Psychologists in virtually every field have myths they have to fight. Personality psychologists have deal with the baseless but popular Myers-Briggs personality types 1,2 . Developmental psychologists have to deal with the false claim that playing Mozart for babies improves their intelligence 3 . Like other deception researchers, I have to deal with people’s persistent and inaccurate beliefs about lies and how to catch them. I’d roughly estimate that – in my own limited experience – somewhere around 60% of the time, when I tell someone I study deception, they ask me if I can read people’s behavior and tell when someone is lying. My typical answer is, “No, I can’t do that. You can’t do that. No one can do that.” Myths are often more appealing than reality. They’re frequently simpler, easier to understand, and more romantic than what science tells us 4 . People seem to enjoy the idea that lies can be caught by carefully observing a person’s body language or slight muscular movem...