Lying? The nose knows

Pinocchio (Public Domain)

The legendary Pinocchio was a mischievous puppet whose nose grew longer under stressful conditions.

Although lying seems to come naturally for some, it is quite stressful for others.  The generally stalwart Friedrich Nietzsche, for example, made this complaint:  I am not upset that you lied to me, I'm upset that from now on I can't believe you.  Little "I cannot tell a lie" George Washington much later advised:  It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one.  Leo Tolstoy exhorted:  Anything is better than lies and deceit!  Alfred Tennyson dispelled the illusion that "white lies" are okay with this scathing indictment:  A lie that is half-truth is the darkest of all lies.

It therefore makes sense that Pinocchio's nose would grow whenever he told a lie.  But what about the rest of us - are we immune to such telltale signs of hiding the truth?

Apparently not, according to a recent Live Science article titled  Like Pinocchio, Your Nose Shows When

You Lie.  A group of researchers from the University of Granada studied people's faces with thermography

and discovered "a jump in the temperature around the nose and in the orbital muscle in the inner corner of the

eye during lying."  They additionally noted that "face temperature "rises for people experiencing high anxiety."

Although a heated nose is not quite as obvious as a lengthened one - beware!  It might yet be detectable

within this type of an intimate situation that Dorothy Parker so vividly described:  By the time you swear you're his,  Shivering and sighing.  And he vows his passion is,  Infinite, undying.  Lady make note of this – one of you is lying. 

Resources

http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/lying

http://news.yahoo.com/pinocchio-nose-shows-lie-152611943.html

Copyright January 17, 2013 by Linda Van Slyke   All Rights Reserved