You must be lying because I don’t understand you: Language proficiency and lie detection.

Abstract

We examined the impact of interviewees' language proficiencies on observers' lie detection performance. Observers (N = 132) were randomly assigned to make deception judgments about interviewees (N = 56) from Four proficiency groups (i.e., native, advanced, intermediate, and beginner English speakers). Discrimination between lie- and truth-tellers was poorest when observers judged beginner English speakers compared to interviewees from any other proficiency group. Observers were also less likely to exhibit a truth-bias toward nonnative than native English speakers. These results suggest that interviewing individuals in their nonnative languages can create inequalities in the justice system. (PsycINFO Database Record

Observers' Language Proficiencies and the Detection of Non‐native Speakers' Deception

“…In each study, the observers differed; using similar stimuli allowed for direct replications and extensions of previous work. More importantly, a recent study featuring non‐native speakers with varying levels of language proficiency (i.e., novel stimuli) replicated the basic finding that deception is more difficult to detect in beginner English speakers than native English speakers (Elliott & Leach, ). That work suggests that there was nothing unique about the footage of native and non‐native speakers used in the current study, and our results would generalize to different samples of interviewees who were native and non‐native English speakers.…”

Looks like a liar? Beliefs about native and non‐native speakers' deception

“…When expectations about how a speaker should behave are violated, suspicion can be aroused (e.g., Bond et al, ). Non‐native speakers report and overtly display signs of nervousness and cognitive demands during interviews (e.g., speech hesitations and phrase repetition; Akehurst et al, ; Elliott & Leach, ; Gregersen, ). Thus, observers' negative biases when judging non‐native speakers (e.g., Da Silva & Leach, ; Evans & Michael, ) could be explained by this failure to adjust expectations in keeping with speakers' language proficiencies.…”

“…Their intuitions appear to be correct. In deception detection studies, non‐native speakers reported having more difficulty understanding the experimenter's questions and made more overt requests for clarification than native speakers (Da Silva & Leach, ; Elliott & Leach, ). These issues were not limited to those with the lowest language proficiencies, even intermediate non‐native speakers expressed comprehension concerns.…”

“…This expectation may have been based on demands on the speakers, changes in interrogation structure, or a combination of the two. Perhaps it is relevant to consider this issue in light of participants' beliefs, and non‐native speakers' reports, that those with reduced language proficiency have more difficulty understanding interviewers' questions (Elliott & Leach, ). These individuals might take longer to process information and formulate responses, provide irrelevant responses (necessitating that a question be asked again), or ask for clarification (see Da Silva & Leach, ).…”

“…The cognitive load approach to deception detection predicts that differences between lie-and truth-tellers should be exacerbated under these conditions (Vrij, Fisher, Mann, & Leal, 2008). Thus, non-native speakers might simply exhibit more cues to deception due to the heightened cognitive demands associated with both lying and speaking a less proficient language (e.g., Akehurst et al, 2018;Elliott & Leach, 2016). The Psychologically-based Credibility Assessment Tool (PBCAT)-which is employed by minimally trained observers to identify 11 cues to deception-has yielded the most consistent findings about the leakage of non-native speakers' deception (Evans et al, 2013).…”