Cognitive Biases and Nonverbal Cue Availability in Detecting Deception

Abstract

In potentially deceptive situations, people rely on mental shortcuts to help process information. These heuristic judgments are often biased and result in inaccurate assessments of sender veracity. Four such biases-truth bias, visual bias, demeanor bias, and expectancy violation bias-were examined in a judgment experiment that varied nonverbal cue availability and deception. Observers saw a complete videotaped interview (full access to visual, vocal, and verbal cues), heard the complete interview (vocal and verbal access), or read a transcript (verbal access) of a truthful or deceptive suspect being questioned about a mock theft and then rated the interviewee on information, behavior, and image management and truthfulness. Results supported the presence of all four biases, which were most evident when interviewees were deceptive and observers had access to all visual, vocal, and verbal modalities. Deceivers' messages were judged as increasingly complete, honest, clear, and relevant; their behavior as more involved and dominant; and their overall demeanor as more credible, with the addition of nonverbal cues. Deceivers were actually judged as more credible than truthtellers in the audiovisual modality, whereas best discrimination and detection accuracy occurred in the audio condition. Results have implications for what factors influence judgments of a sender's credibility and accuracy in distinguishing truth from deception, especially under conditions where senders are producing messages interactively. Cognitive biases, nonverbal cue availability, and deception detectionOne of the most well-documented claims in the deception literature is that humans are poor detectors of deception. A recent meta-analysis reveals that although people show a statistically reliable ability to discriminate truths from lies, overall accuracy rates average 54% or only a little above chance (Bond & DePaulo, 2006). A primary causal mechanism cited for biased judgments of deception and credibility is reliance on heuristic social information processing-a nonanalytic orientation to

Self‐Reported Beliefs About Verbal Cues Correlate with Deception‐Detection Performance

“…Nonetheless, we will shortly discuss the main results. Contrary to our hypothesis, police officers and undergraduates overall performed no better when they were offered transcripts instead of videos, which contrasts earlier research (Burgoon et al, 2008;Davis, Markus, & Walters, 2006;Leach et al, 2016;Maier & Thurber, 1968;Mann et al, 2008). One possible explanation may be that offering transcripts also removes access to diagnostic vocal signals (e.g., pitch and speech latency).…”

“…It might be that officers are more distracted by the presence of invalid stereotypical nonverbal cues when judging videos, and better focused on more valid truth criteria when judging transcripts compared with students. Both students and police officers also rated transcripts more credible than videos, regardless of the veracity of the statement, which might be due to a reduced degree of interactivity for texts compared with videos (Burgoon et al, 2008).…”

“…It might, for example, explain the increased deception-detection performance in situations where nonverbal cues are actively excluded. Burgoon, Blair, and Strom (2008) presented participants with either video or audio clips of truthful and fabricated statements. Accuracy in the audio condition (60%) was significantly higher than that in the audio-visual condition (47%).…”

The Effect of Using Web-Cam Chat on Jordanian English Major Students' Paralinguistic Competence

“…More importantly, Burgoon (2008) pointed out that the advancement of computer technology and the prevalence of network connections have helped to shift gradually learning setting from the traditional face-to-face classroom to online learning environment, where learners interact with the instructor and with other learners through computer-mediated communication (CMC) technologies, including asynchronous and synchronous communication tools. Knapp (2007) spoke of non-verbal behavior as an elaborate and secret code that is written nowhere, known by none, and understood by all.…”

The effects of self-awareness on body movement indicators of the intention to deceive

“…Perceiving, monitoring and communicating with targets helps liars to successfully deceive (e.g. Burgoon et al, 2001Burgoon et al, , 2008. To appear honest or normal, liars may attempt to control their behaviour during deception.…”