do is they’re either going to fight, fight off the attack or fight off whatever is happening or their flight, they’re going to run away, they’re going to flee. What does that mean for the body? Well, it means that the body is sending energy to the areas of the body that are going to participate in that fight-or-flight.

Where would those be? If it’s fighting, it’s going to be in the hands and the legs and if it’s flight or fleeing, it’s going to also be in the hands and the legs or the arms. It’s going to be in the extremities because they’re going to need to run, they’re going to need to fight, they’re going to get out of there. That means things like digestion or saliva production, stuff like that is going to be put on hold.

Then you’re going to see that if their mouth is really dry, we talked about this in another tip, deception tip number 32, licking the lips or Lick Lips, they may lick their lips a lot because their mouth is dry due to the stress and tension involved in telling that lie. This is also similar to that if their mouth is dry, their throat is going to become dry because they’re not swallowing the moisture to moisten their throat, as a result, you may hear their voice crack and stutter.

This is going to be different than someone who has a speech impediment stutter, someone who just can’t get out that word. Sometimes even people without speech impediments, they may struggle to say a certain word, to have that lapse of the mind or something isn’t communicating or there’s a misfiring neuron or something like that and they just can’t quite get that word out. That is a normal type, in that it doesn’t happen a lot.

When you hear this one though it’s going to be more like the crack or the squeaking of the voice or like they can’t quite finish the word or the syllable. They get stuck in between and chances are they may have to clear their throat in between it or they have to swallow or they only get halfway through the word like they ran out of air or they just became super parched and they stopped mid-word or mid-syllable.

That’s what you’re listening for, you’re also going to see something because chances are, they may be talking, and they may freeze up a little bit. You may see it like they’re choking on their own words so to speak, so that’s what you’re looking for. Keep in mind though that you need to watch for other signs and listen for other speech things as well because there will always be more than one sign when someone is lying.

So, if this is your first time watching these videos, I’d love to have you subscribe to the channel on YouTube, feel free to comment with any questions you may have as well. Also, if you’d like more information, there are books, blog posts, and podcasts, all available on spencercoffman.com that are dedicated to teaching you exactly what every body is saying.

Until next time.