“You can't kid a kidder”: association between production and detection of deception in an interactive deception task

Both the ability to deceive others, and the ability to detect deception, has long been proposed to confer an evolutionary advantage. Deception detection has been studied extensively, and the finding that typical individuals fare little better than chance in detecting deception is one of the more robust in the behavioral sciences. Surprisingly, little research has examined individual differences in lie production ability. As a consequence, as far as we are aware, no previous study has investigated whether there exists an association between the ability to lie successfully and the ability to detect lies. Furthermore, only a minority of studies have examined deception as it naturally occurs; in a social, interactive setting. The present study, therefore, explored the relationship between these two facets of deceptive behavior by employing a novel competitive interactive deception task (DeceIT). For the first time, signal detection theory (SDT) was used to measure performance in both the detection and production of deception. A significant relationship was found between the deception-related abilities; those who could accurately detect a lie were able to produce statements that others found difficult to classify as deceptive or truthful. Furthermore, neither ability was related to measures of intelligence or emotional ability. We, therefore, suggest the existence of an underlying deception-general ability that varies across individuals

Why Lying Pays: Truth Bias in the Communication with Conflicting Interests

We conduct experiments of a cheap-talk game with incomplete information in which one sender type has an incentive to misrepresent her type. Although that Sender type mostly lies in the experiments, the Receiver tends to believe the Sender's messages. This confirms ``truth bias'' reported in communication theory in a one-shot, anonymous environment without nonverbal cues. These results cannot be explained by existing refinement theories, while a bounded rationality model explains them under certain conditions. We claim that the theory for the evolution of language should address why truthful communication survives in the environment in which lying succeeds.Cheap talk, Communication, Private information, Experiment, Equilibrium refinement, Bounded rationality, Truth bias

Effects of gender composition of target and sender dyads on the tendency to infer lies

Lying is so common in human behavior that some have labeled it a social skill. Despite the ubiquity of lies, humans have consistently been found to be poor lie detectors. Attempts have been made to improve the accuracy of human lie detection. Unfortunately, the most successful training only improves accuracy slightly above the level of chance. Because of its importance to society, considerable effort has been aimed at developing methods to help determine when people are lying. Researching how and why humans infer that another person is lying has the potential to advance the understanding of lie detection. Researchers have found that gender influences subjective judgments of trustworthiness and credibility. Further, gender may also influence behaviors resulting from these judgments. In other words, gender is likely to influence the tendency to infer lies. The goal of this study was to determine if differences exist in the likelihood of inferences that lies are being told due to the sex of the sender of the lies, the target of the lies, and a third-person evaluator of the lies. It was hypothesized that targets (individuals receiving a message) and third person evaluators would infer lies more often when the potential liar was of the opposite sex of the target than when the potential liar was the same sex as the target. Male participants would infer lies more often than female participants in all conditions except when non-verbal cues are unavailable. A scale of femininity would be negatively related to the number of lie inferences. Finally, it was thought that lies would be inferred less often when liars are female than when they are male. The results did not confirm any of the hypotheses. One surprising finding was that, as targets, participants inferred more lies when liars were female. Though the hypotheses were not confirmed, the results are nonetheless important for future research into factors affecting the inference of lies. Such factors have the potential to improve therapy services, marketing, and various aspects of interactions with the legal system

Defining deception

A la vista del relativo desacuerdo entre quienes estudian el engaño sobre cómo el engaño, la mentira o la comunicación engañosa deben ser definidos, en el presente trabajo se intenta integrar la visión de los autores más influyentes en este campo con el fin de formular una definición del engaño comprehensiva y bien delimitada. El punto de partida lo conforman los elementos de la mentira prototípica señalados por Coleman y Kay (1981), así como la noción de “comunicación engañosa” de Gerald Miller (1983; Miller y Stiff, 1993). El engaño se define como el intento deliberado, exitoso o no, de ocultar, generar, y/o manipular de algún otro modo información factual y/o emocional, por medios verbales y/o no verbales, con el fin de crear o mantener en otra(s) persona(s) una creencia que el propio comunicador considera falsa. Cada término de esta definición se discute en detalle y, al hacerlo, resulta evidente que integra varias teorías sobre el engaño y una serie de contribuciones de la psicología social y la comunicación. Además, se discuten algunas implicaciones específicas de la definición, como la importancia que el elemento intencional (el intento deliberado) tiene para el sistema legal. El objetivo del artículo es contribuir a alcanzar un acuerdo entre los científicos sociales sobre qué debe entenderse por engaño.In view of the relative disagreement among those studying deception as to how deception, the lie, or deceptive communication should be defined, an attempt is made to integrate the views of the most influential scholars in the field in order to formulate a comprehensive and clear-cut definition of deception. The starting point is Coleman and Kay’s (1981) elements of the prototypical lie, as well as Gerald Miller’s (1983; Miller & Stiff, 1993) notion of “deceptive communication.” Deception is defined as the deliberate attempt, whether successful or not, to conceal, fabricate, and/or manipulate in any other way, factual and/or emotional information, by verbal and/or nonverbal means, in order to create or maintain in another or others a belief that the communicator himself or herself considers false. Each term of this definition is discussed in detail and, in doing so, it becomes apparent that several deception theories and a variety of social psychology and communication contributions have been integrated to build it. In addition, some specific implications of the definition, such as the importance that the intentional element (the deliberate attempt) has for the legal system, are discussed. The aim of this paper is to contribute to reaching an agreement among social scientists on what should be understood as deception

Pinocchio's Pupil: Using Eyetracking and Pupil Dilation to Understand Truth Telling and Deception in Sender-Receiver Games

We report experiments on sender-receiver games with an incentive for senders to exaggerate. Subjects "overcommunicate" -- messages are more informative of the true state than they should be, in equilibrium. Eyetracking shows that senders look at payoffs in a way that is consistent with a level-k model. A combination of sender messages and lookup patterns predicts the true state about twice as often as predicted by equilibrium. Using these measures to infer the state would enable receiver subjects to hypothetically earn 16-21 percent more than they actually do, an economic value of 60 percent of the maximum increment

Determining indicators of deception in computer mediated communication using eye tracking

This work combines two studies, both identifying indicators of deception through the analysis of the visual attention of a veracity judge. using eye tracking. In the first study, we investigated the effect of the varying media modes on detection accuracy through the analysis of the visual behavior of veracity judges. We employed eye tracking technology to understand where the judges looked at and what impact their visual foci had on their detection performance. We found that the visual foci of the judges varied as a result of the message veracity and media modes. Judges fixated longer and more frequently on the mouth and the torso of the communicators in deceptive messages. In video-only modes, the judges fixated longer on the mouth of the sender. Fixation frequency on the eyes and the mouth of the sender worsened deception detection accuracy. In the second study, we investigated the reading behavior of veracity judges when presented with honest and deceptive statements produced in high-stake, real-life scenarios with potential negative consequences for the individuals who produced those statements. We found that the reading metrics of veracity judges varies across honest and dishonest statements and the linguistic cues that the judges focus on have an effect on deception detection performance

Unmasking the expert deceiver: grounded theory analysis of long-term, high-stakes deception expertise development

Department Head: Sue Pendell.2010 Summer.Includes bibliographical references (pages 75-80).The current study attempted to garner knowledge about expert deceivers by analyzing personal accounts of their deceptive behaviors. The goal was to understand the methods these individuals employed to become master deceivers. A selection of 12 autobiographical texts describing the exploits of three types of expert deceivers (i.e., confidence artists, espionage agents, and undercover law enforcement agents) were analyzed using a categorizational system derived from previous grounded theory research. The results from the analysis led to the development of the deception skill model, which illustrates the complex relationship of processes that occur during the development and utilization of deception expertise. Knowledge gained from this study adds to the existent body of deception research along with, potentially, adding a new avenue of deception research and practical applications for deception detectors

An Evolutionary Perspective on Pain Communication

Pain serves as a signal to elicit care from others. In turn, displaying pain might be attractive because of the benefits it might bring. Additionally, displaying pain is easy, because helpers distinguish poorly between genuine pain and faked pain. Hence, helpers face the problem of distinguishing true sufferers from free riders, while sufferers face the problem of communicating need convincingly. This article will propose solutions to these adaptive problems. Based on theoretical arguments and on empirical insights from lie detection research, it will be argued that the credibility of pain signals cannot be found in features of the signal itself, but in its context. Namely, pain is obviously credible when the context features unforgeable cues, such as an open wound or the enlarged abdomen of a pregnant woman, but also external cues such as the ice water in cold pressor tasks. In absence of such cues, pain can become credible through costly consequences, such as refraining from rewarding behaviors for a significant period. However, these adaptive mechanisms for communicating need may not be shaped for modern circumstances such as experimental settings and therapeutic encounters