Sketching while narrating as a tool to detect deceit

In none of the deception studies that used drawings to date, was the effect of sketching on both speech content and drawing content examined, making it unclear what the full potential is of the use of drawings as a lie detection tool. A total of 122 truth tellers and liars took part in the study who did or did not sketch while narrating their allegedly experienced event. We formulated hypotheses about the total amount of information and number of complications reported and about various features of the drawings. Participants in the Sketch-present condition provided more information than participants in the Sketch-absent condition, and truth tellers reported more details than liars, but only in the Sketch-present condition. In contrast to previous research, no Veracity differences occurred regarding the content of the drawings, perhaps because sketching was introduced as a tool that facilitated verbal recall and not as a stand-alone tool.     

Seeing isn't believing: the effect of intergroup exposure on children's essentialist beliefs about ethnic categories

Adults and children seem to essentialize certain social categories. Three studies investigated whether, and how, exposure to ethnic diversity affects this bias. Participants were 516 kindergarten, 2nd grade, and 6th grade Israeli Jewish and Arab children attending regular (mono-cultural) or integrated schools. Study 1 revealed that exposure increased the salience of ethnicity, especially for Jewish children. Study 2 showed no differences among groups at kindergarten regarding the relevance of recalling a story character's ethnicity, but by 2nd grade, Jewish children attending integrated schools were the most likely to mention such information. Finally, Study 3 revealed that while all kindergarteners started off at a similar level of essentialism towards ethnicity, exposure affected Arab, but especially Jewish, children's essentialist beliefs. Moreover, there were negative correlations between the salience of and essentialism towards ethnicity. Thus, interethnic exposure alleviated children's essentialist bias towards ethnicity and did so via making children aware of, rather than blind to, ethnic categories.     

Interviewing to detect omission lies

Interviewees sometimes deliberately omit reporting some information. Such omission lies differ from other lies because all the information interviewees present may be entirely truthful. Truth tellers and lie tellers carried out a mission. Truth tellers reported the entire mission truthfully. Lie tellers were also entirely truthful but left out one element of the mission. In truth tellers' statements, only the parts that lie tellers were also asked to recall were analysed. Interviews were carried out via the Cognitive Credibility Assessment, Reality Interview, or standard interview protocol. Dependent variables were the details, complications and verifiable sources interviewees reported. A questionnaire measured three deception strategies: ‘Tell it all’, ‘keep it simple’ or ‘paying attention to demeanour’. Lie tellers reported fewer details, complications and verifiable sources than truth tellers and reporting these variables was negatively correlated with the ‘keep it simple’ and ‘demeanour’ strategies. The type of interview protocol did not affect the results.     

Learning What is Essential: Relative and Absolute Changes in Children's Beliefs about the Heritability of Ethnicity

There are conflicting findings regarding the development of essentialist beliefs about social categories. The present studies address these findings by differentiating between the developments of the relative versus absolute essentialist status of categories. Participants were Israeli Secular Jewish and Muslim Arab kindergarteners, second graders, and sixth graders. Study 1 asked children which among alternative properties of a parent was most likely to transfer to a child. Findings showed that while kindergarteners did not systematically discriminate among properties, second and sixth graders privileged ethnicity. Study 2 asked children whether membership in various social categories was biologically or environmentally determined. Findings showed that kindergarteners and second graders, but not sixth graders, believed ethnicity to be biologically inherited. These results are discussed vis-à-vis different theories about the origins of social essentialism.     

Detecting smugglers: Identifying strategies and behaviours in individuals in possession of illicit objects

Behaviour detection officers' task is to spot potential criminals in public spaces, but scientific research concerning what to look for is scarce. In two experiments, 52 (Experiment 1A) and 60 (Experiment 2A) participants carried out a mission involving a ferry crossing. Half were asked to smuggle an object; the other half were non-smugglers. In Experiment 2A, two confederates appeared to approach as if looking for someone on the ferry. Smugglers, more than non-smugglers, reported afterwards to have felt nervous, self-conscious, and conspicuous and to attempt behavioural control during the ferry crossing. The secretly videotaped ferry crossings were shown to 104 (Experiment 1B) and 120 (Experiment 2B) observers, tasked to identify the smugglers. Although they reported paying attention mostly to signs of nervousness, lie detection accuracy rate was poor (48% in Experiment 1 and 39.2% in Experiment 2) because their perceptions of nervousness did not match the experiences of nervousness reported by the (non)smugglers.     

Lying about flying: The efficacy of the information protocol and model statement for detecting deceit

Due to time constraints, interviews aimed to detect deception in airport settings should be brief and veracity assessments should be made in real time. In two experiments carried out in the departure hall of an international airport, truth tellers were asked to report truthfully their forthcoming trip, whereas liars were asked to lie about the purpose of their trip. In Experiment 1, we examined five verbal cues that we thought had potential to discriminate truth tellers from liars in short airport interviews: elaboration in disclosing information, checkable details, how many people are aware of the trip, complications, and plausibility. In Experiment 2, we attempted to improve the interview protocol by adding a second interview phase in which we introduced an information protocol and model statement. All five cues differentiated truth tellers from liars in both experiments, but the information protocol and model statement did not enhance these differences.     

Passing behavior on two-lane highways

Two-lane highways make up a substantial proportion of the road network in most of the world. Passing is among the most significant driving behaviors on two-lane highways. It substantially impacts the highway performance. Despite the importance of the problem, few studies attempted to model passing behavior. In this research, a model that attempts to capture both drivers’ desire to pass and their gap acceptance decisions to complete a desired passing maneuver is developed and estimated using data on passing maneuvers collected with a driving simulator. Sixteen different scenarios were used in the experiment in order to capture the impact of factors related to the various vehicles involved, the road geometry and the driver characteristics in the model.A passing behavior model is developed that includes choices in two levels: the desire to pass and the decision whether or not to accept an available passing gap. The probability to complete a passing maneuver is modeled as the product of the probabilities of a positive decision on both these choices. The estimation results show that modeling the drivers’ desire to pass the vehicle in front has a statistically significant contribution in explaining their passing behavior. The two sub-models incorporate variables that capture the impact of the attributes of the specific passing gap that the driver evaluates and the relevant vehicles, the geometric characteristics of the road section and the driver characteristics and account for unobserved heterogeneity in the driver population.     

The intergenerational transmission of ethnic essentialism: how parents talk counts the most

The present study analyzed the role of parents as potential sources of children's essentialist beliefs about ethnicity. We tested 76 parent–child (5‐year‐olds) dyads of Jewish Israeli parents from three social groups, defined by the kindergartens children attended: national religious, secular, or Jewish‐Arab integrated. We assessed parents' and children's beliefs, and parents' usage of ethnic attitudinal and categorization markers in a book‐reading activity. Overall, national religious parents manifested the strongest ethnic essentialism and endorsement of anti‐negotiations with Palestinians, and were the most likely to express negative attitudes and mark ethnic categories in their conversations with their children. Moreover, regression analyses revealed that ethnic categorization in parents' speech was the most reliable predictor of children's ethnic essentialism. Ethnic essentialism is transmitted to children not via explicit communication of intergroup beliefs or attitudes, but rather via the sheer marking of categories in ways that resonate with children's own intuitive ways of conceptualizing the social world.     

Visuospatial counter‐interrogation strategies by liars familiar with the alibi setting

This study examines counter‐interrogation strategies employed by liars giving false alibis. Participants (N = 144) visited a restaurant to buy a sandwich (truth‐tellers) or to use it as a false alibi (liars). Half of the liars were informed they might be asked for a drawing of the alibi setting if interviewed (informed liars). Participants spent either 10 min (high familiarity condition) or 30 s (low familiarity condition) in the restaurant. All participants were asked to provide two visuospatial statements, which were assessed for salient details, nonsalient details, between‐statement consistency, and statement‐alibi setting consistency. Informed liars provided significantly more salient and nonsalient details than uninformed liars and truth‐tellers, particularly in the high familiarity condition. No differences emerged for statement consistency types. The results suggest that liars are more concerned than truth‐tellers about making a positive impression on the interviewer, and they fail to accurately reflect on truth‐tellers' visuospatial statements.