Validating a new assessment method for deception detection: Introducing a Psychologically Based Credibility Assessment Tool.

Abstract

The current set of studies was designed to test a new credibility assessment tool, the Psychologically Based Credibility Assessment Tool (PBCAT). Participants watched lab-generated videos of true and false alibi statements, provided while under varying degrees of cognitive load. Judges either provided a truth/lie judgment only, or also rated 11 behavioral cues on the PBCAT. When stories were told under cognitive load the effectiveness of cues at discriminating truth/deception was enhanced, with targets under higher load judged more accurately. Results regarding the new assessment tool indicate that it is capable of improving deception detection performance, even with minimally trained, nonexpert observers.

Is there an interlanguage speech credibility benefit?

“…However, we do not replicate Lev-Ari and Keysar's (2010), DaSilva and Leach's (2013) and Evans and Michael's (2014) findings, since our native listeners, as in (Evans et al, 2013), did not trust non-native statements significantly less than native ones. This was perhaps due to our non-native speakers' mild foreign accent or a difference in design.…”

“…Possibly, our non-native speakers' relatively high L2 proficiency (and mild foreign-accentedness) could be the cause. Evans and Michael (2014) proposed that the discrepancy between their results and those of Evans et al (2013) may have been due to a difference in their speakers' L2 proficiency. However, in the present study, the non-native statements were less intelligible for the native listeners (both in the present experiment and, for different native listeners, in Experiment I, where they were also less comprehensible for them) and so this explanation is not likely.…”

“…Studies of spontaneous lie-telling found non-native speakers to be more likely labelled as liars and native speakers as truthtellers by native listeners (DaSilva and Leach, 2013;Evans and Michael, 2014). However, a bias against speakers with a foreign accent is not always found (Evans et al, 2013).…”

Cognitive-load approaches to detect deception: searching for cognitive mechanisms

“…This is to ensure that suspects have difficulty managing information if they make statements that are inconsistent with the evidence. Recently, Evans and colleagues [6] had participants report an event in their second language to induce cognitive load. Finally, Walczyk and colleagues [2] introduced the Time Restricted Integrity Confirmation (TRI-Con) interview approach, which instructs senders to answer closed-ended questions under time pressure.…”

Applying Deception Detection to True and False Confessions: A Novel Approach to Conducting Experiments in Legal Psychology

“…Walczyk, Schwartz, Clifton, Adams, Wei, & Zha (2005) suggest asking a suspect close-ended questions under time pressure. (Evans, Michael, Meissner, & Brandon, 2013) tried to increase cognitive load by asking participants to describe events in their second language, rather than their primary language. Vrij, Mann, Fisher, Leal, Milne, & Bull (2008) conducted two studies that increased cognitive load for "suspects" by asking them to recount their stories in reverse order (i.e.…”