The less travelled road to truth: verbal cues in deception detection in accounts of fabricated and self-experienced events

Abstract

In evaluating the truthfulness of children's allegations of (sexual) abuse, German forensic experts have focused on qualitative aspects of the content of a witness's statement. Within the overall credibility assessment of a witness's statement, known as statement validity analysis (SVA), they have developed a technique referred to as criterion-based content analysis (CBCA), which utilizes content criteria that supposedly are indicative of the truthfulness of a statement. While first validation studies of CBCA criteria have been undertaken, a theoretical basis of why and under what circumstances deceptive and truthful accounts should differ with respect to these criteria has been wanting. The reality monitoring (RM) approach is proposed as a theoretical basis for discriminating between fabricated and self-experienced events. The present experiment links forensic CBCA credibility criteria to the reality monitoring approach and tests the relative validity of CBCA and RM criteria in discriminating between fabricated and self-experienced video recorded accounts of adult participants. Transcripts rated for the presence of CBCA and RM criteria by trained experts could be classified in an above-chance fashion. On the basis of a factor analysis of CBCA and RM criteria, commonalities and differences between the two approaches are noted. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.