Experience, learning and the detection of deception

Abstract

Deceptive communication, as involved in impersonation fraud and other forms of economic crime, can inflict loss, making it important to be able to distinguish these from trustworthy ones. This article pursues the hypothesis that repeated exposure or experience can cause learning and hence better detection of deception. We investigate using data culled from events in a TV game show. Decision-makers in the show repeatedly faced situations where they had to correctly identify an individual from within a group all claiming to be that individual. Our sample showed evidence of learning, suggesting that experience can aid in deception detection.