Deception Detection Accuracy Research Articles

Judging the Credibility of Criminal Suspect Statements: Does Mode of Presentation Matter?

For a study of modality differences in deception detection accuracy, groups of graduate students judged segments selected from videotapes of criminal confessions. Twenty brief utterances were presented in four ways: content only transcript, verbatim transcript, audio only, and audio/videotape. No modality difference in unbiased truth hit rate was found, but unbiased lie hit rate varied by modality, with judges of transcripts stripped of pause indications, word repeats, and umms and uhhs less accurate than verbatim transcript judges, audio judges, and audio/video judges. The 62% overall accuracy and 61% lie detection accuracy of audio judges was highest and, in contrast to other judges, audio judgments did not display a response bias. The results remain consistent with the presence of valid visual cues but suggest that at least in some situations focus on valid vocal cues may offer more accuracy.

Deception Detection Accuracy is a Predictable Linear Function of Message Veracity Base-Rate: A Formal Test of Park and Levine's Probability Model

This study provided the first empirical test of point predictions made by the Park-Levine probability model of deception detection accuracy. Participants viewed a series of interviews containing truthful answers, unsanctioned, high-stakes lies, or some combination of both. One randomly selected set of participants (n=50) made judgments where the probability that each message was honest was P(H)=.50. Accuracy judgments in this condition were used to generate point predictions generated from the model and tested against the results from a second set of data (n=413). Participants were randomly assigned to one of eight base-rate conditions where the probability that a message was honest systematically varied from 0.00 to 1.00. Consistent with the veracity effect, participants in P(H)=.50 condition were significantly more likely to judge messages as truths than as lies, and consequently truths (67%) were identified with greater accuracy than lies (34%). As predicted by the model, overall accuracy was a linear function of message veracity base-rate, the base-rate induction explained 24% of the variance in accuracy scores, and, on average, raw accuracy scores for specific conditions were predicted to within approximately±2.6%. The findings show that specific deception detection accuracy scores can be precisely predicted with the Park-Levine model.

Strategic use of evidence during police interviews: When training to detect deception works.

Research on deception detection in legal contexts has neglected the question of how the use of evidence can affect deception detection accuracy. In this study, police trainees (N=82) either were or were not trained in strategically using the evidence when interviewing lying or truth telling mock suspects (N=82). The trainees' strategies as well as liars' and truth tellers' counter-strategies were analyzed. Trained interviewers applied different strategies than did untrained. As a consequence of this, liars interviewed by trained interviewers were more inconsistent with the evidence compared to liars interviewed by untrained interviewers. Trained interviewers created and utilized the statement-evidence consistency cue, and obtained a considerably higher deception detection accuracy rate (85.4%) than untrained interviewers (56.1%).

The Effects of Computer-Mediation, Training, and Warning on False Alarms in an Interview Setting

Deception in applicant résumés is a major business problem. With the rapid growth of Internet job websites and computer-mediated communication, organizations are more at risk than ever before. Researchers have tried to improve individuals' deception detection accuracy to minimize the impact of deception, including warning individuals about deception and training individuals to detect deception. However, evidence was found that trained and warned individuals might make more incorrect judgments about true information, which are known as false alarms. Further, few previous studies focused on the computer-mediated settings that are now a central part of business communication. After conducting an experiment to understand these and other causes of false alarms in computer-mediated interview settings, we found that individuals performing interviews over an audio-based communication channel incorrectly judged interviewees as being deceptive more often than did individuals performing interviews via e-mail. We found that while the number of lies detected was low for both types of communication, individuals communicating over an audio-based channel had more false alarms. We also found that the combination of in-advance training and a just-in-time warning did not affect receivers' judgments about deception in our computer-mediated interview setting.

Testing the Effects of Nonverbal Behavior Training on Accuracy in Deception Detection with the Inclusion of a Bogus Training Control Group

Previous deception detection training studies have compared people receiving training in nonverbal behaviors associated with deception to control groups receiving no training and found that people who are trained are slightly to moderately more accurate than people who have not been trained. Recent research on the relationships between source veracity and specific nonverbal behaviors, however, suggests that those relationships are weak, inconsistent, and limited to high stakes lies. If specific nonverbal behaviors are not reliable indicators of deception, then one might wonder why training improves accuracy. This paper tests the speculation that the simple act of training, independent of the training content, may improve accuracy simply because those in training conditions process messages more critically. This speculation was tested in three experiments that included both no training and bogus training control groups. The bogus training group was most accurate in Study 1, but this finding failed to replicate in Study 2. A coding study (Study 3) examined behavioral differences in the stimulus tapes. The predicted differences were observed in a final experiment (Study 4) were training was based on the coded stimulus tapes. The results suggest that the effects of training are generally small and highly variable from message to message, that valid training does not produce large improvements over a bogus training control, and that bogus training can produce statistically significant improvements over a no‐training control.

Deception among pairs: “Let's say we had lunch and hope they will swallow it!”

Deception research has neglected the fact that legal-workers often have to try to detect deceit on the basis of statements derived from pairs of suspects, each having been interrogated repeatedly. To remedy this shortcoming we conducted a study where each member of 10 truth-telling pairs and 10 lying pairs was interrogated twice about an alibi. One hundred and twenty undergraduate students were enrolled as lie-catchers. The main findings were that (a) overall deception detection accuracy was modest; (b) lie-catchers given access to a large number of statements did not outperform lie-catchers given access to a lesser number of statements; (c) when asked to justify their veracity assessments the most frequently reported cue was ‘consistency within pairs of suspects’; (d) all cues to deception were of low diagnostic value. Psycho-legal aspects of integrating sequential information in deception detection contexts are discussed.

Inducing Sensitivity to Deception in Order to Improve Decision Making Performance: A Field Study

data contained in computer-based systems, they become vulnerable to strategic information manipulation. That is, they become susceptible to situations where their decision-making behaviors can be influenced by others able to access and manipulate this data. This paper describes the results of a field experiment that examines the effects of alternative interventions aimed at inducing sensitivity to the possibility of manipulated data on professionals' task-related decision behaviors: deception detection, false alarms, and task accuracy. While traditional training had no effect on detection success or the issuance of false alarms, warnings about data quality resulted in better detection success. Warnings combined with just-in-time training resulted in better detection success but at the cost of an increased number of false alarms. Higher levels of detection success increased task accuracy and the time spent solving each problem. A higher number of false alarms was associated with lower levels of task accuracy.

Group and individual accuracy in deception detection

Previous research examining the accuracy of deception detection judgments by individuals has concluded that the ability to detect deception is only slightly better than chance. Research has also found that individuals tend to be over‐confident, truth‐biased, and reliant on nonverbal behavior when making veracity judgments. This study (N = 129) tested if differences in deception detection accuracy, truth‐bias, judgmental confidences, and self‐reported cue reliance exist between individual judges and groups of individuals working in collaboration. No significant differences between groups and individuals emerged for accuracy, truth‐bias, or self‐reported cue reliance. Individuals within groups, however, were significantly more confident in their decisions than individuals working alone.

Behavioral Adaptation, Confidence, and Heuristic-Based Explanations of the Probing Effect

Researchers have found that asking probing questions of message sources does not enhance deception detection accuracy. Probing does, however, increase recipient and observer perceptions of source honesty, a finding we label the probing effect. This project examined 3 potential explanations for the probing effect: behavioral adaptation, confidence bias, and a probing heuristic. In Study 1, respondents (N = 337) viewed videotaped interviews in which probes were present or not present, and in which message source behaviors were controlled. Inconsistent with the behavioral adaptation explanation, respondents perceived probed sources as more honest than nonprobed sources, despite the fact that source behaviors were constant across conditions. The data also were inconsistent with the confidence bias explanation. Studies 2 and 3 investigated the probing heuristic explanation. The data from Study 2 (N = 136) were ambiguous, but the results of third study (N = 143) were consistent with the heuristic processing explanation of the probing effect.

Accuracy in detecting truths and lies: Documenting the “veracity effect”

Deception research has consistently shown that accuracy rates tend to be just over fifty percent when accuracy rates are averaged across truthful and deceptive messages and when an equal number of truths and lies are judged. Breaking accuracy rates down by truths and lies, however, leads to a radically different conclusion. Across three studies, a large and consistent veracity effect was evident. Truths are most often correctly identified as honest, but errors predominate when lies are judged. Truth accuracy is substantially greater than chance, but the detection of lies was often significantly below chance. Also, consistent with the veracity effect, altering the truth‐lie base rate affected accuracy. Accuracy was a positive linear function of the ratio of truthful messages to total messages. The results show that this veracity effect stems from a truth‐bias, and suggest that the single best predictor of detection accuracy may be the veracity of message being judged. The internal consistency and parallelism of overall accuracy scores are also questioned. These findings challenge widely held conclusions about human accuracy in deception detection.

Interpersonal deception: V. Accuracy in deception detection

Previous research on accuracy in deception detection has typically occurred in a noninteractive context, which has resulted in many potentially salient influences being ignored. Guided by interpersonal deception theory, the current experiment examined the influences of suspicion, deception type, question type, relational familiarity, and expertise on accuracy in detecting truth and deceit. An adult sample of novices and a second sample of experts (military intelligence instructors and related military personnel) participated in interviews with strangers or acquaintances during which interviewees gave some truthful answers and some deceptive answers, the latter being one of three types. Interviewers, half of whom were induced to be suspicious, followed a standard interview protocol that introduced different question strategies. Results showed that (a) accuracy was much higher on truth than deception, (b) novices were more accurate than experts, (c) accuracy depended on type of deception being perpetrated a...

Training Observers to Detect Deception Effects of Self-Monitoring and Rehearsal

It was predicted that trained observers would detect deception more accurately than untrained observers. More specifically, it was predicted that the highest deception detection accuracy would be found among trained observers judging the veracity of low self-monitors and unrehearsed liars, whereas the lowest detection accuracy would be found among untrained observers judging the veracity of high self-monitors and rehearsed deceivers. It also was hypothesized that the discrepancy between observers‘actual ability to detect deception and their certainty in the accuracy of their judgments would be smaller for trained observers than for untrained observers. Observers trained to detect deception used six behavioral cues based on research by deTurck and Miller (1985): (a) message duration, (b) response latency, (c) adaptors, (d) pauses, (e) nonfluencies, and (f) hand gestures. Results confirmed both hypotheses.

The effect of probing on deceivers and truthtellers

This study examined the effect of probing for additional information on the accuracy of deception detection. One hundred forty-eight experimental interactions were analyzed to see whether deceivers and truthtellers behave differently when probed and whether probing improved deception detection. Probing produced a number of changes in nonverbal behavior, several of which differed between deceivers and truthtellers. Probing may have communicated suspicion or uncertainty; therefore, deceptive sources were motivated to control their nonverbal demeanor to mask deception-related cues and appear truthful. Probing did not improve detection. Instead, probing receivers considered all sources more truthful. It is suggested that suspiciousness and prior knowledge may affect probing's efficacy.

SELF-MONITORING, REHEARSAL, AND DECEPTIVE COMMUNICATION

This study examined the effects of self-monitoring and rehearsal on the ability of observers to detect deception and on the behavioral correlates of deception. It was hypothesized that observers would be more accurate at detecting deception perpetrated by low self-monitors than by high self-monitors, with the difference particularly pronounced when messages were rehearsed. In addition, low self-monitors communicating spontaneously were expected to display greater rates of verbal and nonverbal responding than high self-monitors who planned their communications. Sixteen high and low self-monitors both lied and told the truth (either spontaneously or after 20-minute rehearsals) regarding their feelings while viewing slides of pleasant landscapes and of disfigured burn victims. Analysis of the responses of the 151 observers who made veracity judgments supported the hypothesis concerning accuracy of deception detection. Coding of 10 verbal and nonverbal behaviors revealed that unrehearsed low self-monitors displayed significantly greater pause and nonfluency rates than rehearsed high self-monitors. Additional findings are reported regarding the effects of self-monitoring, rehearsal, and truthful versus deceptive communication on the behavioral correlates of deception.

Effects of self‐monitoring and familiarity on deception detection1

This study investigated the effects of familiarity and self‐monitoring on observer accuracy in deception detection. Observers varying in self‐reported self‐monitoring made judgments of truthfulness or lying after either exposure or no exposure to segments of a communicator's truthful behavior. Results indicated that observers familiar with a communicator's truthful behavior were significantly more accurate than those who were not; that accuracy increased significantly as self‐reported self‐monitoring increased; and that there was no significant interaction between self‐monitoring and familiarity.