The confidence‐accuracy relation – A comparison of metacognition measures in lie detection

Abstract

Previous research has produced mixed results on the question of whether confidence in ad hoc veracity judgments can be used as an indicator of judgment accuracy. These studies have used a variety of measures to analyze the confidence‐accuracy relationship; however, they have rarely explicitly addressed why a particular measure was chosen and what its properties are. We theoretically and empirically examined previously used measures of metacognition in lie detection and report the results these measures yielded in re‐analyses of 12 lie detection studies (total N = 2817 participants). Regardless of the measure, none of the studies found a confidence‐accuracy relationship. Discrepancies between the measures are likely due to conceptual differences between them, emphasizing the importance of carefully selecting appropriate measures for the research question at hand. More work on the underlying processes of confidence judgments in lie detection is needed to improve the assessment of confidence and the selection of appropriate measures.

Is It the Judge, the Sender, or Just the Individual Message? Disentangling Person and Message Effects on Variation in Lie-Detection Judgments

“…The variation in confidence was mainly due to judges, but they did not vary in their ability to detect lies; whereas some judges were more confident than others across their judgments, this higher confidence was overall not supported by higher accuracy scores. Thus, like several previous studies (e.g., DePaulo et al, 1997; Hartwig et al, 2017; Volz et al, 2022), our research gives little reason to believe that there is a relationship between confidence and accuracy, neither from the perspective of the message nor from the perspective of the judge.…”

Conceptual Expansion Induced by Analogical Reasoning Sparks “Aha” Moments

“…Positive affect is associated with enhanced performance during creative reasoning generally (Ashby et al, 1999;Baas et al, 2008;Davis, 2009), perhaps through a moderating influence on cognitive flexibility or by priming individuals for associative thought (Hirt et al, 2008;Liu & Wang, 2014;Wang et al, 2017). There is some evidence that positive affect may influence metacognition during generative activity by increasing the salience of epistemic affective experiences (Volz et al, 2022). However, less is known about the role of positive affect on analogical reasoning and how this may interact with its associated phenomenology.…”