Purpose. Most past research on detecting deception has relied on the assumption that liars often fabricate a story to account for their whereabouts, whereas truth tellers simply recall an autobiographical memory. However, little research has examined whether liars, when free to choose the topic of their own reports, will actually choose to fabricate information rather than use a different strategy for constructing their lies. We describe two studies that evaluated liars' strategies for selecting the content of their lies when given the freedom to choose whatever content they desired.Method. In Studies 1 (N = 35) and 2 (N = 22) participants (a) described a truthful story in order to identify a salient event, then (b) lied about the event, and finally (c) described their strategies for choosing the content of the reported lies.Results. Liars overwhelmingly chose to report a previously experienced event for the time period they were to be deceptive about (67% and 86% in Studies 1 and 2, respectively). The majority of discrete details reported were experienced, occurred relatively frequently, occurred relatively recently, and were typical or routine.Conclusions. These findings have significant implications for the development of cognitive-based interventions for detecting deception. In particular, some methods of deception that rely on content analysis may be ineffective if liars choose to report previous experiences rather than outright fabrications.
The present experiment examined the role of cognitive flexibility in the consistency of truth tellers' and liars' reports. We expected liars to be less flexible (less able to report an experience in different ways) and hence less consistent than truth tellers when asked to describe an event in different ways (e.g. verbally and pictorially). In the experiment, truth tellers entered a room and performed several tasks, whereas liars did not enter the room or perform the tasks but attempted to convince an interviewer that they did. Truth tellers and liars were interviewed twice about the room and tasks, and were asked to express their answers either the same way on both interviews (e.g. verbally then again verbally) or in different ways (e.g. verbally then pictorially). In support of the cognitive flexibility hypothesis, liars' reports were less consistent than truth tellers' reports, particularly when reporting in different ways across interviews. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
Two experiments tested mnemonics for enhancing memory for family meeting occurrences and details. Experiment 1 tested a set of seven mnemonics to facilitate recollections of family meeting occurrences. Mnemonics helped respondents report 70% more event occurrences than were reported during unaided free recall. Experiment 2 tested (i) a revised set of mnemonics to facilitate recollections of family meeting occurrences and (ii) a version of the cognitive interview to facilitate recollections of event details. Similar to Experiment 1, the revised set of mnemonics helped respondents recall double the number of events recalled during unaided free recall. For event details, when compared with a control interview, the cognitive interview elicited more than twice as many person, conversation, action, and setting details. The mnemonics used in these experiments are relatively easy to modify and implement in intelligence-gathering interviews with human intelligence sources.
Purpose. Consistency as a cue to detecting deception was tested in two experiments using sketch drawing and verbal reports in repeated interviews. Liars were expected to be less consistent than truth‐tellers. Methods. In Expt 1, 80 undergraduate students reported truthfully or deceptively about an alleged lunch date – they sketched the layout of the restaurant and then answered spatial questions about objects in the restaurant. Ratings were given for the consistency between sketches and verbal reports. In Expt 2, 34 undergraduate students reported truthfully or deceptively about completing a series of unrelated tasks – they answered spatial questions about objects in a room and then sketched the layout of the room. Proportions were calculated for the consistency between verbal reports and sketches. Results. Expt 1. Liars were rated as less consistent than truth‐tellers. Up to 80% of truth‐tellers and 70% of liars could be correctly classified. Expt 2. Liars were less consistent than truth‐tellers on consistency proportions. Up to 100% of truth‐tellers and 77% of liars could be correctly classified. Conclusions. Using sketches to induce inconsistency may be a reliable, resource efficient way to help investigators detect deception.
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