The heat is on

As represented in the classic Walt Disney film Pinocchio a small wooden puppet of a boy comes to life and goes through many adventures on his way to becoming a “real boy”. Along the way he is hampered, or perhaps helped, by a nose that grows each time he tells an untruth. Of course, this doesn’t happen in real human beings…or does it?

Well, maybe your nose won’t grow when you tell a lie but it will change, and this has been measured using a technique known as thermography. This thermography was developed during WWII by the USA as a way to detect the enemy at night. Thermographic cameras detect changes in temperature and so they can help “see” at night by detecting heat signatures given off by human bodies or even operating machinery. In recent times these thermographic images have also been found to reveal a lot about what is going on in a human body and mind.

A new study has used thermography to track changes that occur in the body under a variety of conditions. For instance, different forms of exercise were found to have a different thermal footprint. Dancing flamenco caused a drop in temperature in the buttocks but an increase in temperature in the forearms. Sexual excitement causes an increase in temperature in the genitals and chest. It also has emerged that the act of telling an untruth also leaves a distinct thermographic footprint.

Telling a lie requires considerable mental effort and that effort causes an increase in temperature in a part of the brain called the insula. The study revealed there was also an increase in temperature around the nose and the orbital muscle in the inner corner of the eye. Due to the involvement of the nose and the nature of the original story, this has been dubbed “the Pinocchio effect”.

So if you are dancing flamenco and your partner utters that longed-for trio of words, “I love you”, but you aren’t sure if they mean it, bring them in close, slap a hand on their buttock and move in for a kiss so your nose brushes their nose. If your nose and hand both feel heat then it’s bad news: they are lying and they can’t dance flamenco.