SummaryThe question of whether discernible differences exist between liars and truth tellers has interested professional lie detectors and laypersons for centuries. In this article we discuss whether people can detect lies when observing someone's nonverbal behavior or analyzing someone's speech. An article about detecting lies by observing nonverbal and verbal cues is overdue. Scientific journals regularly publish overviews of research articles regarding nonverbal and verbal cues to deception, but they offer no explicit guidance about what lie detectors should do and should avoid doing to catch liars. We will present such guidance in the present article.The article consists of two parts. The first section focuses on pitfalls to avoid and outlines the major factors that lead to failures in catching liars. Sixteen reasons are clustered into three categories: (a) a lack of motivation to detect lies (because accepting a fabrication might sometimes be more tolerable or pleasant than understanding the truth), (b) difficulties associated with lie detection, and (c) common errors made by lie detectors. We will argue that the absence of nonverbal and verbal cues uniquely related to deceit (akin Pinocchio's growing nose), the existence of typically small differences between truth tellers and liars, and the fact that liars actively try to appear credible contribute to making lie detection a difficult task. Other factors that add to difficulty is that lies are often embedded in truths, that lie detectors often do not receive adequate feedback about their judgments and therefore cannot learn from their mistakes, and that some methods to detect lies violate conversation rules and are therefore difficult to apply in real life. The final factor to be discussed in this category is that some people are just very good liars.The common errors lie detectors make that we have identified are examining the wrong cues (in part, because professionals are taught these wrong cues); placing too great an emphasis on nonverbal cues (in part, because training encourages such emphasis); tending to too-readily interpret certain behaviors, particularly signs of nervousness, as diagnostic of deception; placing too great an emphasis on simplistic rules of thumb; and neglecting inter-and intrapersonal differences. We also discuss two final errors: that many interview strategies advocated by police manuals can impair lie detection, and that professionals tend to overestimate their ability to detect deceit.The second section of this article discusses opportunities for maximizing one's chances of detecting lies and elaborates strategies for improving one's lie-detection skills. Within this section, we first provide five recommendations for avoiding the common errors in detecting lies that we identified earlier in the article. Next, we discuss a relatively recent wave of innovative lie-detection research that goes one step further and introduces novel interview styles aimed at eliciting and enhancing verbal and nonverbal differences between liars and t...

Deception detection has largely failed to investigate guilty and innocent suspects' strategies. In this study, mock suspects (n 0/82) were interrogated by police trainees (n 0/82) who either were or were not trained in the technique to strategically use the evidence (the SUE technique). Analyses revealed that guilty suspects to a higher degree than innocent suspects applied strategies in order to appear truthful. Guilty suspects reported diverse strategies, while innocent suspects reported the strategy to tell the truth like it had happened, indicating a belief in the visibility of innocence. The realism in the suspects' expectation about how their veracity was judged was largely dependent on the way in which they had been interrogated. The truth-telling suspects who were interrogated according to the SUE technique were optimistic about being judged as truthful; this optimism was warranted as the vast majority of them were classified as truthful. The SUE technique seems to help (a) spotting guilty suspects without them being aware of it and (b) spotting innocent suspects, and they become aware of it. That innocent (but not guilty) suspects can read how the interrogator views them is advantageous for the investigative process.

We hypothesised that the responses of pairs of liars would correspond less with each other than would responses of pairs of truth tellers, but only when the responses are given to unanticipated questions. Liars and truth tellers were interviewed individually about having had lunch together in a restaurant. The interviewer asked typical opening questions which we expected the liars to anticipate, followed by questions about spatial and/or temporal information which we expected suspects not to anticipate, and also a request to draw the layout of the restaurant. The results supported the hypothesis, and based on correspondence in responses to the unanticipated questions, up to 80% of liars and truth tellers could be correctly classified, particularly when assessing drawings.

In this paper we argue that there is little need for more of the traditional deception detection research in which observers assess short video clips in which there are few (if any) cues to deception and truth. We argue that a change in direction is needed and that researchers should focus on the questions the interviewer needs to ask in order to elicit and enhance cues to deception. We discuss three strands of research into this new 'interviewing to detect deception' approach. We encourage practitioners to use the proposed techniques and encourage other researchers to join us in conducting more research in this area. We offer some guidelines for what researchers need to keep in mind when carrying out research in this new paradigm.

Several decades of research has shown that people are poor at detecting deception. This thesis, based on four empirical studies, aimed at exploring human deception detection accuracy in the context of interrogations. In three of the studies, there was a special focus on the presence of evidence in the interrogation, and how strategic use of this evidence affected the statements of the suspects as well as the accuracy of the lie-catchers. In previous research, the fact that there in real-life situations often exists evidence against a suspect has been neglected. It was expected that it would be beneficial for deception detection to withhold the evidence during the interrogation, and that this would lead to liars contradicting the incriminating information to a higher degree compared to truth tellers. Differences in statement-evidence consistency between liars and truth tellers could then serve as a cue leading to more accurate veracity judgments. In Study I, experienced police officers (N = 30) were set free to conduct interrogations with mock suspects in the manner of their own choice. They also watched a video-taped interrogation conducted by one of their colleagues. Both when interrogating and observing video, the police officers achieved deception detection accuracy levels (56.7%) similar to the level of chance. The aim of Study II was to examine the effects of disclosing the evidence at different stages of the interrogation. It was expected that disclosing the evidence late (vs. early) in the interrogation would provide a better basis for correct veracity judgments. The reason for this was that late disclosure of evidence would make liars and truth tellers differ in terms of statement-evidence consistency. Mock suspects (N = 58) were interrogated by experimenters. Lie-catchers (N = 116) who watched late disclosure interrogations (accuracy 61.7%) significantly outperformed those who watched early disclosure interrogations (accuracy 42.9%). In Study III, police trainees (N = 82) either were or were not trained in strategically using the evidence when interrogating lying or truth telling mock suspects (N = 82). Liars interrogated by trained interrogators were more inconsistent with the evidence compared to liars interrogated by untrained interrogators. Trained interrogators obtained a considerably higher accuracy rate (85.4%) than untrained interrogators (56.1%). In Study IV, the strategies reported by the suspects (N = 82) in Study III were examined. Guilty suspects, to a higher degree than innocent suspects, applied conscious strategies in order to appear truthful. Guilty suspects reported diverse strategies (such as to provide a consistent story or an alibi), while innocent suspects reported the strategy to tell the truth like it had happened, indicating a belief in the visibility of innocence (i.e., they thought that innocence shows). The results of the thesis show that when the evidence is not used strategically during an interrogation, deception detection accuracy is poor. However, when the evidence is us...

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Research on deception detection in legal contexts has neglected the question of how the use of evidence can affect deception detection accuracy. In this study, police trainees (N=82) either were or were not trained in strategically using the evidence when interviewing lying or truth telling mock suspects (N=82). The trainees' strategies as well as liars' and truth tellers' counter-strategies were analyzed. Trained interviewers applied different strategies than did untrained. As a consequence of this, liars interviewed by trained interviewers were more inconsistent with the evidence compared to liars interviewed by untrained interviewers. Trained interviewers created and utilized the statement-evidence consistency cue, and obtained a considerably higher deception detection accuracy rate (85.4%) than untrained interviewers (56.1%).

In two experiments, criminal investigators (N = 50)