The Use of Second Life for Deception Detection Research

Abstract

Detecting deception in natural language is a problem amenable to economic analysis. Economics typically assumes that individuals are self-interested, which leads them to perform actions in accord with their own goals. The field of experimental economics emerged to construct environments wherein human subjects make decisions so as to test economic hypotheses. Experimental economists recently have developed virtual worlds to better situate experiment subjects in more realistic environments. Virtual word experiments represent an exciting new area for deception research as they offer insight into individuals both acting out and communicating in accord with their intentions. This paper describes the use of virtual world experiments for economic research incorporating the detection of deceptive individuals.