The less travelled road to truth: verbal cues in deception detection in accounts of fabricated and self-experienced events

Abstract

SUMMARYIn evaluating the truthfulness of children's allegations of (sexual) abuse, German forensic experts have focused on qualitative aspects of the content of a witness's statement. Within the overall credibility assessment of a witness's statement, known as statement validity analysis (SVA), they have developed a technique referred to as criterion-based content analysis (CBCA), which utilizes content criteria that supposedly are indicative of the truthfulness of a statement. While first validation studies of CBCA criteria have been undertaken, a theoretical basis of why and under what circumstances deceptive and truthful accounts should differ with respect to these criteria has been wanting. The reality monitoring (RM) approach is proposed as a theoretical basis for discriminating between fabricated and self-experienced events. The present experiment links forensic CBCA credibility criteria to the reality monitoring approach and tests the relative validity of CBCA and RM criteria in discriminating between fabricated and self-experienced video recorded accounts of adult participants. Transcripts rated for the presence of CBCA and RM criteria by trained experts could be classified in an abovechance fashion. On the basis of a factor analysis of CBCA and RM criteria, commonalities and differences between the two approaches are noted. Psychological research on the detection of deception has taken several different routes:(1) personality correlates of the communicator (i.e., do certain groups of people lie more frequently than others or can the lies of certain groups of people be more easily detected?); (2) nonverbal and extralinguistic cues associated with deception (e.g., avoiding eye contact, or a higher pitch in the voice); and CCC 0888±4080/97/050373±25$17.50

Children recalling an event repeatedly: Effects on RM and CBCA scores

“…The RM technique was thus successful in discriminating between truthful and fabricated statements, and this was further substantiated by the total RM score, and the significant discriminant analysis. These findings lend support to the conclusion made by Vrij et al (2004a), that the RM technique shows a high potential in discriminating between truthful and fabricated statements.…”

Let me inform you how to tell a convincing story: CBCA and reality monitoring scores as a function of age, coaching, and deception.

“…At this stage the expert and the two raters felt that the raters were capable of scoring the transcripts without any further instructions. This is in agreement with Sporer (1997) who also found that it is much easier to teach (and to learn) RM scoring than CBCA scoring. With regard to the present study, coding was carried out individually by the two trained raters (they coded the statements at home) and involved the written transcripts of the interviews.…”

“…At this stage the expert and the two raters felt that the raters were capable of scoring the transcripts without any further instructions. This is in agreement with Sporer (1997) who also found ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------6-8 11-12 14-15 undergraduates --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------1 The total Reality Monitoring score consisted of four variables: visual, auditory, temporal, and spatial details. Only mean scores with a different superscript differ significantly (p < .05) form each other.…”

Cues to deception and ability to detect lies as a function of police interview styles.

“…At this stage the expert and the two raters felt that the raters were capable of scoring the transcripts without any further instructions. This agrees with Sporer (1997) who also found it relatively easy to teach (and to learn) RM scoring. RM scoring is probably less standardised than CBCA scoring and different researchers use somewhat different RM scales (see Masip et al, 2005; Sporer, 2004).…”