Juveniles and adults differ in their beliefs about cues to deception and strategies during a hypothetical police interview

Police officers are often trained to use the Behavior Analysis Interview (BAI) to detect deceit, but it is based on faulty indicators of lying that may be especially problematic for juveniles due to developmental immaturities. Juveniles, young adults, and adults were assigned to guilt or innocence conditions, read a criminal scenario, and self-reported their likelihood of providing truthful and deceitful responses during a hypothetical BAI. All participants indicated they would give more truthful than deceptive responses. Guilty participants reported more use of strategies to appear innocent, while innocent participants said they would behave naturally. Juveniles were more likely to choose deceitful responses and say they would use strategies to appear innocent during a police interview but endorsed fewer stereotypical cues of deception compared to adults. Juveniles may not recognize how certain behaviors could be seen as cues to deception, which could put them at risk of being misidentified as guilty.     

Deceiving suspects about their alibi is equally harmful to the innocent and guilty

A common belief in police officers is that guilty suspects' statements are less consistent than innocent suspects'. This could leave guilty suspects more vulnerable to missing inconsistencies externally induced into their alibis. Source monitoring and cognitive load approaches suggest that untruthfulness rather than guilt should predict proneness to such deception. Manipulating both guilt and truthfulness, we tested these opposing hypotheses. One hundred twenty‐six participants were accused of stealing gift vouchers after wandering about a building. When interviewed several days later, participants rarely detected alterations in their alibi (23–29%). Unexpectedly, for one of three detection measures, untruthful participants detected more manipulations than did truthful participants. Guilt did not moderate detection rates. Manipulations were equally harmful for guilty and innocent suspects, and blindness to the alibi manipulations was not useful for discriminating innocent from guilty suspects. Because blindness effects are easy to elicit in the legal context, techniques that externally induce inconsistencies should be avoided.     

时间对犯罪隐藏信息记忆的影响

记录模拟犯罪者和阅读报纸后对案件知情的无辜者接受隐藏信息测试时的皮肤电活动,探讨时间对犯罪隐藏信息记忆的影响。结果发现：(1)延迟条件下,模拟犯罪组的再认率和皮肤电活动变化显著高于知情无辜组,但两组在立即条件下无差异;(2)知情无辜组在延迟条件下的甄别率显著低于立即条件下,而模拟犯罪者在两种条件下无差异。结果表明,延迟测试比立即测试更容易区分模拟犯罪组和知情无辜组;犯罪甄别率在延迟条件下减少,但也减少了知情无辜者被判断为犯罪者的风险。     

Skulking around the dinosaur: Eliciting cues to children's deception via strategic disclosure of evidence

Research has shown that cues to deception are more salient as an effect of strategic use of evidence (SUE) during interviews. This study examined the feasibility of the SUE‐technique for eliciting cues to children's deception. Experiment 1 investigated verbal cues to deception as a function of early vs. late disclosure of evidence. Eighty‐four children (12–14 years) either guilty or innocent of a mock crime were interviewed. As predicted, deceptive statements were significantly more inconsistent with the evidence than truthful statements, and this was more pronounced as a function of late compared to early disclosure of evidence. In Experiment 2, adult observers (N = 168) made veracity assessments of the videotaped statements. Observers in the late disclosure condition achieved an accuracy rate higher than chance (63.1%), whereas accuracy rates in the early disclosure condition were at chance level (56%). Accuracy rates were significantly higher for truthful (70.2%), than deceptive statements (48.8%). Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

基于自我参照编码的复合反应范式：有效鉴别有罪者和无罪知情者

隐藏信息测试在司法实践中应用受限的主要原因是容易将知道犯罪相关信息的无罪知情者误判为有罪者, 因此, 需探索有效区分有罪者和无罪知情者、有罪者和无罪不知情者的测谎技术。复合反应范式(complex trial protocol, CTP)是一种能有效抵抗反测谎的隐藏信息测试, 但尚未成功用于鉴别有罪者和无罪知情者。本研究设计了可同时测量EPN和P300的基于自我参照编码的CTP, 每个试次的第一部分随机呈现探测刺激或无关刺激, 第二部分随机呈现目标刺激(自己姓名)或非目标刺激(他人姓名), 要求被试在两个部分看到刺激时均做“与我有关”和“与我无关”的反应。结果表明, 基于自我参照编码的CTP能有效区分有罪者和无罪知情者, EPN区分有罪者和无罪知情者的鉴别力优于P300, P300区分有罪者和无罪不知情者的鉴别力优于EPN。     

How a “Reasonable Doubt” Instruction Affects Decisions of Guilt

Jurors are instructed to render a guilty verdict if they feel the defendant is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. The jury is often told that this does not mean an absolute certainty of guilt and that even if it were possible to imagine a scenario in which the defendant is innocent, a guilty verdict may still be appropriate. Here, participants read a case summary. They were either told to say that the defendant was guilty if they believed in guilt beyond a reasonable doubt or were given more detailed instruction stressing that they did not have to be absolutely certain of guilt to give a guilty verdict. In Experiment 1, participants provided “think-aloud” protocols. Content analysis revealed that those who were given this instruction often used the phrase reasonable doubt to justify their guilty verdicts by saying that although they were not certain of the defendant's guilt, their belief exceeded the reasonable doubt threshold. None of the participants in the control group did this. Experiment 2 was designed to test if the instruction affected belief in guilt and the reasonable doubt threshold quantitatively. The instruction affected both people's belief in guilt and the threshold that they used to define reasonable doubt. The implied values for reasonable doubt were 63% for those who received the instruction and 77% for the control group. Implications for jury decision making are discussed.     

Witnesses' failure to detect covert manipulations in their written statements

Law enforcement agencies and legal professionals often have to rely on witness statements. Undetected errors in witnesses' statements, however, could impede the accurate reconstruction of a crime and lead to the incrimination of innocent suspects. Here, we examined whether witnesses can detect manipulations in their written statements. We expect that writing a statement could provide a good means for discrimination between what is truly recalled and what is an error. This is because writing allows to monitor and control the previously produced information. In 3 experiments, participants watched a mock crime film and subsequently provided a written statement of what they had witnessed. Following a delay of several minutes (Experiment 1), 48 hr (Experiment 2), or 1 month (Experiment 3), participants were exposed to and interviewed about their testimony. Unknown to them, they were confronted with statements, which included 4 secretly manipulated details. Participants' missed a substantial number of manipulations in their written statements. Importantly, the detection rates varied as a function of delay (Experiments 1 and 2: 74–89%; Experiment 3: 36%–52%). Detection rates also varied as a function of the type of details that were manipulated. Our findings indicate that writing a statement comes with limited benefits in witnesses' ability to detect errors in their statements.     

Using response time measures to assess "guilty knowledge"

How can a suspect's guilt or innocence be reliably tested? The validity of the polygraph, which measures changes in physiological arousal during a "guilty knowledge" test, is controversial (e.g., T. R. Bashore & P. E. Rapp, 1993; T. P. Cross & L. Saxe, 1992; D. T. Lykken, 1998; J. P. Rosenfeld, 1995; R. Steinbrook, 1992). One alternative to the polygraph examines event-related potentials recorded during a memory interference task (L. A. Farwell & E. Donchin, 1991). The present study extended this paradigm to determine whether response times (RTs) can accurately identify participants possessing specific guilty knowledge. Results from Experiment 1 showed that RT alone can reliably discriminate "guilty" from "innocent" participants. Experiments 2a and 2b indicated that an RT-based paradigm is more resistant to strategic manipulation than previously suggested (Farwell & Donchin, 1991). This RT-based paradigm may be a viable alternative to the polygraph for detecting guilty knowledge.     

Keeping an eye on the truth? Pupil size changes associated with recognition memory

During recognition memory tests participants' pupils dilate more when they view old items compared to novel items. We sought to replicate this "pupil old/new effect" and to determine its relationship to participants' responses. We compared changes in pupil size during recognition when participants were given standard recognition memory instructions, instructions to feign amnesia, and instructions to report all items as new. Participants' pupils dilated more to old items compared to new items under all three instruction conditions. This finding suggests that the increase in pupil size that occurs when participants encounter previously studied items is not under conscious control. Given that pupil size can be reliably and simply measured, the pupil old/new effect may have potential in clinical settings as a means for determining whether patients are feigning memory loss.     

Effects of outside issues on the comparison question test

In the present study, the authors examined the effects of outside issues on the validity of the Comparison Question Test in a laboratory mock-crime paradigm. In a 2 x 2 x 2 factorial design, 192 participants either did or did not commit (a) a mock theft of a dollar (about which they were tested), or (b) a mock theft of dollars 20 (the outside issue); and they either were or were not asked questions about an outside issue. The presence of the outside issue had a strong differential impact on the participants who were innocent of the tested issue, and it dramatically moved their scores toward deception. The impact of an outside issue on the guilty was minimal. Test questions about possible outside issues were ineffective in detecting the presence of the outside issue, but they did function as comparison questions. The results have implications for understanding the high rate of false positive outcomes in some studies.     

Reasoning about emotional and neutral materials. Is logic affected by emotion?

In two experiments, we investigated whether people reason differently when they reason about emotional and neutral contents. We gave participants a conditional reasoning task ("If p, then q") and varied the emotionality of the items used as p and q. Participants were asked to draw inferences based on these statements. In Experiment 1, we compared statements including preexisting emotional and neutral words. In Experiment 2, we experimentally manipulated the emotionality of initially neutral words using classical conditioning. In both experiments, emotionality affected participants' responses. They were more likely to draw invalid inferences in response to emotional compared with neutral statements.     

Reaction Time‐based Detection of Concealed Information in Relation to Individual Differences in Executive Functioning

Executive functioning has been shown to play an essential role in a person's ability to accurately and efficiently execute deceptive responses. The present study relates individual differences in executive functions and anxiety to the accuracy and latency of deceptive responses in a reaction time (RT)‐based Concealed Information Test with pictorial stimuli extracted from a mock crime scenario. Results indicated that the pictorial RT‐based Concealed Information Test successfully differentiated between guilty and innocent participants. In terms of executive functions, set‐shifting and inhibition were directly related to deception accuracy and speed, respectively. However, enhanced underlying working memory skills (both verbal and spatial) were associated with longer RTs for item classification. No strong associations were noted with anxiety dimensions. The implications of these findings are discussed in relation to neurocognitive models of deception and to the process of deception detection. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Do innocent victims threaten the belief in a just world? Evidence from a modified Stroop task

Two experiments tested whether innocent victims threaten observers' belief in a just world. In both experiments, participants viewed an innocent victim then performed a modified Stroop task in which they identified the color of several words presented for brief exposures (followed by a mask) on a computer screen. When the threat to justice beliefs was presumably highest, color-identification latencies were greater for justice-related words than for neutral words. In Experiment 2, under conditions of high threat, justice-related interference predicted participants' tendency to disassociate themselves from and derogate the victim. These findings suggest that innocent victims do threaten justice beliefs and responses to these victims may, at times, be attempts to reduce this threat. The methodology presented here may be applied to future investigations of defensive, counternormative processes reflecting people's concern with justice.     

Cheating the Lie Detector: Faking in the Autobiographical Implicit Association Test

ABSTRACT— The autobiographical Implicit Association Test (aIAT) was recently introduced in this journal as a new and promising lie-detection tool. The initial report found 91% accuracy in determining which of two autobiographical events was true. It was suggested that the aIAT, unlike other lie-detection tests, is resistant to faking. We investigated whether participants can strategically alter their performance on the aIAT. Experiment 1 showed that participants guilty of a mock theft were able to obtain an innocent test outcome. Two additional experiments showed that guilty participants can fake the aIAT without prior experience with the aIAT and when a response deadline is imposed. The aIAT is subject to the same shortcomings as other lie-detection tests.     

Accuracy and confidence in detecting truths andlies in elaborations and denials:Truth bias, lie bias and individual differences

Accuracy in the ability to detect truths and lies isimportant in a legal setting. It might be used as atool in police investigations to eliminate potentialsuspects, to check the truthfulness of informants orto examine contradictory statements of witnesses andsuspects in the same case. A consistent finding in thedetection of deception literature is the truthbias: People's accuracy at detecting truths isusually higher than their accuracy at detecting lies.The present article examines whether the existence ofa truth bias depends on the type of lie. It is arguedthat a truth bias may occur when people judgeextensive statements (e.g. elaborations), but that alie bias may occur when people judge statements whichdo not provide much verbal information (e.g. denials).Fifty participants (college students) were exposed to20 video fragments of 20 people telling elaborations(10) or denials (10). Half of the elaborations anddenials were truthful, the other half were deceptive.After each fragment, the participants were asked toindicate whether the person was lying or telling thetruth and how confident they were in their decisionmaking. As predicted, with regard to elaborations atruth bias was found and with regard to denials a liebias was found. In other words, people have difficultyin accurately judging deceptive elaborations andtruthful denials. The study further revealedindividual differences in participants' confidence atdetecting deceit. The more socially anxious/shy theparticipants reported themselves to be, the lessconfident they were in their ability to detect deceit.Also, the more extraverted they themselves reported tobe, the more confident they were in their ability todetect deceit. The importance of confidence onimproving people's ability to detect deceit will bediscussed.     

Changing beliefs about implausible autobiographical events: a little plausibility goes a long way

Three experiments investigated the malleability of perceived plausibility and the subjective likelihood of occurrence of plausible and implausible events among participants who had no recollection of experiencing them. In Experiment 1, a plausibility-enhancing manipulation (reading accounts of the occurrence of events) combined with a personalized suggestion increased the perceived plausibility of the implausible event, as well as participants' ratings of the likelihood that they had experienced it. Plausibility and likelihood ratings were uncorrelated. Subsequent studies showed that the plausibility manipulation alone was sufficient to increase likelihood ratings but only if the accounts that participants read were set in a contemporary context. These data suggest that false autobiographical beliefs can be induced in clinical and forensic contexts even for initially implausible events.     

‘What Would You Say if You Were Guilty?’ Suspects' Strategies During a Hypothetical Behavior Analysis Interview Concerning a Serious Crime

Previous research has shown that the Behavior Analysis Interview (BAI) indicators of guilt or innocence are merely commonsense notions. In this study, we examined whether this would lead suspects of a serious crime to try to manipulate their behavior during a BAI in order to look innocent. A serious crime was described to 74 undergraduates who were asked to imagine that they were guilty or innocent. They then completed a questionnaire about the strategies that they would use during a BAI. Both guilty and innocent suspects were more willing to show the innocence rather than guilt indicators of the BAI. Innocent suspects had a blind faith in the power of innocence to demonstrate that they were not guilty. The general (non‐BAI) strategies coincided with those of previous studies; this indicates that prior findings on strategies can be generalized to serious crimes and that strategies can be examined with uncomplicated procedures such as the one used in this study. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Early versus Late Disclosure of Evidence: Effects on Verbal Cues to Deception,Confessions, and Lie Catchers' Accuracy

The strategic use of evidence (SUE)—a method of using case information to elicit different verbal responses from guilty and innocent suspects—has been shown to increase cues to deception and lie detection accuracy. This study manipulated the timing of evidence presentation to determine its effect on cues to deception, lie detection accuracy, and confession rates. Liars were less consistent with the evidence, and SUE was associated with higher lie detection accuracy. Results showed no difference between early and late disclosure of evidence on suspects' confession rates, nor on the diagnosticity of the confessions. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Investigating true and false confessions within a novel experimental paradigm

The primary goal of the current study was to develop a novel experimental paradigm with which to study the influence of psychologically based interrogation techniques on the likelihood of true and false confessions. The paradigm involves guilty and innocent participants being accused of intentionally breaking an experimental rule, or "cheating." In the first demonstration of this paradigm, we explored the influence of two common police interrogation tactics: minimization and an explicit offer of leniency, or a "deal." Results indicated that guilty persons were more likely to confess than innocent persons, and that the use of minimization and the offer of a deal increased the rate of both true and false confessions. Police investigators are encouraged to avoid interrogation techniques that imply or directly promise leniency, as they appear to reduce the diagnostic value of any confession that is elicited.     

More than "just a joke": the prejudice-releasing function of sexist humor

The results of two experiments supported the hypothesis that, for sexist men, exposure to sexist humor can promote the behavioral release of prejudice against women. Experiment 1 demonstrated that hostile sexism predicted the amount of money participants were willing to donate to a women's organization after reading sexist jokes but not after reading nonhumorous sexist statements or neutral jokes. Experiment 2 showed that hostile sexism predicted the amount of money participants cut from the budget of a women's organization relative to four other student organizations upon exposure to sexist comedy skits but not neutral comedy skits. A perceived local norm of approval of funding cuts for the women's organization mediated the relationship between hostile sexism and discrimination against the women's organization.