Real-world, high-stakes deceptive speech: Theoretical validation and an examination of its potential for detection automation

The study of deception and the theories which have been developed have relied heavily on laboratory experiments, in controlled environments, utilizing American college students, participating in mock scenarios. The goal of this study was to validate previous deception research in a real-world high-stakes environment. An additional focus of this study was the development of procedures to process data (e.g. video or audio recordings) from real-world environments in such a manner that behavioral measures can be extracted and analyzed. This study utilized previously confirmed speech cues and constructs to deception in an attempt to validate a leading deception theory, Interpersonal Deception Theory (IDT). Several measures and constructs, utilized and validated in existing research, were explored and validated in this study. The data analyzed came from an adjudicated real-world high-stakes criminal case in which the subject was sentenced in federal court to 470 years in prison for creating child pornography, rape, sexual exploitation of children, child sexual assault and kidnapping; a crime spree that spanned over a five years and four states. The results did validate IDT with mixed results on individual measures and their constructs. The exploratory nature of the study, the volume of data, and the numerous methods of analysis used generated many possibilities for future research

Subjective cues to deception/honesty in a high stakes situation: An exploratory approach

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in The Journal of Psychology: Interdisciplinary and Applied on 7/5/2014 available online: http://wwww.tandfonline.com/10.1080/00223980.2014.911140The low ecological validity of much of the research on deception detection is a limitation recognised by researchers in the field. Consequently, the present studies investigated subjective cues to deception using the real life, high stakes situation of people making public appeals for help with missing or murdered relatives. It was expected that cues related to affect would be particularly salient in this context. Study 1 was a qualitative investigation identifying cues to deception reportedly used by people accurate at detecting deception. Studies 2 and 3 were then empirical investigations which mainly employed the cues reported in Study 1. A number of subjective cues were found to discriminate between honest and deceptive appeals, including some previously unidentified cues, and cues likely to be context-specific. Most could be categorised under the themes of authenticity of emotion, and negative and positive affective reactions to the appealer. It is concluded that some cues to deception may emerge only in real life, high stakes situations; however, it is argued that some of these may be influenced by observers’ perceptions of the characteristics of offenders, rather than acts of deception per se.ESRC grant number ES/I90316X/