Automated insights: verbal cues to deception in real-life high-stakes lies

Abstract

This study differentiated between the language of deceptive and genuine pleaders who were pleading for the return of a missing loved one during a televised press conference. The Wmatrix linguistic analysis tool was used to examine the language of 78 pleaders. Approximately half (n = 35) of these individuals were deceptive and were responsible for the disappearance. Transcripts of the pleas were analyzed for various linguistic cues, and a separate analysis was conducted across gender. Results revealed that deceptive pleaders used the word 'they,' singular indefinite pronouns (e.g., 'anybody,' 'somebody'), and exclusivizers/particularizers (e.g., 'just') significantly more than genuine pleaders, while genuine pleaders used more temporal words (e.g., 'days,' 'weeks'), and the word 'we' more frequently in their pleas. Specific gender differences were also revealed across credible and deceptive pleaders. Our analysis of linguistic differences across pleader veracity provides an enhanced understanding of the verbal elements of high-stakes deception and what differentiates truths from deceptions in high-stakes cases. It also provides further validation of the use of automated linguistic tools like the Wmatrix in forensic contexts.

Lie Detection Accuracy—the Role of Age and the Use of Emotions as a Reliable Cue

“…Due to varying sound quality and speech content of the clips, we were unable to ask participants to focus on verbal cues that have previously been linked to deception. Research has identified speech rates and vagueness (Porter and ten Brinke 2010), as well as word usage (McQuaid et al 2015) as potential indicators. Additionally, in an attempt to create a feasible task for untrained participants, only a limited number of cues identified in the literature were used in the study.…”

“…Besides gaze aversion and head shaking (Wright Whelan et al 2014), other cues to high-stakes lies have been identified in recent studies. Lack of emotional authenticity (ten Brinke and Porter 2012;Wright Whelan et al 2015a), blink rate (ten Brinke and Porter 2012), speech errors (Porter and ten Brinke 2010) and a number of verbal cues (McQuaid et al 2015) have all been found to discriminate between liars and truth tellers. However, it is unclear whether these cues can be used in achieving accuracy in lie detection, as the motivation to be believed can make individuals look deceptive even when they are being truthful (Bond and DePaulo 2006).…”

Enhanced interrogations: The expanding roles of psychology in police investigations in Canada.

“…The most comprehensive study of high-stakes lie focused on family "pleaders" (individuals publically pleading for the return of a missing relative, some of whom have killed the relative), and indicated that failed attempts to simulate sadness and a leakage of happiness revealed deceptive pleaders' covert emotions (ten Brinke & Porter, 2012;ten Brinke, Porter, & Baker, 2012). Further, liars used fewer words but more tentative words than truth-tellers, likely relating to increased cognitive load and psychological distancing (McQuaid, Woodworth, Hutton, Porter, & ten Brinke, 2015). This type of scientific knowledge can be communicated to the police in their investigations and/or can contribute to a psychologist's opinion about the honesty of a suspect.…”

The Individual Depictive Style: Individual Differences in Narrating Personal Experiences

“…Within different frameworks, truthful and fabricated accounts are assumed to differ with respect to verbal cues. Some approaches focus on linguistic characteristics (e.g., number of causation words or number of tentative words ; e.g., Hauch, Blandón‐Gitlin, Masip, & Sporer, ; McQuaid, Woodworth, Hutton, Porter, & ten Brinke, ). Others such as Criteria‐based Content Analysis (CBCA; Steller & Köhnken, ) stress the relevance of content‐related cues (e.g., quantity of details or external associations ).…”