Cues to deception in context: response latency/gaps in denials and blame shifting

Over 40 years of work on lying in psychology and communication has investigated numerous 'cues to deception'- the subtle signals people show when they are lying. One of these cues to deception is 'response latency' or the gap that occurs between questions and the lying response. The current investigation uses the methodology of conversation analysis to re-consider the question of response latency in the context of lying. Drawing on data from two naturalistic sources, the television shows COPS and the Jeremy Kyle Show, this investigation analyses response latencies in order to show the regular organization of gaps between turns in both lies and non-lies. The current investigation demonstrates that in blame shifting turns which are lies, any gaps between turns result from a display of upcoming 'trouble', rather than being related to lying per se. The investigation highlights the need to analyse lies in the contexts in which they are told, taking prior and subsequent talk into account.     

The deception faucet: A metaphor to conceptualize deception and its detection

Why are there few reliable deception cues and why is deception detection a challenge? These questions are related and have puzzled social scientists, leading to few universal truths about the relationship between deception and communication behavior. This article reviews existing theories to suggest how deceptive discourse production actually occurs, which can lead to a better understanding of deception production and detection processes. Crucial components of a deception — lie-truth base-rates, deception expectations, and goals — are largely overlooked in most theories and primary studies, but are integrated in this paper through a deception faucet metaphor. The metaphor describes deceptive discourse production as violations of conversational maxims (Quantity, Quality, Manner, Relation) and reflected by characteristics that change across deceptions. Considerations for theory and application are suggested.     

说谎的非言语视觉线索

说谎是一种非常普遍的社会现象。及时有效地识别说谎, 在人际交往和司法安防领域都具有十分重要的意义。根据说谎的自主性, 将说谎研究的实验范式分为被动说谎范式、主动说谎范式和混合说谎范式三大类。个体说谎时具有较高的认知负荷、较强的情绪唤醒和刻意的自我控制等心理活动特点, 这些心理活动会导致眼睛运动、面部表情、姿态动作等非言语视觉线索的变化, 且非言语视觉线索存在个体差异。未来研究应深入考察说谎的内在心理机制以及非言语视觉线索的心理意义, 加强真实情境下说谎行为的研究, 并借助新技术实现对非言语视觉线索的精准测量和分析。     

Neural Responses to Partner Rejection Cues

ABSTRACT— Little is known about neural responses in the early automatic-stage processing of rejection cues from a partner. Event-related potentials (ERPs) offer a window to study processes that may be difficult to detect via behavioral methods. We focused on the N400 ERP component, which reflects the amount of semantic processing prompted by a target. When participants were primed by attachment-related contexts ("If I need help from my partner, my partner will be …"), rejection-related words (e.g., dismissing ) elicited greater N400 amplitudes than acceptance-related words (e.g., supporting ). Analyses of results for nonattachment primes suggest that these findings were not simply caused by target valence; the brain responds differentially to cues of partner rejection (vs. acceptance) in under 300 ms. Moreover, these early-stage neurophysiological responses were heightened or dampened as a function of individuals' adult attachment; women characterized by high anxiety and low avoidance showed the greatest N400 responses to cues of partner rejection (vs. acceptance).     

Some psychological determinants of electrodermal responses to deception

This study explores some of the psychological determinants of electrodermal responses to deception. There were four groups of 24 subjects, consisting of normal males and females, and personality-disordered males and females. The deceptive paradigms used consisted of three guilty knowledge card tasks that differed in the nature of the stimuli used and in procedural instructions. There was also a general question task involving five neutral questions and two emotive moral questions. After each task self-report analogue scales were administered in order to record the subjects' reactions to each task and the type of countermeasure they had used. The subjects also completed the Eysenck Personality Inventory, the Gough Socialization Scale and the Arrow-Dot test. Detectability on card tasks was found to relate to the following: procedural instructions, countermeasure strategies, involvement in the task, the extent to which the critical items are processed into memory, and lack of confidence in one's ability to beat the machine. Personality factors of Introversion, Neuroticism and Ego control had some significant correlations with differential responsivity but this was not consistent across subject samples or tasks. Differential responsivity to questions raising moral issues did not relate significantly to whether or not the subject admitted or denied such behaviour.     

Delayed Alternation to Non-Positional Cues in Chimpanzee

Three subjects were exposed to fixed-ratio schedules of reinforcement in a two-phase experiment. In the first phase, sessions were terminated after a fixed number of responses had been emitted. In the second phase, sessions were terminated after a fixed length of time (equivalent to the mean of session lengths when steady state responding occurred in Phase 1). A comparison of response rates showed higher rates for all subjects in Phase 2.     

Cues to Deception in the Employment Interview

Candidates' use of deceptive impression management (IM) during the employment interview has been found to influence employment outcomes. Unfortunately, interviewers are often unable to detect when deceptive IM is used. The current study applied research on cues to deception to the employment interview context to examine which micro‐ and macro‐level behavioral cues are indicators of deceptive IM. One hundred nine individuals completed mock employment interviews. We found that interviewees who used deceptive IM exhibited restrained facial behavior (i.e., less smiling), unrestrained verbal behavior (i.e., more speaking errors, less silences), and, unexpectedly, gave off the impression of being less anxious. The results suggest that behavioral cues have promise for future efforts to increase interviewers' ability to detect deception.     

欺骗判断与欺骗行为中自我控制的影响

欺骗判断与欺骗行为有着不同的心理机制, 正确认识二者之间的关系有助于增强人际间的信任和团队的长远利益。采用行为学实验从两种视角下考察自我控制对欺骗的影响。实验1采用材料评定的方法考察了识别他人自我控制能力状况对欺骗判断的影响, 结果发现对比高自我控制能力的人, 被试更倾向于认为低自我控制能力的人更有可能为了自己的利益产生欺骗行为和欺骗倾向。实验2采用颜色Stroop任务考察了识别他人自我控制资源衰竭状况对欺骗判断的影响, 结果发现当识别他人自我控制资源衰竭时, 在评价他人为自己利益去欺骗、为他人利益去欺骗以及在特定情境中欺骗倾向上, 没有发现任何显著的主效应或交互作用。实验3采用视觉−感知任务来考察不同水平的自我控制能力对欺骗行为的影响, 结果发现, 对比高自我控制组, 低自我控制组有更多的欺骗行为和欺骗倾向。实验4采用颜色Stroop任务和视觉−感知任务来考察自我控制资源对欺骗行为的影响, 结果发现, 对比控制组, 自我控制资源衰竭组有更多的欺骗行为和欺骗倾向。这些研究结果表明, 在进行欺骗判断时, 相比自我控制资源状况, 个体会优先识别他人的自我控制能力水平来判断其是否具有欺骗动机或欺骗倾向。在欺骗行为中, 高自我控制能力的个体, 能够更好地抑制自私动机, 更多的考虑长远利益, 出于自身利益去欺骗的可能性会更小; 自我控制资源充足的个体, 更有可能会经得住诱惑, 自私自利的欺骗行为发生的可能性也会更小。     

视线线索和箭头线索引起不同的线索效应

他人的视线或者箭头等线索能够自动地转移观察者注意到线索所指向的位置或物体上。很多研究试图比较视线线索和箭头线索在转移注意时的不同,但最终的结论仍然存在争议。当前研究采用混合呈现不同线索类型的方式进行实验,发现视线线索引起了比箭头线索更强的线索效应。并且这一现象只在相对较长的SOA情况下出现。这一发现说明视线线索和箭头线索在注意转移系统的自上而下高层认知处理阶段被区别对待,视线线索是比箭头线索更有效的线索。     

Young Bilingual Children's Heightened Sensitivity to Referential Cues

Children growing up in a dual-language environment have to constantly monitor the dynamic communicative context to determine what the speaker is trying to say and how to respond appropriately. Such self-generated efforts to monitor speakers' communicative needs may heighten children's sensitivity to, and allow them to make better use of, referential gestures to figure out a speaker's referential intent. In a series of studies, we explored monolingual and bilingual preschoolers' use of nonverbal referential gestures such as pointing and gaze direction to figure out a speaker's intent to refer. In Study 1, we found that 3- and 4-year-old bilingual children were better able than monolingual children to use referential gestures (e.g., gaze direction) to locate a hidden toy in the face of conflicting body-distal information (the experimenter was seated behind an empty box while the cue was directed at the correct box). Study 2 found that by 5 years of age, monolingual children had mastered this task. Study 3 established that the bilingual advantage can be found in children as young as 2 years old. Thus, the experience of growing up in a bilingual environment fosters the development of the understanding of referential intent.     

Personality and deception ability

Thirty-eight undergraduate subjects were administered the 16 Personality Factors Questionnaire, the Bem Sex Role Inventory, the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale, and a measure of sociopolitical attitudes and a week later took part in a videotaped deception task. Subjects were requested to give short, videorecorded presentations on different sociopolitical topics. The topics were chosen in order to assure that each subject would give two presentations that were consistent with their attitudes (truth-telling), two presentations that were counter-attitudinal (deceptive), and two presentations on neutral topics. The presentations were then viewed by volunteer judges who rated each on a scale of believability. Results indicated that outgoing and energetic subjects were more successful deceivers, and that apprehensive subjects were less successful deceivers, presumably due to honest/deceptive demeanor biases. Persons scoring high on social desirability and on the motivational distortion (lie) scale of the 16 PF, were also more successful at the deception task. These findings replicate and expand previous research on the role of individual differences in deception ability.     

Age-related differences in deception

Young and older participants judged the veracity of young and older speakers' opinions about topical issues. All participants found it easier to judge when an older adult was lying relative to a young adult, and older adults were worse than young adults at telling when speakers were telling the truth versus lying. Neither young nor older adults were advantaged when judging a speaker from the same age group. Overall, older adults were more transparent as liars and were worse at detecting lies, with older adults' worse emotion recognition fully mediating the relation between age group and lie detection failures.     

Children Use Temporal Cues to Learn Causal Directionality

The ability to learn the direction of causal relations is critical for understanding and acting in the world. We investigated how children learn causal directionality in situations in which the states of variables are temporally dependent (i.e., autocorrelated). In Experiment 1, children learned about causal direction by comparing the states of one variable before versus after an intervention on another variable. In Experiment 2, children reliably inferred causal directionality merely from observing how two variables change over time; they interpreted Y changing without a change in X as evidence that Y does not influence X. Both of these strategies make sense if one believes the variables to be temporally dependent. We discuss the implications of these results for interpreting previous findings. More broadly, given that many real‐world environments are characterized by temporal dependency, these results suggest strategies that children may use to learn the causal structure of their environments.     

Fifteen-Month-Old Infants Match Vocal Cues to Intentional Actions

Fifteen-month-old infants detected a violation when an actor performed an action that did not match her preceding vocal cue: The infants looked reliably longer when the actor expressed a humorous vocal cue followed by a sweet action or expressed a sweet vocal cue followed by a humorous action, than when the vocal cue was followed by a matching action. The infants failed to detect the mismatch when one person expressed the vocal cue and another performed the action. The results suggest that by 15 months of age, infants are capable of distinguishing between two types of vocal cues and actions along the positive emotional spectrum: humor and sweetness. Furthermore, they match humorous vocal cues to humorous actions and sweet vocal cues to sweet actions only when the cues and actions are made by the same person.