Lying Person‐to‐person About Life Events: A Cognitive Framework for Lie Detection

Abstract

Undetected lies of prospective or current employees cost business billions of dollars annually. The ability to detect these lies would be of immense benefit. Several recent reports have called for research on new, theoretically based methods of lie detection. In response, we tested the Activation-Decision-Construction Model of lying (Walczyk, Roper, Seeman, & Humphreys, 2003) according to which response time is a cue to deception. Participants were tested person-to-person. In Experiment 1, half lied to questions probing recent episodic memories. The other half answered honestly. Liar-truth teller response time differences were observed between subjects. Discriminant analyses demonstrated the value of response time for uncovering deceit. Those highest in social skills were the quickest liars. In Experiment 2, lying was shown to take longer than truth telling within subjects, and within-subject response time standard deviations were shown to be converging cues to deception. Based on these data and the ADCM, a Time-Restricted Integrity Confirmation (Tri-Con) framework for lie detection is proposed that might one day provide cost effective lie detection for business. The Costs to Business of Undetected Lies

Does the truth interfere with our ability to deceive?

“…The Stroop task was performed after the story task to examine the influence of prior practice in face-to-face lying is also associated with slowed responding (for discussion, see DePaulo et al, 2003), and a number of previous studies in the deception literature have also used computer-based choice reaction tests in order to examine deceptive responding (see, e.g., Nunez et al, 2005;Spence et al, 2004;Vendemia et al, 2005;Walczyk et al, 2003;Walczyk et al, 2005). We contend that interference effects may play an important role in the selection of deceptive responses, and that these are unlikely to be specific to deception tasks.…”

Applying Deception Detection to True and False Confessions: A Novel Approach to Conducting Experiments in Legal Psychology

“…Walczyk, Schwartz, Clifton, Adams, Wei, & Zha (2005) suggest asking a suspect close-ended questions under time pressure. (Evans, Michael, Meissner, & Brandon, 2013) tried to increase cognitive load by asking participants to describe events in their second language, rather than their primary language.…”

LIE Detection by Inducing Cognitive Load

“…This research advances the development of a cognitive-based alternative to the polygraph with potential to uncover deceptive testimony. Walczyk et al (2005) introduced a novel approach to lie detection intended to maximize cognitive load on liars and minimize it on truth tellers by averting the rehearsal of deceptive answers: Time Restricted Integrity-Confirmation (TRI-Con). In essence, it surprises examinees with questions by following these guidelines during lie detection examinations: (a) Examinees are prompted about the focus of the questions to follow (e.g., "The next 15 questions concern your relationship with the suspect prior to the crime").…”