“Um, I can tell you're lying”: Linguistic markers of deception versus truth-telling in speech

Abstract

Lying is a deliberate attempt to transmit messages that mislead others. Analysis of language behaviors holds great promise as an objective method of detecting deception. The current study reports on the frequency of use and acoustic nature of "um" and "like" during laboratory-elicited lying versus truthtelling. Results obtained using a within-participants false opinion paradigm showed that instances of "um" occur less frequently and are of shorter duration during lying compared to truth-telling. There were no significant differences in relation to "like." These findings contribute to our understanding of the linguistic markers of deception behavior. They also assist in our understanding of the role of "um" in communication more generally. Our results suggest that "um" may not be accurately conceptualized as a filled pause/hesitation or speech disfluency/error whose increased usage coincides with increased cognitive load or increased arousal during lying. It may instead carry a lexical status similar to interjections and form an important part of authentic, effortless communication, which is somewhat lacking during lying.

Attempt of Identifying Verbal Markers of Psychological and Cognitive Processes in Linguistics: On the Issue History

“…В частности, речь идет об использовании междометия um и лексемы like [4] или намеренного обезличивания высказываний, об использовании большого числа лексем, выражающих негативные эмоции, и меньшего количества сложноподчиненных союзных предложений [11]. Что касается методологии, то большинство исследователей, работающих в русле данного направления, предпочитают ис-пользовать метод эксперимента, например, упомянутые выше авторы задействовали в своем эксперименте информантов, которые должны говорить правду или намеренно лгать, высказывая собственное мнение отно-сительно какой-либо темы [Ibidem].…”

High-focus and time-immediate indexicals: A study of Sinhala discourse markers me: ‘this’ and dæn ‘now’

“…Discourse markers, hesitation indicators, and pause fillers uhm and uh have been described in the literature in relation to cognitive processing trouble, increased cognitive load, increased arousal in truth telling vs. lying (Arciuli et al, 2010;Vrij and Heaven, 1999), narrative telling (Clark and Fox Tree, 2002); information-precise responses vs. approximations or rounding (Gibbs and Bryant, 2008). Gibbs and Bryant (2008) take a Relevance Theoretical approach to discourse hesitation markers um and uh in an experimental study in which unknowing participants on streets or a university campus are approached and asked a question about the time (e.g., ''Excuse me.…”

A methodology for monitoring emotional stress in phonation

“…), is concentrated in detecting if running speech is produced under an emotioninduced stress or if it is neutral, and if stress is induced by self disagreement with the message. The main hypothesis, following [6] is that in emitting a spoken message the speaker has to face two situations: either they are in self agreement with the message (pro) or in disagreement (con). Going one step further these two situations could be associated with "telling the truth" or "lying", although our approach does not intend to go that far.…”