Deceptive Intentions: Can Cues to Deception Be Measured before a Lie Is Even Stated?

Sabine Ströfer,Ellen Giebels,Elze G Ufkes,Matthijs L Noordzij

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0125237

Abstract

Can deceitful intentions be discriminated from truthful ones? Previous work consistently demonstrated that deceiving others is accompanied by nervousness/stress and cognitive load. Both are related to increased sympathetic nervous system (SNS) activity. We hypothesized that SNS activity already rises during intentions to lie and, consequently, cues to deception can be detected before stating an actual lie. In two experiments, controlling for prospective memory, we monitored SNS activity during lying, truth telling, and truth telling with the aim of lying at a later instance. Electrodermal activity (EDA) was used as an indicator of SNS. EDA was highest during lying, and compared to the truth condition, EDA was also raised during the intention to deceive. Moreover, the switch from truth telling toward lying in the intention condition evoked higher EDA than switching toward non-deception related tasks in the lie or truth condition. These results provide first empirical evidence that increased SNS activity related to deception can be monitored before a lie is stated. This implies that cues to deception are already present during the mere intention to lie.

Highlights

Most of the research on physiological detection of deception has focused on the act of lying, and contrasts specific statements that are either truths or lies [1,2]
Supporting our prediction, we found a main effect of condition on tonic Electrodermal activity (EDA) for the anticipation stage, F(2, 92) = 24.95, p < .001, ηp2 =
Simple effect analyses revealed that EDA in the lie condition (M = 4.30, SE = .41) was significantly higher compared to the intention (M = 4.07, SE = .39), t(46) = 5.85, p < .001, and truth condition (M = 4.04, SE = .39), t (46) = 5.36, p

Summary

Introduction

Most of the research on physiological detection of deception has focused on the act of lying, and contrasts specific statements that are either truths or lies [1,2]. Categorizing statements as either truths or lies neglects that deception may take a variety of forms, ranging from its most direct form, fabrication, to more subtle forms including half-truths, vagueness, equivocations, and concealments [5]. This implies that deception and lying, used interchangeably, reflect essentially different constructs. This is an important notion because deceivers tend to stick to the truth as much as possible [8] and to only lie on crucial aspects [9,10]

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