Behavioral Cues to Deception vs. Topic Incriminating Potential in Criminal Confessions.

Abstract

Coding statements of criminal suspects facilitated tests of four hypotheses about differences between behavioral cues to deception and the incriminating potential (IP) of the topic. Information from criminal investigations corroborated the veracity of 337 brief utterances from 28 videotaped confessions. A four-point rating of topic IP measured the degree of potential threat per utterance. Cues discriminating true vs. false comprised word/phrase repeats, speech disfluency spikes, nonverbal overdone, and protracted headshaking. Non-lexical sounds discriminated true vs. false in the reverse direction. Cues that distinguished IP only comprised speech speed, gesticulation amount, nonverbal animation level, soft weak vocal and "I (or we) just" qualifier. Adding "I don't know" to an answer discriminated both IP and true vs. false. The results supported hypothesis about differentiating deception cues from incriminating potential cues in high-stakes interviews, and suggested that extensive research on distinctions between stress-related cues and cues to deception would improve deception detection.

Misleading Cues, Misplaced Confidence: An Analysis of Deception Detection Patterns

“…Whether someone is intentionally lying or not is rarely a key issue in clinical contexts, but deception cues are related in complex ways to stress cues (Davis, Walters, Vorus, & Connors, 2000;Davis, Markus, Walters, Vorus, & Connors, 2005) which are a concern of clinicians. Also, judgment processes found in deception detection may apply to other types of clinical judgment.…”

“…It is possible to verify brief descriptions of events or actions given during a high stakes interview such as a criminal confession. It is also possible to identify behavioral cues to lying in these short utterances, and to distinguish these cues from verbal and nonverbal cues to stress that occur as the topic gets hotter, whether the person lies about it or not (Davis et al, 2005). In contrast, it is difficult to independently validate the authenticity of brief clinical states in a dance/movement therapy session in order to compare that information with judgments by clinicians.…”

“…First, Davis et al (2005) completed a systematic coding of verbal and nonverbal cues in relation to deception and stress. Then participant/judges were asked to judge credibility from brief exposures to 20 clips selected from the tapes for an assessment of detection accuracy (Davis, Markus, & Walters, 2006).…”

“…Many speech cues are invalid as well. For example, speech pauses, including ''ums'' and ''uhs'', are commonly interpreted as indications of lying, but research indicates that umms and uhhs are associated with truthful answers (Davis et al, 2005), not false ones. The distinction between cues accepted as ''conventional wisdom'' (which may be invalid) and the cues validated through research is an important one.…”

Subjective Cues to Deception/Honesty in a High Stakes Situation: An Exploratory Approach

“…For example, in their meta-analysis of cues to deception, DePaulo et al (2003) found that strong motivation to succeed in the lie, and lies about transgressions, factors more likely to be present in high stakes situations, emerged as important moderating factors in the elicitation of prominent cues to deception. Indeed, the small body of existing research investigating real life, high stakes lies, has produced some promising results, and suggests that there may be some useful cues to deception that are more likely to emerge in high stakes situations; for example, an increase in speech dysfluency (Davis, Markus, Walters, Vorus & Connors, 2005;Vrij & Mann, 2001a), and equivocal language (Adams & Jarvis, 2006;Wright Whelan, Wagstaff & Wheatcroft 2013).…”