The ’Pinocchio Effect’: your nose says you lie

What is the Pinocchio effect? Just like Pinocchio, your nose tells you that you're lying.

Lying is the order of the day. From the highest political and economic spheres to the intimacy of the bedroom, telling the truth is not always the chosen path.

This propensity to be untruthful can sometimes be understandable, and at other times immoral. In any case, psychology studies why human beings lie and, as we will discuss in today's article, how the act of telling a lie is related to certain psychophysiological indicators.

What is the Pinocchio effect?

As it happens to Pinocchioyour nose indicates that you are lying. But unlike the famous character, the nose doesn't grow, it raises the temperature of our face. the temperature of our face rises, and so does the orbitalThe same happens with the orbital muscle in the inner corner of the eye. When we make a considerable mental effort, the temperature of our face drops, and when we have an anxiety attack, the temperature increases.

These are some of the conclusions drawn from a study carried out at the Department of Experimental Psychology of the University of Granada, which introduced new applications of thermography. Incidentally, thermography was also used to design the first Body Map of human emotions.

Thermography is a technique that detects body temperature. It is applied in many fields, such as general industry, the construction industry and medicine. Thermographic cameras have a wide range of uses: they measure energy loss in buildings, detect respiratory diseases in animals or rabies in raccoons. Thermography was developed in the USA. during World War II to detect the presence of enemies (night vision).

Why does the Pinocchio effect happen?

Scientists at the Foundation for Taste and Touch Research and Treatment in Chicago discovered that when we lie, chemicals called catecholamines are released, which cause the internal tissues of the nose to swell..

Lying increases Blood Pressure and, as a result, the nose swells and appears slightly reddened. Experts in nonverbal language have observed that those who are lying often rub their nose, either with a quick rub under the nose or with a quick, almost imperceptible touch.

Moreover, the nose is not the only part of the body that gets inflamed, as the penis does too. As far as we know, Pinocchio's nose only grew when he was lying.