The concept of cognitive load was used to explain why people may mimic another person when they are lying. Researchers (Van der Zee et al. 2021) were investigating the body language that accompanies lying. In the study, about 50 students were asked to solve a wooden puzzle in 5 minutes. The puzzle was quite difficult so, in order to help the students, the researchers hid puzzle solutions around the research room but asked the students not to report this to anyone because the research supervisor would be upset.
Later the students were filmed while they told another student about the puzzle. The researchers found that when students were lying about using the hidden clues their body movements tended to mirror the behaviour of the other person. It may be that lying creates a cognitive load and therefore people have less ability to think about their own body language and they just mimic the other person.
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