Jesse L. Martin can tell when you’re lying. “There’s also intense eye contact,” he said, demonstrating this across a low table in the bar of a downtown hotel last week. Martin, 55, plays Alec Mercer, a professor of behavioral science at a fictional university. He solves each week’s case by applying one or more behavioral science concepts — the halo effect, the Barnum effect, paradoxical persuasion. Almost pathologically observant, Alec is based on Dan Ariely, a superstar in the field of behavioral science, and Martin has absorbed a morsel of those powers.

---

Persons: Jesse L, Martin, “ There’s, ”, Alec Mercer, Alec, Barnum, Dan Ariely, Martin — Organizations: NBC, Broadway, NBC’s “ Locations: New York, Vancouver, British Columbia