Fishy-looking liars: Deception judgment from expectancy violation (original) (raw)

Nonverbal strategies for decoding deception

Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 1982

This study tested the hypothesis that judges who suspect deception would be less influenced by controllable channels (facial expresions) relative to "leaky" channels (voice and body) than judges who do not suspect deception. The Nonverbal Discrepancy Test, comprised of video (face or body) cues paired with audio cues, was administered to subjects with the information that the person shown in the test never lied, sometimes lied, or very often lied; in a fourth condition (control) there was no mention of deception. In some cases, the video and audio components of the discrepancy test depicted the same affect while in other cases they depicted different affects. Subjects who expected more deception were relatively less influenced by the facial component of the affectively discrepant video-audio pairings. These subjects were also less accurate at decoding affectively consistent videoaudio pairings, especially those involving facial cues. Finally, subjects who expected more deception became less accurate decoders of consistent video-audio pairings during the second half of the test but learned to recognize video-audio discrepancies better. The results suggest that suspicion of deception led subjects to discount facial cues. Results for the control group indicated that even in the absence of explicit information, discrepant messages create a suspicion of deception. Traditionally, research on lie detection has been identified with the question of whether the polygraph and other mechanical Preparation of this paper was supported in part by the National Science Foundation.

Deception in Context: Coding Nonverbal Cues, Situational Variables and Risk of Detection

Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology, 2013

There are many situations in which deception may arise and understanding the behaviors associated with it are compounded by various contexts in which it may occur. This paper sets out a coding protocol for identifying cues to deception and reports on three studies, in which deception was studied in different contexts. The contexts involved manipulating risks (i.e., probability) of being detected and reconnaissance, both of which are related to terrorist activities. Two of the studies examined the impact of changing the risks of deception detection, whilst the third investigated increased cognitive demand of duplex deception tasks including reconnaissance and deception. In all three studies, cues to deception were analyzed in relation to observable body movements and subjective impressions given by participants. In general, the results indicate a pattern of hand movement reduction by deceivers, and suggest the notion that raising the risk of detection influences deceivers' behaviors. Participants in the higher risk condition displayed increased negative affect (found in deceivers) and tension (found in both deceivers and truth-tellers) than those in lower risk conditions.

Verbal and nonverbal cues in the perception of lying

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1978

Two experiments examined strategies observers use to see through self-presentations. In the first, five male actor subjects lied or told the truth in simulated job interviews. Forty-one observers were moderately accurate in judging the actors' truthfulness. Actors were consistently good or poor liars, but judges were not consistently good or poor. When actors lied, they gave less plausible, shorter answers with longer latencies. Observers seemed to use the plausibility and latency, as well as an answer's vagueness and consistency and an actor's smiling, postural shifting, and grooming, to determine whether he was lying. The second study experimentally manipulated the content of an answer and a nonverbal cue. Observers were more likely to judge a female job applicant as lying when her answers were self-serving. A long hesitation before an answer made observers more suspicious of an already self-serving answer and more certain of the truth of an already forthright one.

individual differences and cues to deception

In an extension of previous studies on deception and deception detection, the present research investigated the relations among individual differences, behavioral cues displayed when deceiving and telling the truth, and the perceptions of naive observers. Sixty-three students were measured on the Self-Monitoring Scale, the Affective Communication Test, the Personality Research Form, The Eysenck Personality Inventory, their acting ability, and their overall appearance. They were then videotaped while deceiving and truth telling, and their verbal and nonverbal cues were rated and coded. Finally, their success at creating an honest appearance was assessed by showing edited videotapes of their faces or their bodies to naive judges, with and without sound. It was found that behavioral cues could validly discriminate truthfulness from deception but that these valid cues were not necessarily used or were incorrectly used by the naive judges. Comparison of the facial 'and body conditions suggested explanations for the relative inaccuracy of faceviewing judges. In addition, key individual difference variables were found to be related to the overall display of behavioral cues, to variance in the display of cues from deceptive to truthful conditions, to overall perceptions of truthfulness, and to successful deception. The findings demonstrate the importance of including personality and social skill measures as well as nonverbal cue analyses and judges' perceptions in any attempt to understand fully the process of deception in social interaction.

Verbal and nonverbal cues as mediators of deception ability

Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 1987

In an extension of previous research on individual differences in deception ability, 35 undergraduate subjects were administered standardized measures of social skills and public self-consciousness and their attitudes on a variety of sociopolitical attitudes were measured. Later, subjects were videotaped while giving pro-attitudinal (truthful) and counter-attitudinal (deceptive) presentations to a videocamera. Videotaped presentations were content analyzed for various verbal and nonverbal cues, and were shown to untrained judges who rated each on a scale of truthfulness/believability. Results of structural modeling analyses indicated that socially skilled subjects were judged as believable regardless of whether they were truth-telling or deceiving. Individuals high in public selfconsciousness were less successful deceivers. Most importantly, these relationships were mediated by certain behavioral cues, particularly cues of verbal fluency, which were consistently associated with judgments of truthfulness. These results have both theoretical and methodological implications for future deception research.

Nonverbal cues to deception among intimates, friends, and strangers

Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 1987

propose that deceivers attempt to encode strategically nonverbal cues which indicate nonimmediacy and project a positive image. At the same time, deceivers leak arousal and negative affect via their nonverbal display. This experiment tested these predictions, while examining the influence of relational history on deception cues and the stability of deception cues within deceptive conversations. The nonverbal behavior of 130 strangers, friends, and intimates was measured. Results indicated that deceivers signalled nonimmediacy, arousal, and negative affect, but they did not appear to project a positive image. Deception cues were mediated by relational history and showed considerable temporal variation. Strangers leaked more arousal and negative affect than friends and intimates. Further, deceivers, particularly deceiving friends and intimates, seemed to monitor and control their nonverbal behavior during deception by suppressing arousal and negative affect cues and moderating nonimmediate behavior. Research into behavioral cues to deception has linked several types of behavior with deceptive intent. Recent meta-analyses and summaries provide some of the best evidence on the cues related to deception (De-

Actual and Perceived Cues to Deception: A Closer Look at Speech

Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 1982

Previous research has shown both that speech can reliably reveal whether or not deception is occurring and that perceivers are often strongly influenced by speech in their judgments about deceit. Nonetheless, there are relatively few studies of verbal cues to deceit. In the present study, we examined specific verbal and paralinguistic cues that might reveal when deception is occurring or that might be used by perceivers in their attempts to detect deception; also, we examined quantitatively the correspondence between actuEil cues to deception and perceived cues to deception. For the cues that we studied, the degree to which the cues actually were associated with deception corresponded significantly to the degree to which perceivers used those cues as signs of deceit. When senders pretended to like people they really disliked, their descriptions were less positive and more neutral than when they honestly described people they really did like. When feigning disliking, senders uttered more nonfluences than when expressing honest disliking. All of these cues were used by perceivers in their judgments of deceptiveness; in addition, perceivers judged as deceptive descriptions that were spoken slowly and contained many Um's and er's. Expressions of liking that contained many otherreferences, few self-references, and many nonspecific (undifferentiating) descriptors were also perceived to be deceptive. To facilitate the study of actual and perceived cues deception, and their correspondence, a heuristic model was proposed.

Detecting Deception from Emotional and Unemotional Cues

Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 2008

Encoders were video recorded giving either truthful or deceptive descriptions of video footage designed to generate either emotional or unemotional responses. Decoders were asked to indicate the truthfulness of each item, what cues they used in making their judgements, and then to complete both the Micro Expression Training Tool (METT) and Subtle Expression Training Tool (SETT). Although overall performance on the deception detection task was no better than chance, performance for emotional lie detection was significantly above chance, while that for unemotional lie detection was significantly below chance. Emotional lie detection accuracy was also significantly positively correlated with reported use of facial expressions and with performance on the SETT, but not on the METT. The study highlights the importance of taking the type of lie into account when assessing skill in deception detection. Keywords Deception detection Á Emotion Á SETT Á METT Deception, whether through omission or direct falsification, is a fundamental part of human social interaction (DePaulo et al. 2003). Deception may refer to anything from trivial, socalled ''white lies'', to situations in which the consequences of detected deception are grave-especially those involving the law. Although many lies are uncovered due to physical evidence or to the presence of third-party information (Park et al. 2002), sometimes this may be insufficient or even non-existent. In such contexts, lie detectors (such as law enforcement agents) may be forced to rely on other cues, such as nonverbal behavior, as indicators of a statement's truth or falsehood.