Abstract
The present study examined the impact of viewing condition on accuracy in detecting deception. In Experiment 1, observers saw: 1) a single interview for each subject and then judged whether it was honest or deceptive; or 2) two interviews for each subject, and then judged which one was deceptive. All observers were given the full audiovisual record; they were able to see the face and the entire body and to hear the speech as it was spoken. As predicted, detection accuracy when two interviews were available for comparison was significantly higher than accuracy for a single interview. In both cases, however, mean detection accuracy was not significantly different from chance. In Experiment 2, the impact of viewing order of the two interviews (honest first vs. deception first) was assessed. When honest interviews were shown first, judges' accuracy was significantly greater than when deceptive interviews were shown first, and it was also significantly better than chance. Heuristics such as anchoring and representativeness may account for this phenomenon. Reasons for observers' inability to detect deception in this, and other studies, are discussed.
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Paul Ekman's work is also supported by a Research Scientist Award from the National Institute of Mental Health (MH 06092) and a previous grant from NIMH (MH11976).
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O'Sullivan, M., Ekman, P. & Friesen, W.V. The effect of comparisons on detecting deceit. J Nonverbal Behav 12, 203–215 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00987488
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00987488